ABSTRACT
The chapter describes Dr. Paul Farmer’s (the founder of Partners in Health) approach to medical assistance to the poor. It argues Farmer’s orientation towards “practical solidarity” exemplifies the perspective concerning ethics described in the previous chapters. Farmer’s approach to the provision of medical care starts from the understanding of disease as biosocial phenomenon, it includes the assessment of the specific life conditions of the patients, critically reflects on the political nature of ways of understanding causality and puts at the center of the criteria of validation of choices the effects of these initiatives on the life of people it is supposed to benefit.
