Medwave (Jun 2012)
Is it the duty of every citizen to participate in clinical research?
Abstract
The complex phenomenon of globalization, considered by many as the main feature of contemporary societies, is not without contradictions and questions of type analítico-conceptual, as well as ethics and policies. At least three kinds of interpretations of the phenomenon can be distinguished in this sense: as a continuity, understood as development and radicalization of the contents of modernity; as a break in relation to it; or as a hybridization between rupture and continuity. It is in this dialectical context in a globalized world, which must become the question of whether or not there is the moral duty of every citizen to participate in a research involving human beings. But to answer argumentativamente satisfactorily, the meaning of these possible new duties of the citizen, required by the world system in rapidly changing and ever should be discussed. This system is at the same time more integrated and more differentiated - and indicated by the polysemic words globalization and citizenship-, considering that this type of duties involve, in principle, the improvement of the State of health and well-being of individuals and populations, but that they can also involve ethically and politically questionable effects, these duties shall be considered as being only duties prima facie.
