Recent advances in medical technology, notwithstanding their potential blessings, have engendered a number of new ethical problems. Questions raised by rapidly improving techniques for the transplantation of human organs and body tissues have become especially urgent, The article tries to clarify and evaluate the main arguments advanced for and against different arrangements in this area. The first part concentrates on the problem of acquisition. The ethical status of eight ways of obtaining human body parts is investigated. The cases are derived (...) from combinations of three criteria: whether the donor consents or not; whether or not he/she is alive or dead at the time of extraction; and whether or not donors are compensated. In the second part, the problem of adjudication is treated. Three possible arrangements are examined: market, organ bank, and club. (shrink)

En el presente trabajo se intenta ilustrar con ejemplos de la historia y de la actualidad constitucional de América Latina la paradójica actitud de no pocos juristas y políticos latinoamericanos que simultáneamente profesan una fe inconmovible en el poder de conformación social del ordenamiento jurídico a la vez que aceptan su precaria eficacia. La Constitución se convierte en un mito político y la impunidad en sinónimo de poder. En tales condiciones, parece aventurado establecer una relación causal entre orden constitucional y (...) democracia. Sólo una política jurídica que tome en serio los derechos y deberes constitucionales podrá quizás revertir esta situación. Desgraciadamente la probabilidad de que tal sea el caso a fines del siglo XX es menor que a comienzos de la centuria. (shrink)

The article analyses the distinction between the private and the public sphere from a conceptual and from a normative point of view. On the conceptual level, it is argued that the common dichotomous view is incomplete, giving rise to conceptual confusions which can be overcome by a careful distinction between the intimate and the private sphere. While the boundary between the private and the public is a conventional matter, the sphere of intimacy, including thoughts as well as a certain type (...) of actions, is empirically delimited. On the normative level, a number of arguments for or against the extension or restriction of the private sphere as well as for or against the intervention of the state in its citizens’ spheres of intimacy is discussed from a liberal point of view. (shrink)

Paternalism, understood as coercive intervention with the behavior of a person in order to prevent her from causing harm to herself, is a highly controversial issue, because it implies a departure from the widely recognized principle of harm to others. Some conceptual differences between legal paternalism and other forms of state coercion that also depart from the principle of harm to others will be indicated. This is followed by an analysis of the arguments that are usually brought forth against legal (...) paternalism. And finally, the possibility of determining ethically justifiable types of legal paternalism is explored. (shrink)

Derecho natural y positivismo jurídico.--Derecho y poder.--Ley y conciencia.--Hans Welzel.--Obras de Hans Welzel.