Towards a critique of the moral foundations of intellectual property rights1

Παπαϊωάννου, Θεόδωρος

doi:10.1080/17449620600677270

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Inventors' rewards would be based on the impact of basic-needs innovation on the peoples' lives and institutions. Therefore, this approach would reduce incentives for developing new products and services with, for example, little therapeutic benefi t. As has been argued elsewhere (Papaioannou, 2006) the current IPR system can neither be morally justifi ed nor can be taken to facilitate innovation in contexts such as those of developing countries. For instance, India's obligation under the TRIPS Agreement of WTO is likely to slow down the innovative activity of domestic drug industry that was facilitated by the 1970s Patent Act.…”

Section: Non-profi T Incentives Of Innovationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technological innovation, global justice and politics of development

Παπαϊωάννου

2011

Progress in Development Studies

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The importance of innovation in human development is undeniable. Since the 1780s, successive scientific and technological revolutions have introduced new products and services with tremendous impact on well-being and general welfare. Yet innovation has not been available to all individuals and their societies. There are still countries in the developing world which lack proper access to fundamental innovations such as medicines, electricity, information and communication technologies (ICTs) and so on. Unequal generation and diffusion of innovation constitutes a major problem of global justice. However, neither innovation theory nor the theory of global justice provides solutions. On the one hand, innovation theory has so far refused to engage with questions of fairness and justice in the generation and diffusion of new technologies. On the other hand, emerging approaches to global justice have been almost indifferent to the prominence of new technologies in the fight against poverty and inequality. The aim of this article is to bridge the gulf between the literatures of technological innovation and global justice. It will be argued that technological innovation can satisfy minimum requirements of global justice only through successful public action and campaigning against unjust innovation diffusion. This implies that politics of development should support redistributive systems and global social movements against current Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regimes, providing alternative incentives for successful generation and application of new knowledge.

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Section: Non-profi T Incentives Of Innovationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technological innovation, global justice and politics of development

Παπαϊωάννου

2011

Progress in Development Studies

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“…g Some authors also justify property as a mean to secure a “just reward”. A brief exposition and criticism of this type of argument is offered by Papaioannou ( 2006 ).…”

Section: Endnotesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Limiting and facilitating access to innovations in medicine and agriculture: a brief exposition of the ethical arguments

Timmermann

2014

Life Sci Soc Policy

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Taking people’s longevity as a measure of good life, humankind can proudly say that the average person is living a much longer life than ever before. The AIDS epidemic has however for the first time in decades stalled and in some cases even reverted this trend in a number of countries. Climate change is increasingly becoming a major challenge for food security and we can anticipate that hunger caused by crop damages will become much more common.Since many of the challenges humanity faced in the past were overcome by inventive solutions coming from the life sciences, we are compelled to reconsider how we incentivize science and technology development so that those in need can benefit more broadly from scientific research. There is a huge portion of the world population that is in urgent need for medicines to combat diseases that are currently neglected by the scientific community and could immensely benefit from agricultural research that specifically targets their environmental conditions. At the same time efforts have to be made to make the fruits of current and future research more widely accessible. These changes would have to be backed by a range of moral arguments to attract people with diverging notions of global justice. This article explores the main ethical theories used to demand a greater share in the benefits from scientific progress for the poor. Since life sciences bring about a number of special concerns, a short list of conflictive issues is also offered.

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“…32. For instance, in a number of countries (including the USA) and in the European Union, public policy involves the further tightening of private property regimes, such as systems of intellectual property rights (Papaioannou, 2006).…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nozick Revisited: The Formation of the Right-Based Dimension of his Political Theory

Παπαϊωάννου

2008

International Political Science Review

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Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia is still influential today among right-wing (neo-)libertarian thinkers. The latter are engaged in the current debate on distributive justice, insistently defending the minimal state and the case against social justice on the grounds of inviolable individual rights. The premises of their defense are explicitly derived from Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Therefore, if one is interested in challenging the right-wing libertarian arguments today, one should be interested in revisiting Nozick, refuting the key elements of his theory. That is what this article does: it re-examines the formation of the moral dimension of Nozick's political theory. It argues that this dimension consists of the idea of absolute individual rights and is formed upon the premises of full self-ownership and the moral inviolability of persons. Both premises are problematical because they are abstracted from any epistemological principle of self-realization.

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Towards a critique of the moral foundations of intellectual property rights1

Cited by 8 publications

References 27 publications

Technological innovation, global justice and politics of development

Technological innovation, global justice and politics of development

Limiting and facilitating access to innovations in medicine and agriculture: a brief exposition of the ethical arguments

Nozick Revisited: The Formation of the Right-Based Dimension of his Political Theory

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