BackgroundHIV prevention research in resource-limited countries is associated with a variety of ethical dilemmas. Key amongst these is the question of what constitutes an appropriate standard of health care (SoC) for participants in HIV prevention trials. This paper describes a community-focused approach to develop a locally-appropriate SoC in the context of a phase III vaginal microbicide trial in Mwanza City, northwest Tanzania.MethodsA mobile community-based sexual and reproductive health service for women working as informal food vendors or in traditional and modern (...) bars, restaurants, hotels and guesthouses has been established in 10 city wards. Wards were divided into geographical clusters and community representatives elected at cluster and ward level. A city-level Community Advisory Committee (CAC) with representatives from each ward has been established. Workshops and community meetings at ward and city-level have explored project-related concerns using tools adapted from participatory learning and action techniques e.g. chapati diagrams, pair-wise ranking. Secondary stakeholders representing local public-sector and non-governmental health and social care providers have formed a trial Stakeholders' Advisory Group (SAG), which includes two CAC representatives.ResultsKey recommendations from participatory community workshops, CAC and SAG meetings conducted in the first year of the trial relate to the quality and range of clinic services provided at study clinics as well as broader standard of care issues. Recommendations have included streamlining clinic services to reduce waiting times, expanding services to include the children and spouses of participants and providing care for common local conditions such as malaria. Participants, community representatives and stakeholders felt there was an ethical obligation to ensure effective access to antiretroviral drugs and to provide supportive community-based care for women identified as HIV positive during the trial. This obligation includes ensuring sustainable, post-trial access to these services. Post-trial access to an effective vaginal microbicide was also felt to be a moral imperative.ConclusionParticipatory methodologies enabled effective partnerships between researchers, participant representatives and community stakeholders to be developed and facilitated local dialogue and consensus on what constitutes a locally-appropriate standard of care in the context of a vaginal microbicide trial in this setting.Trial registrationCurrent Controlled Trials ISRCTN64716212. (shrink)

Over the last few years there has been a renewed interest in questions of citizenship and in particular its relation to young people. This has been allied to an educational discourse where the emphasis has been upon questions concerned with 'outcome' rather than with 'process' - with the curriculum and methods of teaching rather than questions of understanding and learning. This paper seeks to describe and illuminate the linkages within and between these related discourses. It advocates an inclusive and relational (...) view of citizenship-as-practice within a distinctive socio-economic and political, and cultural milieu. Drawing upon some empirical insights from our research we conclude that an appropriate educational programme would respect the claim to citizenship status of everyone in society, including children and young people. It would work together with young people rather than on young people, and recognise that the actual practices of citizenship, and the ways in which these practices transform over time are educationally significant. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 91 Heft: 2 Seiten: 341-359.

H.L.A. Hart'sThe Concept of Lawis the most important and influential book in the legal positivist tradition. Though its importance is undisputed, there is a good deal less consensus regarding its core commitments, both methodological and substantive. With the exception of an occasional essay, Hart neither further developed nor revised his position beyond the argument of the book. The burden of shaping the prevailing understanding of his views, therefore, has fallen to others: notably, Joseph Raz among positivists, and Ronald Dworkin among (...) positivism's critics. Dworkin, in particular, has framed, then reframed, the conventional understanding, not only of Hart's positivism, but of the terms of the debate between positivists and him. While standing on the sidelines, Hart witnessed the unfolding of not only a lively debate between positivists and Dworkin, but an equally intense one among positivists as to positivism's (and his) core claims. The most important debate has been between so-called inclusive and exclusive positivists: a debate as much about Hart's legacy as about the proper interpretation of legal positivism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Fogelin on Hume on Miracles Antony Flew I.Introduction In "What Hume Actually Said About Miracles"1 Robert Fogelin maintains that two contentions are essential to what, following Dorothy Coleman, he calls the "traditional interpretation" ofSection X ofthe first Enquiry. The first is that "Hume did not put forward an a priori argument intended to show that miracles are not possible"; the second, that "Hume did put forward an a priori (...) argument intended to show that testimony, however strong, could never make it reasonable to believe that a miracle had occurred." Fogelin further sees me as "virtually alone in challenging the traditional interpretation, arguing, in particular, that... Hume's argument was intended to do no more than place a 'check' on arguments put forward to establish... miracles on the basis oftestimony." Fogelin concludes his statement of what he wants to refute by quoting from my Hume's Philosophy ofBelief: What he is trying to demonstrate a priori in Part I is: not that, as a matter offact, miracles do not happen; but that, from the very nature of the concept—'from the very nature of the fact'—there must be a conflict of evidence required to show that they do. Fogelin's own contrary conclusion is agreeably forthright and decisive: "the traditional readingofHume's essay on miracles is wrong, and Flew, in rejecting the aspect ofthe traditional interpretation that is correct, is doubly wrong." II.What, indisputably, Hume did not say About all this the first thing which we need to recall is that Hume certainly does not present, and in consistency could not present, what is the most obvious a priori argument to show that miracles, defined as supernatural overridings ofthe order ofnature, must be (naturally and) physically impossible. That obvious a prior argument takes off from the semantic observation that to assert that a law of nature obtains is to assert, among other things, that the occurrence ofevents the occurrence of which would be inconsistent with the truth of that lawis (naturally and) physically impossible. Forit is only and precisely inasmuch as the assertion ofsuch laws embraces assertions ofphysical Volume XVI Number 2 141 ANTONYFLEW impossibility that it becomes logically possible to deduce contrary to fact implications from nomological propositions. It therefore follows immediately that miracles, thus defined, must be (naturally and) physically impossible. The key word 'miracle'has to be construed in this way since Hume is here concerned, primarily albeit not exclusively, with the possibility of proving the occurrence of a miracle "so as to be the foundation of a system of religion. I have taken care regularly to insert the parenthetic qualification "(naturally and)" in order to make it quite clear that no one is trying to rule out the occurrence of such Supernatural overridings as, by definition, fogically impossible. Being unable to discover any antecedent impression from which the idea of physical necessity could be derived, Hume disqualifies himself from appealing thus openly and directly to the necessary physical impossibility ofthe miraculous. But, even ifhe had to his own satisfaction succeededinlegitimatingthat crucial concept, it would still have been pointless here to point to the (natural and) physical impossibility of the miraculous—as if this was a reason for thinking that there have not in fact been and could not conceivably have been or be Supernatural overridings of the natural order. Had Fogelin noticed that Hume certainly did not present that obvious yet irrelevant a prior argument, he could not have concluded, not at least without emphatic qualification, "that this consensus on the first part of the traditional interpretation is unfounded."??. Proofs against proofs are no proofs In arguing about the interpretation of"the first part ofSection X ofthe Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" Fogelin insists upon attending only to what Hume wrote in that one part ofone section. But suppose we refuse to follow him in imposing this curiously unscholarly self-denying ordinance upon ourselves. Then we find, in the very first sentence of Part II of that same Section X, that Hume is at pains to warnreaders that we are to construe the previous Part I: not as offering "an apriori argument... to show that testimony, however strong, could never make it reasonable to... (shrink)

In Legality Scott Shapiro seeks to provide the motivation for the development of his own elaborate account of law by undertaking a critique of H.L.A. Hart's jurisprudential theory. Hart maintained that every legal system is underlain by a rule of recognition through which officials of the system identify the norms that belong to the system as laws. Shapiro argues that Hart's remarks on the rule of recognition are confused and that his model of lawis consequently untenable. Shapiro contends that a (...) new approach is vital for progress in the philosophy of law and, with his lengthy presentation of his own Planning Theory of Law, he aspires to pioneer just such an approach. Except for a very terse observation in the final main section, this article does not directly assess the strengths and shortcomings of Shapiro's piquant planning theory. Instead, I defend Hart against Shapiro's charges and thereby undermine the motivation for the development of the planning theory. (shrink)

This article ponders the influences ofthe dichotomous nature of our understanding law andto questions that starting point on different levels oflegal thinking.The purpose of law is to make rules for our socialbehaviour but there are no specific images of humanbeings behind law. When there are no defined images,subconscious cultural images shape our thinkingsometimes even without our realizing it, and withoutserious discussion. The division between family andthe market has to do with gender divisions as well aswith the division between family and (...) contract law. Thelogic and human image behind these two branches of lawis different.Even if we may behave differently in differentsituations we do not become altogether differentkinds of human beings with different values when wechange surroundings. Thus, we might instead develop asa starting point human co-operation law where familyand business partnerships are seen as specialbranches. The starting point of this co-operation lawwould be many-sided and pluralistic human beings, who would be atthe same time loving and egotistic, communal andindividual, feminine and masculine. Such human beingsmay be regarded as multicoloured instead of white orblack. (shrink)

This article offers arefutation of the corrective justiceinterpretation of tort law – the view that itis essentially a system of corrective justice. It introduces a distinction between primary andsecondary tort duties and claims that tort lawis best understood as the union of its primaryand secondary duties. It then advances twoindependent criticisms of the correctivejustice interpretation. The article firstargues that primary tort duties have nothingfundamentally to do with corrective justice andthat, if one understands what is meant by``primary tort duties,'' one is (...) compelledto regard this fact as a decisive objection tothe corrective justice interpretation. Second,it argues that, whatever relation thereis between secondary tort duties and correctivejustice, that relation also holds betweencorrective justice and secondary duties ofother legal branches. In sum, the concept ofcorrective justice is neither capable ofunifying tort law nor of demarcating it fromother legal branches.The article also offers a general alternativeinterpretation of tort law. Rather thanbeing essentially corrective, tort law isessentially protective. Under this picture, iftort law has a most important point, it is theprotection of legal subjects and valuablesocial interests from harm. This is theoverarching ambition that unifies primary andsecondary tort duties. It does not, however,demarcate tort law from other legal branches. (shrink)

This article offers arefutation of the corrective justiceinterpretation of tort law – the view that itis essentially a system of corrective justice. It introduces a distinction between primary andsecondary tort duties and claims that tort lawis best understood as the union of its primaryand secondary duties. It then advances twoindependent criticisms of the correctivejustice interpretation. The article firstargues that primary tort duties have nothingfundamentally to do with corrective justice andthat, if one understands what is meant by``primary tort duties,'' one is (...) compelledto regard this fact as a decisive objection tothe corrective justice interpretation. Second,it argues that, whatever relation thereis between secondary tort duties and correctivejustice, that relation also holds betweencorrective justice and secondary duties ofother legal branches. In sum, the concept ofcorrective justice is neither capable ofunifying tort law nor of demarcating it fromother legal branches.The article also offers a general alternativeinterpretation of tort law. Rather thanbeing essentially corrective, tort law isessentially protective. Under this picture, iftort law has a most important point, it is theprotection of legal subjects and valuablesocial interests from harm. This is theoverarching ambition that unifies primary andsecondary tort duties. It does not, however,demarcate tort law from other legal branches. (shrink)