Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-hgkh8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T03:06:41.726Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Concepts of Common Good and Public Interest: From Plato to Biobanking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 August 2011

Extract

The expression “common good” usually conjures up benevolent associations: it is something to be desired, a worthy goal, and it would be a brave person who declared he or she was against the common good. Yet modern times have taught us to be critical and even suspicious of such grand rhetoric, leading us to query what lies behind this ambitious notion, who formulates what it stands for, and how such formulations have been reached.

Type
Special Section: From Informed Consent to No Consent?
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. The relationship between the interest-based and common good–centered approaches is explored from various perspectives by, for example: Cochran CE. Political science and “the public interest.” Journal of Politics 1974;36(2):327–55; MacIntyre, A.The privatization of good. Review of Politics 1990;52:344–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Zarecor, WD. The public interest and political theory. Ethics 1959;69(4):277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Schubert, G.The Public Interest: A Critique of the Theory of a Political Concept. Westport: Greenwood Press; 1960:224.Google Scholar

4. Plato. Republic. London: Penguin Books; 2003:462a–b.Google Scholar

5. Aristotle says this about the relationship between the goals of the individual and the state: “For even if the end is the same for a single man and for a state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete whether to attain or to preserve; though it is worthwhile to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for city-states.” Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics [Internet]. The Internet Classics Archive; available at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html. I.2.1094b7–10 (last accessed 30 Jan 2011).

6. Held, V.The Public Interest and Individual Interests. New York: Basic Books; 1970.Google Scholar

7. Gunn, JAW.Politics and the Public Interest in the Seventeenth Century. London: Routledge & K. Paul; 1969.Google Scholar

8. Douglass, B.The common good and the public interest. Political Theory 1980;8(1):107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. Rousseau, JJ.Du contrat social, ou, Principes du droit politique. Paris: Garnier; 1960.Google Scholar

10. Hoedemaekers, R, Gordijn, B, Pijnenburg, M.Does an appeal to the common good justify individual sacrifices for genomic research? Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 2006;27:415–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

11. For example, Christensen, E. Biobanks and our common good. In: Solbakk, JH, Holm, S, Hoffman, B, eds. The Ethics of Research Biobanking. Dordrecht: Springer; 2009:101–14;CrossRefGoogle ScholarChadwick, R, Wilson, S.Genomic databases as global public goods? Res Publica 2004;10(2):123–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

12. Levitt, M.UK Biobank: A model for public engagement? Genomics, Society and Policy 2005;1(3):78–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. UK Biobank ethics and governance framework [Internet]. Version 3.0; available at http://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/docs/EGF20082.pdf (last accessed 30 Jan 2011).

14. UK Biobank information leaflet [Internet]; available at http://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/docs/Furtherinformationleaflet.pdf (last accessed 30 Jan 2011).

15. Capps B, Campbell AV, Meulen RT. Access to the UK Biobank Resource: Concepts of the Public Interest and the Public Good [Internet]. UK Biobank Ethics and Governance Council, 2008; available at www.egcukbiobank.org.uk/meetingsandreports (last accessed 30 Jan 2011).

16. See note 13, UK Biobank ethics and governance framework.

17. See note 15, Capps, Campbell, Meulen 2008:3.

18. See note 15, Capps, Campbell, Meulen 2008:16.

19. See note 15, Capps, Campbell, Meulen 2008:17.

20. Simm, K. The making of a biobank. The case of the Estonian Genome Project. In: Bammé, A, Getzinger, G, Weiser, B, eds. Yearbook 2009 of the Institute for Advanced Studies on Science, Technology and Society. Munich: Profil Verlag; 2010:129–42.Google Scholar

21. A nationally representative survey in relation to the EGP and surrounding attitudes was carried out in December 2002. Some research results have been published in Korts K. Introducing gene technology to society. Trames 2004;8(1–2):241–53.

22. Information leaflet Sinu panus Eesti Geenivaramu projekti [Internet]. Tartu: Eesti Geenivaramu; available at http://www.geenivaramu.ee/documents/buklett_121104.pdf (last accessed 30 Jan 2011).

23. Information leaflets Miks sa võiksid hakata geenidoonoriks? and Tartu Ülikooli Geenivaramu töötab tervema homse nimel [Internet]. Tartu: Eesti Geenivaramu; available at http://www.geenivaramu.ee/index.php?id=2 (last accessed 30 Jan 2011).

24. Access to the UK Biobank resource: Advising on the public interest and the public good [Internet]. Version 2:2; available at http://egcukbiobank.org.uk/assets/wtx054552.pdf (last accessed 30 Jan 2011).

25. Sutrop, M, Simm, K. Public and private interests in the genomic era: A pluralist approach. In: Gunning, J, Holm, S, eds. Ethics, Law and Society. Aldershot: Ashgate; 2008:205–16.Google Scholar

26. Ashcroft, RE. From public interest to political justice. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2004;13:20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed