Burden by the questions arising from the dysfunction of the organizational structure and driven by the personal interest in science Margaret Wheatley created a guide to application of the new science to management, leadership, and organizations. Connecting the links between new science and our world she described the ways of working and living in the chaotic world of current time.
According to Wheatley most contemporary organizations base their structure on seventeenth-century concepts; therefore their structure fails to succeed in modern days. “In organizations, we focused attention on structure and organizational design, on gathering extensive numerical data, and on making decisions using sophisticated mathematical formulas.” (Wheatley, 2006, p. 29). Leadership and the New Science describes how chaos is necessary to create an order; it also shows how most recent discoveries in quantum physics, biology, and chemistry enable us to deal successfully with changes and uncertainties in our lives and the organizations. It shows ways to cope and understand the major social challenges of our time. We live in a new world of chaos and new possibilities that crates a need for new ideas, new vision, and new relationships. Wheatley also put the light on the new science, the newest scientific discoveries, that offer guidance that changes our understanding of the way our world works.
Special attention is given to the importance of the relationships. In our interconnected world the cooperation and participation is very important for survival. Wheatley said that chaos and change are the only ways to achieve transformation so necessary for the survival and the individuals without relationships and connections won’t be able to achieve the order in personal and organizational life.
The book consists of in depth descriptions of new scientific findings, connections between science and organizational structures, and records of author’s personal journey. The most explored sciences in this book are quantum physics, chemistry, biology, and chaos theory. Author provided explanations of the contributions these sciences make to the way the world works, the source of order in the universe, and the way they apply to human organizational management.
Wheatley uses new findings in quantum physics to explain that the universe is interconnected and relies on an endless series of relationships. Quantum physics play a big role for organizational practices; it makes us think about perception and observation, relationships and participation, and the influence and connections that work across large and complex systems.
Wheatley used biology and chemistry discoveries as metaphors to explain that disequilibrium and change are required for system grows and survival in the ever-changing universe. “For many years, scientist failed to notice the role that positive feedback and disequilibrium played in facilitating a system’s evolution.” (Wheatley, 2006, p. 79). Focusing on new concepts emerging from chemistry and biology helps reader to understand the change and new possibilities for growth. To clearly understand the way things work in the universe it is important to correctly interpret all the information provided. We spent years to figure out the ways to change each other, our communities, organizations, and nations to stay up-to-date with the ever-changing world. “In trying to understand things as they were, in seeking to preserve system stability, [scientists] failed to note the internal processes by which open systems accomplish growth and change.” (Wheatley, 2006, p. 79). In order to find the best ways to implement the changes Wheatley turned to nature and life, where everything interconnected and is a part of living systems.
Chaos theory is used to shows that chaos is needed to create an order. According to Wheatley we live in the world where chaos and order coexist. “Chaos has always partnered with order-a concept that contradicts our common definition of chaos. . .” (Wheatley, 2006, p. 117). She explored the diverse patterns created by nature and explains that stability is never guarantied and should not be desired.
By applying the scientific discoveries in quantum physics, chemistry, biology, and chaos theory to the organizational structure Wheatley uncovered that in the corporate world, just as in the natural world, changes are not just inevitable but desirable because they offers new opportunities for personal and professional growth.
Leadership and the New Science is a very inspiring book that helps reader to see and understand organizational life from a different point of view and encourages accepting chaos as a positive gadget. Wheatley challenged readers to rethink their views of organizations and leadership. She put the whole picture together for us so we can see the importance of the relationships in the organizational structure.
Although her extended imagery and in-depth scientific facts can get overwhelming sometimes, they guide our thinking outside of the traditional way to see our role as leaders.
The author deserves the credit for presenting amazing information on quantum physics and for developing and extraordinary explanation on why Newtonian theory is no longer applied to the basics of the organizational structure and the new organization theory is being developed. Even though I would like to disagree with this idea I understand author’s point of view and will do some additional research in regards to this matter. In my opinion this theory was incomplete and needed continuation, but Newtonian physics are still very accurate and widely used method.
Leadership and the New Science is an extraordinary book, combining personal diary, scientific facts and discoveries, and natural phenomena. It provides inspiration and leadership guidance to the organizational structure.
Some of the examples presented in the book were very interesting and well-supporting to the author’s arguments. I very much like the example Wheatley used to illustrate the global network organization- the terrorist networks. The anti-terrorist organizations fail to see the structure of these organizations and think they fight traditional hierarchy rather than a network. Many concepts of this book are useful in business and management leadership, but also in politics. This example demonstrates an urgent need to learn from and apply new science to practice in all organizations in order to deal with chaos and change.
It’s interesting that many of us have experienced the chaos theory, in its many different ways, and have seen many natural patterns and we still failed to notice nature’s fractals and the ability of chaos to become an order.
Many of the arguments were supported by the scientific facts. Some theories and in-depth explanations might create confusion and misunderstanding for the “un-scientific” regular person.
Over all Leadership and the New Science consists of the principals and dynamics of the contemporary organizational structure and eye-opening examples that are not only useful in leadership but also in every-day life.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
"Let your life Speak" by Parker Palmer. Reaction paper
Parker Palmer’s book is a collection and reflection of his essays and work of his life. It talks mainly about his life experiences and transformation of his vocational journey. It contains the stories of Palmer’s personal struggles to find and define his own purpose in life. These stories demonstrate how readers can stop and look at themselves and all the people around them to see who they really are. His advice to reader is to listen to our lives, and in his book Palmer tells us how he did it and what we can do.
Palmer demonstrated that it is important to understand one’s true self in order to have a happy fulfilling life. Starting from the childhood we all demonstrate our personal interests and compassions. But as we develop we allow our parents, teachers, and society to choose our vocation for us. According to Palmer in most cases it leads to disappointments and failure. He found that the problem lays in the attempt to live a life that was defined by someone else. Filled with wisdom and examples Let your life speak invites reader to listen to the inner self and follow its sense of meaning and purpose.
Presenting his own life as an example Palmer demonstrated how most people go through different stages in life wearing “faces of other people.” (p. 19). When young Palmer was in high school he wanted to “become a naval aviator and then take up a career in advertising.” (p. 13). These were the faces of the people he has seen and admired, and wanted to be like them. Later on in life, with change of the surroundings changed this dream for vocation. After graduating the college young Palmer decided to go to Union Theological Seminary in New York City. At that time he was certain that the ministry was his destiny, as he was certain about becoming a naval pilot and an advertiser few years before that. Step by step he realized that many ways in life that he chose, many turns that he took were wrong. Many people don’t see or recognize the small clues that life presents us with and that we show interest in. Instead we try to be like someone else and manage to project their lives on ours.
Palmer pointed out that the root of the word vocation comes from Latin and means the voice; therefore vocation means to pursue a calling. Palmer presented vocation not as “a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received” (p. 10). And to receive that gift many people go through periods of despair, darkness, and depression. Sometimes it takes many years before one is ready to receive this gift so patience is important.
It is important, according to Palmer, that people realize when we hit the bottom. It is not because of our impeccability but because the path that was chosen had little or nothing at all to do with our true vocation. It is critical to look and see where we can go from there and continue the road to our vocation. The ones who are unable to see the way will most likely fall into the state of depression that Palmer spent many pages talking about. He talked a little about the cause and nature of the depression and used his own experience as an example. Though hereditary and major cases of depression will need medical interventions, others, like situational depression, will require personal strength, faith, hope, and trust to overcome this state, to follow our true vocation, and to become a leader of our own destiny.
Palmer ended his book with a little essay about the leadership. Because all people are interconnected and live in a community he stated that “leadership is everyone’s vocation.” (p. 74). Palmer pointed out that everyone makes their own choices of what they are going to project to help create the world. Some people can project light, some shadows into the lives of others therefore in to our world. In order to project the light Palmer recommended we practice what he calls “inner work.” (p. 91). The inner work includes reading, spiritual friendships, prayers and meditation; and if neglected it will affect the outer work and wise versa.
This small book with a little more than hundred pages opens up the insights, presents the examples, and provides personal feelings that guide the mind of a reader to think about and define a vocation for the self. I believe this book can make a difference in the lives of the young readers, who are just now trying to figure out their purpose in life; and also make young parents pay attention to their kids’ interests. Even people who have already built their career and enjoy their vocation might benefit from this book as it will remind them of their falls and bottoms, and progress and rise.
Using his own life as an example Palmer has been truthful and honest while looking back. This fact encourages the reader to do the same, realistically look at the life and find himself.
I very much like how Let your life speak doesn’t provide us with the step-by-step or how-to instructions to find one’s purpose in life or vocation, it provides the explanation, kind of an over-all preview, of author’s life and other experiences. It makes people stop and think rather than follow specific directions.
But I also think that some solutions, like religious prayers and spiritual meditation, may not satisfy and might even frustrate some readers. This is not the right book for people who want to hear the answers and get clear directions without any additional thinking done.
Parker Palmer has captured one of the most important concepts in life-loving yourself. It is important to understand and love yourself the way you are, to see yourself the way other people see you, and thrive. By judging ourselves and thinking what we have done wrong we only demolish our inner world, making everything seem to be negative and impossible. Instead we have to look for the ways to benefit ourselves, the community and the world.
The problem that I found with the book, or maybe even the author, is the financial state of happiness versus spiritual. The author comes from a financially stable family, has PhD and does not have any difficulties in terms of finances. His journey, even though is very interesting, can hardly be equal to the one of a middle-class person who makes career choices based on a need to earn a living. It’s not always possible to find the place where what we like to do is desperately needed in society.
In the world we live in people choose financial stability over spiritual happiness and satisfaction. This is something they have thought about and made their decision. This is the choice they have decided to project to the world and they can always rethink it.
Palmer demonstrated that it is important to understand one’s true self in order to have a happy fulfilling life. Starting from the childhood we all demonstrate our personal interests and compassions. But as we develop we allow our parents, teachers, and society to choose our vocation for us. According to Palmer in most cases it leads to disappointments and failure. He found that the problem lays in the attempt to live a life that was defined by someone else. Filled with wisdom and examples Let your life speak invites reader to listen to the inner self and follow its sense of meaning and purpose.
Presenting his own life as an example Palmer demonstrated how most people go through different stages in life wearing “faces of other people.” (p. 19). When young Palmer was in high school he wanted to “become a naval aviator and then take up a career in advertising.” (p. 13). These were the faces of the people he has seen and admired, and wanted to be like them. Later on in life, with change of the surroundings changed this dream for vocation. After graduating the college young Palmer decided to go to Union Theological Seminary in New York City. At that time he was certain that the ministry was his destiny, as he was certain about becoming a naval pilot and an advertiser few years before that. Step by step he realized that many ways in life that he chose, many turns that he took were wrong. Many people don’t see or recognize the small clues that life presents us with and that we show interest in. Instead we try to be like someone else and manage to project their lives on ours.
Palmer pointed out that the root of the word vocation comes from Latin and means the voice; therefore vocation means to pursue a calling. Palmer presented vocation not as “a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received” (p. 10). And to receive that gift many people go through periods of despair, darkness, and depression. Sometimes it takes many years before one is ready to receive this gift so patience is important.
It is important, according to Palmer, that people realize when we hit the bottom. It is not because of our impeccability but because the path that was chosen had little or nothing at all to do with our true vocation. It is critical to look and see where we can go from there and continue the road to our vocation. The ones who are unable to see the way will most likely fall into the state of depression that Palmer spent many pages talking about. He talked a little about the cause and nature of the depression and used his own experience as an example. Though hereditary and major cases of depression will need medical interventions, others, like situational depression, will require personal strength, faith, hope, and trust to overcome this state, to follow our true vocation, and to become a leader of our own destiny.
Palmer ended his book with a little essay about the leadership. Because all people are interconnected and live in a community he stated that “leadership is everyone’s vocation.” (p. 74). Palmer pointed out that everyone makes their own choices of what they are going to project to help create the world. Some people can project light, some shadows into the lives of others therefore in to our world. In order to project the light Palmer recommended we practice what he calls “inner work.” (p. 91). The inner work includes reading, spiritual friendships, prayers and meditation; and if neglected it will affect the outer work and wise versa.
This small book with a little more than hundred pages opens up the insights, presents the examples, and provides personal feelings that guide the mind of a reader to think about and define a vocation for the self. I believe this book can make a difference in the lives of the young readers, who are just now trying to figure out their purpose in life; and also make young parents pay attention to their kids’ interests. Even people who have already built their career and enjoy their vocation might benefit from this book as it will remind them of their falls and bottoms, and progress and rise.
Using his own life as an example Palmer has been truthful and honest while looking back. This fact encourages the reader to do the same, realistically look at the life and find himself.
I very much like how Let your life speak doesn’t provide us with the step-by-step or how-to instructions to find one’s purpose in life or vocation, it provides the explanation, kind of an over-all preview, of author’s life and other experiences. It makes people stop and think rather than follow specific directions.
But I also think that some solutions, like religious prayers and spiritual meditation, may not satisfy and might even frustrate some readers. This is not the right book for people who want to hear the answers and get clear directions without any additional thinking done.
Parker Palmer has captured one of the most important concepts in life-loving yourself. It is important to understand and love yourself the way you are, to see yourself the way other people see you, and thrive. By judging ourselves and thinking what we have done wrong we only demolish our inner world, making everything seem to be negative and impossible. Instead we have to look for the ways to benefit ourselves, the community and the world.
The problem that I found with the book, or maybe even the author, is the financial state of happiness versus spiritual. The author comes from a financially stable family, has PhD and does not have any difficulties in terms of finances. His journey, even though is very interesting, can hardly be equal to the one of a middle-class person who makes career choices based on a need to earn a living. It’s not always possible to find the place where what we like to do is desperately needed in society.
In the world we live in people choose financial stability over spiritual happiness and satisfaction. This is something they have thought about and made their decision. This is the choice they have decided to project to the world and they can always rethink it.
Value and Meaning of my life. Applying R. Nozick's concept of meaning and value
The topic of this paper is to apply Nozick’s definitions of value and meaning to the personal aspects of my life; and to show what changes and actions could make my life more valuable and meaningful in the future.
Based on Nozick’s theory there are two types of value people can have in life, instrumental and intrinsic. Both values can coexist and relate to each other. If something is valuable only because it is connected to something else that has value then it is considered to be instrumentally valuable. And if something is worthy by itself then it is intrinsically valuable.
Most frequently meaning of life is connected to its different aspects such as family, career, health, etc., and has some intrinsic and instrumental values. According to Nozick (1989) meaning greatly depends on value. By applying his concept to life I can say that in order for my life to have a meaning it should be related to something that has values. Therefore by connecting with more valuable things my life will accumulate a greater meaning.
If having valuable things in my life will give it meaning I would like to figure out what aspects of my life are valuable to me and what gives my life a real meaning. I will start by pointing out the most important aspects of my life; these are my family, health and wellbeing of my family and myself, financial stability and personal career, as well as some personal and spiritual aspects. Then I will try to show how these aspects create value that makes my life meaningful. And after that I will choose couple of changes that I can implement to make these aspects more valuable that will in turn give my life more meaning.
First and foremost my family is the core of my life and is the aspect that I value the most. It is represented by the diversity of characters united together. I love every single member of my family for who they are. Having my family around makes me happy and happiness is the intrinsic value. Therefore the connection between my happiness and my family makes the latter one an instrumental value. The instrumental value of my family is the reason that makes it very valuable to me.
Health and well being of my family and myself is also of great importance to me. Healthy family leads to a longer, less problematic and happier life. Every day I get up in the morning with the thought of how glad I am that my family is well and healthy. Family health leading to happiness is another representation of instrumental value that I currently posses.
Another instrumentally valuable aspect of my life is my career. My career occupies most of my time and probably one of the most important aspects. It is very valuable to me because it gives me the financial stability. Financial security depends on my health and health of my family, and vice versa. If I am not well I will not be able to work, if I don’t have a job then I won’t have the insurance or money to take care of my health if I get sick. My career allows me to provide support to my family’s wellbeing and financial stability and therefore leads to my happiness. So career and financial stability are very valuable aspects of my life.
The list of instrumental values is continued by the personal and spiritual aspects. These include friendship, recreation, personal growth and development, and peace of mind. Spirituality depends on my family’s wellbeing and health, and our financial stability. For example we would not be able to travel if one of us was not healthy or if we wouldn’t have enough money. Here we can observe the connection to the career aspect that permits me to have a happy family, to give everything that I want to give to my child; everything that is of value to her and makes her happy. Seeing her and all other members of my family happy gives me the biggest satisfaction and lead to my happiness. As a result my family's relation to my happiness makes each family member valuable.
All aspects of my life described above have instrumental values. As Nozick (1989) said “some things have value only as a means to something else that is valuable.” (p. 162). Thus the aspects of my life are considered valuable to me only because they are connected to one main intrinsic value that is happiness.
If, according to Nozick (1989), value is defined by the organic unity and gets greater with the diversity of the elements that are unified then the assortment of my life aspects if unified create a value of my life that is happiness. And if in order for my life to have a meaning it must be connected to something else that has a value then relationship between my life and happiness makes my life meaningful. The more I connect with other people’s happiness the more meaning my life gains.
In my profession as a nurse I meet and help people every day. I affect their health in a positive way thus providing means to make them happy. Therefore once my experience positively affects their happiness, my life attains more value. This example represents Nozick’s concept of value and shows how things become meaningful and valuable when they are related to or connected to something else that has value.
My life is good as it is right now and I am very happy and satisfied with what I have. But by human nature wants more, enough is never enough. So in order to have a more valuable and meaningful life I decided to go back to school. It was a very difficult decision to make but I figured that if I get additional education this will give me more room for career advancement, that will in turn lead to a solid financial stability, more options to choose from, and more places to visit. I will be able to provide my family with more things that they value and make them and everyone around them happy. In addition gaining more knowledge will give me more personal and spiritual satisfaction that leads to ultimate happiness as a result. As I already explained above happiness is of the greatest value to me and the meaning of my life is to be happy and make many close people around me happy as well.
If the meaning of my life is to spread happiness and be happy does that mean that my life looses it’s meaning after it is over? As Nozick (1989) said “people worry about the meaning of their lives when they see their existences as limited.” (p. 166). I will attempt to explain why I don’t think that my life will lose its meaning even after my death. If, as Nozick said, something becomes meaningful once it is connected to something else that is valuable, and I value happiness that primarily comes from my family being happy, then as long as the family grows and continues to be happy my life will continue to have its meaning even after I die. Same applies in the case of all the people that I help every day - as long as their happiness flourish the meaning of my life grows. The happier my family and people I treat get the more valuable and meaningful my life becomes.
In conclusion I would like to say that it was a great self-learning experience to look and see what I value the most. The most valuable discovery I made was to reveal what the true meaning of my life is. Before this assignment if someone would have asked me what was the meaning of my life I would probably start talking about all of my values like my family, my job, and what I do. Now I can simply say “the meaning of my life is to be happy through the course of my life” by keeping my family and people around me content.
References
Nozick, R. (1989). The examined life. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster paperbacks
Based on Nozick’s theory there are two types of value people can have in life, instrumental and intrinsic. Both values can coexist and relate to each other. If something is valuable only because it is connected to something else that has value then it is considered to be instrumentally valuable. And if something is worthy by itself then it is intrinsically valuable.
Most frequently meaning of life is connected to its different aspects such as family, career, health, etc., and has some intrinsic and instrumental values. According to Nozick (1989) meaning greatly depends on value. By applying his concept to life I can say that in order for my life to have a meaning it should be related to something that has values. Therefore by connecting with more valuable things my life will accumulate a greater meaning.
If having valuable things in my life will give it meaning I would like to figure out what aspects of my life are valuable to me and what gives my life a real meaning. I will start by pointing out the most important aspects of my life; these are my family, health and wellbeing of my family and myself, financial stability and personal career, as well as some personal and spiritual aspects. Then I will try to show how these aspects create value that makes my life meaningful. And after that I will choose couple of changes that I can implement to make these aspects more valuable that will in turn give my life more meaning.
First and foremost my family is the core of my life and is the aspect that I value the most. It is represented by the diversity of characters united together. I love every single member of my family for who they are. Having my family around makes me happy and happiness is the intrinsic value. Therefore the connection between my happiness and my family makes the latter one an instrumental value. The instrumental value of my family is the reason that makes it very valuable to me.
Health and well being of my family and myself is also of great importance to me. Healthy family leads to a longer, less problematic and happier life. Every day I get up in the morning with the thought of how glad I am that my family is well and healthy. Family health leading to happiness is another representation of instrumental value that I currently posses.
Another instrumentally valuable aspect of my life is my career. My career occupies most of my time and probably one of the most important aspects. It is very valuable to me because it gives me the financial stability. Financial security depends on my health and health of my family, and vice versa. If I am not well I will not be able to work, if I don’t have a job then I won’t have the insurance or money to take care of my health if I get sick. My career allows me to provide support to my family’s wellbeing and financial stability and therefore leads to my happiness. So career and financial stability are very valuable aspects of my life.
The list of instrumental values is continued by the personal and spiritual aspects. These include friendship, recreation, personal growth and development, and peace of mind. Spirituality depends on my family’s wellbeing and health, and our financial stability. For example we would not be able to travel if one of us was not healthy or if we wouldn’t have enough money. Here we can observe the connection to the career aspect that permits me to have a happy family, to give everything that I want to give to my child; everything that is of value to her and makes her happy. Seeing her and all other members of my family happy gives me the biggest satisfaction and lead to my happiness. As a result my family's relation to my happiness makes each family member valuable.
All aspects of my life described above have instrumental values. As Nozick (1989) said “some things have value only as a means to something else that is valuable.” (p. 162). Thus the aspects of my life are considered valuable to me only because they are connected to one main intrinsic value that is happiness.
If, according to Nozick (1989), value is defined by the organic unity and gets greater with the diversity of the elements that are unified then the assortment of my life aspects if unified create a value of my life that is happiness. And if in order for my life to have a meaning it must be connected to something else that has a value then relationship between my life and happiness makes my life meaningful. The more I connect with other people’s happiness the more meaning my life gains.
In my profession as a nurse I meet and help people every day. I affect their health in a positive way thus providing means to make them happy. Therefore once my experience positively affects their happiness, my life attains more value. This example represents Nozick’s concept of value and shows how things become meaningful and valuable when they are related to or connected to something else that has value.
My life is good as it is right now and I am very happy and satisfied with what I have. But by human nature wants more, enough is never enough. So in order to have a more valuable and meaningful life I decided to go back to school. It was a very difficult decision to make but I figured that if I get additional education this will give me more room for career advancement, that will in turn lead to a solid financial stability, more options to choose from, and more places to visit. I will be able to provide my family with more things that they value and make them and everyone around them happy. In addition gaining more knowledge will give me more personal and spiritual satisfaction that leads to ultimate happiness as a result. As I already explained above happiness is of the greatest value to me and the meaning of my life is to be happy and make many close people around me happy as well.
If the meaning of my life is to spread happiness and be happy does that mean that my life looses it’s meaning after it is over? As Nozick (1989) said “people worry about the meaning of their lives when they see their existences as limited.” (p. 166). I will attempt to explain why I don’t think that my life will lose its meaning even after my death. If, as Nozick said, something becomes meaningful once it is connected to something else that is valuable, and I value happiness that primarily comes from my family being happy, then as long as the family grows and continues to be happy my life will continue to have its meaning even after I die. Same applies in the case of all the people that I help every day - as long as their happiness flourish the meaning of my life grows. The happier my family and people I treat get the more valuable and meaningful my life becomes.
In conclusion I would like to say that it was a great self-learning experience to look and see what I value the most. The most valuable discovery I made was to reveal what the true meaning of my life is. Before this assignment if someone would have asked me what was the meaning of my life I would probably start talking about all of my values like my family, my job, and what I do. Now I can simply say “the meaning of my life is to be happy through the course of my life” by keeping my family and people around me content.
References
Nozick, R. (1989). The examined life. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster paperbacks
Kant vs. Mill. Evaluation of the Moral theory
When speaking about moral theory it is hard not to question moral standards of two big philosophers John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant. Mill believed that the action's consequences determine its moral worth, while Kant argued that morality of the action depends on the good will. Based on the two contradicting theories above this paper will support Mill's view of the moral worth of an action because it is determined by its practical and useful consequences in our society while Kant’s dismissal of the action's consequences is irrelevant to our society's moral values.
The aim of this paper is to clearly show how Mill’s belief to do good for all is more appropriate for our society than Kant’s principle that it is better to just do what's morally right. I would like to present these philosophers' theories to the reader, and explain why J.S. Mill offers a better guide to moral behavior while describing the differences he distinguished between rights and responsibilities of human beings to themselves and society.
Both philosophers offered unique justification for moral theory; they believed that these theories can be used as a foundation to establish moral worth. Kant based his view of morality entirely on reason. His main theory is founded on the idea that the any morally correct action must possess “good will.” In other words, a person, who makes his or her decisions on the basis of the moral law, is a “good” person. Kant clarifies that a “good will” is not good because of its outcome or effect, but because of its desire to do well for another. The motive of the action that is provoked by self-interest or self-happiness, aside from how indispensable it might be, does not qualify as a “good will”, but the intention motivated by moral duty before another is an eligible definition of “good will” in Kant's view.
Mill on the other hand based his theory on the fact that the consequences of an action determine its moral worth. Mill was the leading defendant of utilitarianism against critics in the nineteenth century. Utilitarianism defined as the greatest happiness principle was established from the idea that the actions are right based on the amount of happiness they endorse. “By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure.” (Cahn & Vitrano, 2008, p. 121). Mill describes two types of pleasures that differ in qualities; these are the higher pleasures - intellectual, artistic, and moral; and the lower pleasures - the physical pleasures that can be experienced by humans as well as by animals. In other words the good action is the one that brings the greatest happiness to the highest number of participants.
I believe that Mill’s theory is very intuitive, to the point, and straight-forward; do what is better for everyone. Unlike Kant’s view, where morality is opposed to happiness, Mill linked these two attributes together. According to Utilitarianism the core of moral judgment should focus on the amount of pain and pleasure a certain act creates for maximum number of people.
Mills theory has common sense and we can find it in the following example. A woman was attacked by the rapist or a murderer, while fighting she gets a hold of a knife. According to Mill she should stab the rapist for her own good and her action of self-defense will not be considered immoral. But according to Kant the odds of such self defense being immoral would gain ground. By acting morally using Kant's view she would not be able to defend and protect herself, consequently, this woman may be killed or heavily injured. In this case it is obvious that acting morally under Kant's theory could potentially endanger a life of a human being or lives of any future victims attacked by this criminal.
Unlike Kant’s moral philosophy that does not offer the option to choose between actions, Mill’s theory offers the flexibility of choosing the action based on the evaluation of the outcomes. Most of the time people act in accordance to the Mill’s theory, where one can access the consequences and choose the action that will increase the chances of the positive result for self and others.
While utilitarianism is a popular ethical theory it is difficult to rely on it as the only method for making moral decisions or actions. For example N. Warburton in his book “Philosophy: The Classics” presented the objection to Mill’s theory that he called “Difficulties of calculation.” Warburton (2005) states:” One practical difficulty is that of calculating which of the many possible actions is most likely to produce the most happiness overall.” (p. 171). Utilitarianism requires that we calculate the benefit and harm of our actions and compare them to the benefit and harm resulting from another action. Most often it is difficult or even impossible to calculate the consequential value and utility of our actions. “Mill’s response to this objection was that throughout human history people have been learning from their experience about the probable course of different sorts of action.” (Warburton, 2005, p. 171). This is where intuition and common sense come handy, but there is some ambiguity to Mill's theory as well. A good example of ambiguous case would be the dilemma Warburton chose for his book in which one had to choose “whom to save from a burning building, given you could only save one person and there were three people trapped inside.” (Warburton, 2005, p. 171). Utilitarian would say that if there is no time or no way to make careful calculations for decision, make a quick estimate and proceed with it. In the case above, depending on the circumstances, one will have to quickly evaluate the situation and figure out who is more easily accessible, located closer or even lighter in weight. Let’s say first person is a pregnant woman, trapped on a second floor of the building; second is an 8-year-old boy down the hallway whose leg is broken and he can’t move; and the third is and old man who got locked in his apartment on the third floor. Given that I can only save one person, I will have to make a quick evaluation of what would be the highest probable action leading to the successful results. According to the circumstances the building is on fire, there is no time to get to the pregnant woman or an old man. The probable course of my action, if I were to try and save an old man or a pregnant woman, would result in my death and death of other three people trapped in the building. I will get to the boy, pick him up and carry him out of the building. This is the action that will keep me safe and save the life of a young boy. Therefore my action would be considered moral and will maximize the happiness of others.
Another objection from Warburton’s (2005) book is “Unpalatable consequences”. The example author presents in his book is “there had been a gruesome murder, and the police had found a suspect who they knew hadn’t committed the murder, there might be utilitarian grounds for framing him and punishing him accordingly.” (Warburton, 2005, p. 172). Mill came up with some general principles that can be classified as just or unjust. These principles are known as rule utilitarianism and are focused more on the kind of actions that tend to promote happiness, than on the particular action itself. The example above presents the action as punishment of an innocent person to maximize public's happiness, but according to the rule utilitarianism this kind of action will promote more unhappiness than happiness. Therefore the punishment of an innocent person should not be considered as an act to maximize happiness.
Now I would like to demonstrate how Mill’s theory is applicable to contemporary moral issues such as abortion. According to Cohen (2010) there are two main groups involved in the abortion debate in the United States right now: pro-choice, defending the abortion and believe that the woman should be entitled to choose whether to continue the pregnancy or not; and pro-life, the movement against the abortion. Both groups are trying to influence the public and get legal support for their position. I believe that the right to decide whether to terminate the pregnancy or continue with it and have a child belongs to a women and women only.
Most women who decide to go through abortion make a conscious decision based on their circumstances and outcomes. They evaluate the situation they are in right now and the situation they will be in at the time the baby is born. They also evaluate their financial status, their readiness to have a baby, and willingness to make such commitment. For example, a woman who is career-oriented, working full time, studying in the MBA program, accidently gets pregnant. According to Mill’s theory she will need to evaluate the consequences of both actions; if she keeps the baby, she will have to either loose the job or stop school for some time, her financial situation will change, she will not be able to support the baby financially, travel as she used to, and her child most likely will be raised without a father. On the other hand, if she chooses abortion her life will not alter in any way, she will continue with her education and career, will return to the family planning and will have kids when she is financially stable and in the solid relationship. The act of abortion will maximize the happiness in this situation and the destruction of human embryo would qualify as a moral action using Mill's view.
One of the commonly used objections by the pro-life movement is that the embryo is a person and it is immoral to kill a person. I will prove why the embryo is not a person. First and for most the organism that weighs less than an ounce, unable to exist, feed and protect itself outside of the mother’s body, who has no sex, no brain, unable to hear, see, or smell cannot be called a person or a human being. Second, there are no circumstances under which two persons can live in one body and possess equal rights and autonomy. And third, by promoting the life of the embryo and not allowing women to have abortions will take women’s legal rights and control of their own bodies away from them. In accordance to Mill’s moral standards women may desire abortion as a mean to their happiness.
I strongly agree with the evaluation of the moral issue I presented above and believe that Mill’s theory gives the right assessment of the abortion debate in particular. In today’s society of career-oriented, self-centered people utilitarianism reminds us that morality calls us to look beyond ourselves and to the benefit of all.
References
Abortion debate. (n.d.). Retrieved June 26, 2010, from the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_debate
Cahn, S. M. & Vitrano, C. (2008). Happiness. Classic and contemporary readings in philosophy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Cohen, N. (2010, May 29). Nuance matters in abortion debate. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on June 30, 2010, from http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-cohen-abortion-20100529,0,5336153.story
Hillar, M. &Prahl, F. (Eds). (1997). Philosophers and the issue of abortion. Retrieved on June 29, 2010 from Center for Socinian Studies website http://www.socinian.org/abortion.html
Warburton, N. (2005). Philosophy: the classics. (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
The aim of this paper is to clearly show how Mill’s belief to do good for all is more appropriate for our society than Kant’s principle that it is better to just do what's morally right. I would like to present these philosophers' theories to the reader, and explain why J.S. Mill offers a better guide to moral behavior while describing the differences he distinguished between rights and responsibilities of human beings to themselves and society.
Both philosophers offered unique justification for moral theory; they believed that these theories can be used as a foundation to establish moral worth. Kant based his view of morality entirely on reason. His main theory is founded on the idea that the any morally correct action must possess “good will.” In other words, a person, who makes his or her decisions on the basis of the moral law, is a “good” person. Kant clarifies that a “good will” is not good because of its outcome or effect, but because of its desire to do well for another. The motive of the action that is provoked by self-interest or self-happiness, aside from how indispensable it might be, does not qualify as a “good will”, but the intention motivated by moral duty before another is an eligible definition of “good will” in Kant's view.
Mill on the other hand based his theory on the fact that the consequences of an action determine its moral worth. Mill was the leading defendant of utilitarianism against critics in the nineteenth century. Utilitarianism defined as the greatest happiness principle was established from the idea that the actions are right based on the amount of happiness they endorse. “By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure.” (Cahn & Vitrano, 2008, p. 121). Mill describes two types of pleasures that differ in qualities; these are the higher pleasures - intellectual, artistic, and moral; and the lower pleasures - the physical pleasures that can be experienced by humans as well as by animals. In other words the good action is the one that brings the greatest happiness to the highest number of participants.
I believe that Mill’s theory is very intuitive, to the point, and straight-forward; do what is better for everyone. Unlike Kant’s view, where morality is opposed to happiness, Mill linked these two attributes together. According to Utilitarianism the core of moral judgment should focus on the amount of pain and pleasure a certain act creates for maximum number of people.
Mills theory has common sense and we can find it in the following example. A woman was attacked by the rapist or a murderer, while fighting she gets a hold of a knife. According to Mill she should stab the rapist for her own good and her action of self-defense will not be considered immoral. But according to Kant the odds of such self defense being immoral would gain ground. By acting morally using Kant's view she would not be able to defend and protect herself, consequently, this woman may be killed or heavily injured. In this case it is obvious that acting morally under Kant's theory could potentially endanger a life of a human being or lives of any future victims attacked by this criminal.
Unlike Kant’s moral philosophy that does not offer the option to choose between actions, Mill’s theory offers the flexibility of choosing the action based on the evaluation of the outcomes. Most of the time people act in accordance to the Mill’s theory, where one can access the consequences and choose the action that will increase the chances of the positive result for self and others.
While utilitarianism is a popular ethical theory it is difficult to rely on it as the only method for making moral decisions or actions. For example N. Warburton in his book “Philosophy: The Classics” presented the objection to Mill’s theory that he called “Difficulties of calculation.” Warburton (2005) states:” One practical difficulty is that of calculating which of the many possible actions is most likely to produce the most happiness overall.” (p. 171). Utilitarianism requires that we calculate the benefit and harm of our actions and compare them to the benefit and harm resulting from another action. Most often it is difficult or even impossible to calculate the consequential value and utility of our actions. “Mill’s response to this objection was that throughout human history people have been learning from their experience about the probable course of different sorts of action.” (Warburton, 2005, p. 171). This is where intuition and common sense come handy, but there is some ambiguity to Mill's theory as well. A good example of ambiguous case would be the dilemma Warburton chose for his book in which one had to choose “whom to save from a burning building, given you could only save one person and there were three people trapped inside.” (Warburton, 2005, p. 171). Utilitarian would say that if there is no time or no way to make careful calculations for decision, make a quick estimate and proceed with it. In the case above, depending on the circumstances, one will have to quickly evaluate the situation and figure out who is more easily accessible, located closer or even lighter in weight. Let’s say first person is a pregnant woman, trapped on a second floor of the building; second is an 8-year-old boy down the hallway whose leg is broken and he can’t move; and the third is and old man who got locked in his apartment on the third floor. Given that I can only save one person, I will have to make a quick evaluation of what would be the highest probable action leading to the successful results. According to the circumstances the building is on fire, there is no time to get to the pregnant woman or an old man. The probable course of my action, if I were to try and save an old man or a pregnant woman, would result in my death and death of other three people trapped in the building. I will get to the boy, pick him up and carry him out of the building. This is the action that will keep me safe and save the life of a young boy. Therefore my action would be considered moral and will maximize the happiness of others.
Another objection from Warburton’s (2005) book is “Unpalatable consequences”. The example author presents in his book is “there had been a gruesome murder, and the police had found a suspect who they knew hadn’t committed the murder, there might be utilitarian grounds for framing him and punishing him accordingly.” (Warburton, 2005, p. 172). Mill came up with some general principles that can be classified as just or unjust. These principles are known as rule utilitarianism and are focused more on the kind of actions that tend to promote happiness, than on the particular action itself. The example above presents the action as punishment of an innocent person to maximize public's happiness, but according to the rule utilitarianism this kind of action will promote more unhappiness than happiness. Therefore the punishment of an innocent person should not be considered as an act to maximize happiness.
Now I would like to demonstrate how Mill’s theory is applicable to contemporary moral issues such as abortion. According to Cohen (2010) there are two main groups involved in the abortion debate in the United States right now: pro-choice, defending the abortion and believe that the woman should be entitled to choose whether to continue the pregnancy or not; and pro-life, the movement against the abortion. Both groups are trying to influence the public and get legal support for their position. I believe that the right to decide whether to terminate the pregnancy or continue with it and have a child belongs to a women and women only.
Most women who decide to go through abortion make a conscious decision based on their circumstances and outcomes. They evaluate the situation they are in right now and the situation they will be in at the time the baby is born. They also evaluate their financial status, their readiness to have a baby, and willingness to make such commitment. For example, a woman who is career-oriented, working full time, studying in the MBA program, accidently gets pregnant. According to Mill’s theory she will need to evaluate the consequences of both actions; if she keeps the baby, she will have to either loose the job or stop school for some time, her financial situation will change, she will not be able to support the baby financially, travel as she used to, and her child most likely will be raised without a father. On the other hand, if she chooses abortion her life will not alter in any way, she will continue with her education and career, will return to the family planning and will have kids when she is financially stable and in the solid relationship. The act of abortion will maximize the happiness in this situation and the destruction of human embryo would qualify as a moral action using Mill's view.
One of the commonly used objections by the pro-life movement is that the embryo is a person and it is immoral to kill a person. I will prove why the embryo is not a person. First and for most the organism that weighs less than an ounce, unable to exist, feed and protect itself outside of the mother’s body, who has no sex, no brain, unable to hear, see, or smell cannot be called a person or a human being. Second, there are no circumstances under which two persons can live in one body and possess equal rights and autonomy. And third, by promoting the life of the embryo and not allowing women to have abortions will take women’s legal rights and control of their own bodies away from them. In accordance to Mill’s moral standards women may desire abortion as a mean to their happiness.
I strongly agree with the evaluation of the moral issue I presented above and believe that Mill’s theory gives the right assessment of the abortion debate in particular. In today’s society of career-oriented, self-centered people utilitarianism reminds us that morality calls us to look beyond ourselves and to the benefit of all.
References
Abortion debate. (n.d.). Retrieved June 26, 2010, from the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_debate
Cahn, S. M. & Vitrano, C. (2008). Happiness. Classic and contemporary readings in philosophy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Cohen, N. (2010, May 29). Nuance matters in abortion debate. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on June 30, 2010, from http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-cohen-abortion-20100529,0,5336153.story
Hillar, M. &Prahl, F. (Eds). (1997). Philosophers and the issue of abortion. Retrieved on June 29, 2010 from Center for Socinian Studies website http://www.socinian.org/abortion.html
Warburton, N. (2005). Philosophy: the classics. (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
The core of social reality according to John Searle
John Searle is a philosopher of modern days whose books can change our way of thinking about language and mind. In his book Making the Social World he provides an understanding of the creation of social reality. According to this book we produce a social reality by assigning the roles or functions to physical objects and people who treat those objects in the same way and create the rule for the treatment of those objects. In short we create social reality by using collective intentionality to assign functions to objects and people.
Status Function is a feature of human social reality that is different from other forms of reality because it has the capacity to enforce functions on people and objects that are if massively recognized can be performed by that particular object or person. According to Searle when status functions are assigned to an object, the object takes on the function of representing something else. He uses such examples as “president of the United States, a twenty-dollar bill, and a professor in a university . . .” (p. 7). All of these people and objects possess the status that is collectively recognized therefore it allows them to perform the function they would not be able to do without such recognition.
In order for status Functions to work they should be communally accepted and massively recognized. Therefore status functions depend on collective intentionality and cannot work without it. Once the functions of the person or an object is collectively recognized and accepted that person or an object receives the status. Like in example with a twenty-dollar bill, since everyone recognizes that it is a twenty-dollar bill this piece of paper receives the value.
In his book Making the Social World (2010) Searle introduces the expression “deontic powers” that are carried by status functions and are “rights, duties, obligations, requirements, permissions, authorizations, entitlements, and so on.” (p. 9). Deontic powers usually belong to an institutional world in which we live. These institutions in its turn themselves compose of rules determining the rights and obligations of people and things within them. Therefore the society is hold together by status functions, that in its turn created by collective intentionality and function by carrying deontic powers.
According to Searle people created the world of institutions, status functions and corresponding deontic powers by speech acts that he called Declarations. These speech acts have a power of making the case just by saying that it is one. As an example when a person says “I promise” he or she makes the case that they promised.
Searle states that in cases where act of speech is not directly involved the linguistic powers are still involved in the representation of the created reality. He calls “these cases where we create an institutional reality of status functions by representing them as existing as “Status Function declarations”. . .” (p. 13).
Further in his book Searle illustrates that all institutional reality is created by linguistic representation. He specifies that there is not always a need for actual words of the languages, but there is a need for some sort of symbolic representation for the institutional facts to exist. Language itself makes the linguistic communication possible, therefore creates a social world.
Searle’s theory that the social reality is created by status functions and deontic powers that are produced by collective intentionality provides the reader with the better understanding of the system of the social world. It can easily be applied to an every-day life. He succeeds to connect everything by the means of speech acts and has done a great job of trying to be prudent, but the philosophical terminology such as ontology, deontology, and intentionality can still be confusing to a casual reader. In Making the Social World (2010) Searle makes a lot of references to his earlier book The Construction of Social Reality (1995) which makes it harder to accept and understand some of the details he is talking about, but in general the concept is understandable.
An example of a portion of social reality that I am a part of is the clinic where I work as a nurse. We, a team of healthcare providers, are licensed professionals that provide care to the closed community. Our licensure gives us the status and imposes the functions on us to provide the care to people in need. Our status of healthcare providers is collectively recognized and allows us to perform our duties that otherwise we wouldn’t be able to perform without it. We all intend to provide care to our patients. Therefore we all share intentional beliefs and desires to provide our patients with the top-notch care, cure their illnesses, and keep them healthy. This creates the collective intentionality of our status functions. With our status functions we also carry our deontic powers such as obligation to provide care, duties to come to work every day and help people in need of help, our rights to be respected by coworkers and clients and so on. These are deontic power that are imposed on people of our profession everywhere in the healthcare and can function only by collective acceptance.
The biggest problem with this part of social reality and healthcare in general is the lack of care for people who have no health insurance and people with pre-existing conditions. Healthcare is very expensive in the United States and many low and middle-class families cannot afford the proper care.
Currently there are measures that are taking place in the health care reform. Some of these are the establishment of state health insurance exchanges; government subsidies to help pay the insurance premiums for low-income families, young adults will be able to stay on their parents’ insurance plan until the age of 26, and many more. These actions will broaden the population that will receive the health care and coverage, expand the range of providers and specialists that consumers can choose from and see, decrease the cost of healthcare, and improve the quality of care provided.
I plan to take a part and help change the healthcare. I believe that by making a small change we can create a big impact. By going back to school I enable myself to become a part of this social reality and am currently on my way to promote this plan. After finishing this program and learning the ways to manage and obtaining the knowledge required for the leader I plan to open a non-profit organization that will provide care to low-income and underserved families in our communities. Special attention will be paid to small children and new mothers. This will include weekly post-delivery home visits, nursing instruction, infection prevention, baby care teachings and many more.
There are numbers of nurses and social workers helping families in needs right now, but not many of them combine their powers and promote the importance of such actions. Connecting these people and creating the organization or an institution with the status functions, collective intentionality and deontic powers circulating within will allow healthcare providers to become a part of it serve their purpose to the community. And in return the community will get the needed care.
Status Function is a feature of human social reality that is different from other forms of reality because it has the capacity to enforce functions on people and objects that are if massively recognized can be performed by that particular object or person. According to Searle when status functions are assigned to an object, the object takes on the function of representing something else. He uses such examples as “president of the United States, a twenty-dollar bill, and a professor in a university . . .” (p. 7). All of these people and objects possess the status that is collectively recognized therefore it allows them to perform the function they would not be able to do without such recognition.
In order for status Functions to work they should be communally accepted and massively recognized. Therefore status functions depend on collective intentionality and cannot work without it. Once the functions of the person or an object is collectively recognized and accepted that person or an object receives the status. Like in example with a twenty-dollar bill, since everyone recognizes that it is a twenty-dollar bill this piece of paper receives the value.
In his book Making the Social World (2010) Searle introduces the expression “deontic powers” that are carried by status functions and are “rights, duties, obligations, requirements, permissions, authorizations, entitlements, and so on.” (p. 9). Deontic powers usually belong to an institutional world in which we live. These institutions in its turn themselves compose of rules determining the rights and obligations of people and things within them. Therefore the society is hold together by status functions, that in its turn created by collective intentionality and function by carrying deontic powers.
According to Searle people created the world of institutions, status functions and corresponding deontic powers by speech acts that he called Declarations. These speech acts have a power of making the case just by saying that it is one. As an example when a person says “I promise” he or she makes the case that they promised.
Searle states that in cases where act of speech is not directly involved the linguistic powers are still involved in the representation of the created reality. He calls “these cases where we create an institutional reality of status functions by representing them as existing as “Status Function declarations”. . .” (p. 13).
Further in his book Searle illustrates that all institutional reality is created by linguistic representation. He specifies that there is not always a need for actual words of the languages, but there is a need for some sort of symbolic representation for the institutional facts to exist. Language itself makes the linguistic communication possible, therefore creates a social world.
Searle’s theory that the social reality is created by status functions and deontic powers that are produced by collective intentionality provides the reader with the better understanding of the system of the social world. It can easily be applied to an every-day life. He succeeds to connect everything by the means of speech acts and has done a great job of trying to be prudent, but the philosophical terminology such as ontology, deontology, and intentionality can still be confusing to a casual reader. In Making the Social World (2010) Searle makes a lot of references to his earlier book The Construction of Social Reality (1995) which makes it harder to accept and understand some of the details he is talking about, but in general the concept is understandable.
An example of a portion of social reality that I am a part of is the clinic where I work as a nurse. We, a team of healthcare providers, are licensed professionals that provide care to the closed community. Our licensure gives us the status and imposes the functions on us to provide the care to people in need. Our status of healthcare providers is collectively recognized and allows us to perform our duties that otherwise we wouldn’t be able to perform without it. We all intend to provide care to our patients. Therefore we all share intentional beliefs and desires to provide our patients with the top-notch care, cure their illnesses, and keep them healthy. This creates the collective intentionality of our status functions. With our status functions we also carry our deontic powers such as obligation to provide care, duties to come to work every day and help people in need of help, our rights to be respected by coworkers and clients and so on. These are deontic power that are imposed on people of our profession everywhere in the healthcare and can function only by collective acceptance.
The biggest problem with this part of social reality and healthcare in general is the lack of care for people who have no health insurance and people with pre-existing conditions. Healthcare is very expensive in the United States and many low and middle-class families cannot afford the proper care.
Currently there are measures that are taking place in the health care reform. Some of these are the establishment of state health insurance exchanges; government subsidies to help pay the insurance premiums for low-income families, young adults will be able to stay on their parents’ insurance plan until the age of 26, and many more. These actions will broaden the population that will receive the health care and coverage, expand the range of providers and specialists that consumers can choose from and see, decrease the cost of healthcare, and improve the quality of care provided.
I plan to take a part and help change the healthcare. I believe that by making a small change we can create a big impact. By going back to school I enable myself to become a part of this social reality and am currently on my way to promote this plan. After finishing this program and learning the ways to manage and obtaining the knowledge required for the leader I plan to open a non-profit organization that will provide care to low-income and underserved families in our communities. Special attention will be paid to small children and new mothers. This will include weekly post-delivery home visits, nursing instruction, infection prevention, baby care teachings and many more.
There are numbers of nurses and social workers helping families in needs right now, but not many of them combine their powers and promote the importance of such actions. Connecting these people and creating the organization or an institution with the status functions, collective intentionality and deontic powers circulating within will allow healthcare providers to become a part of it serve their purpose to the community. And in return the community will get the needed care.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
My thoughts about family presence during resuscitation
The subject of family members being present during resuscitation is very personal not only to relatives and friends of patients, but also to healthcare providers. Based on a survey study, my own experience of being present during resuscitation of a family member, and my experiences as a professional nurse I strongly believe that family should not be present during resuscitation of their loved ones.
The first resuscitation that I witnessed was during my clinical rotations at the critical care unit/ER where a woman and her sixteen year old son carried a fifty year old man onto the second floor of our hospital. Two nurses and one doctor helped her to put this man on the gurney and one of the nurses walked both the woman and her son out of the room. It was there and then that I was first startled by the thought that the family wasn’t allowed to stay with their dying loved one. The patient passed away and the doctor and one of the nurses went outside of the room to notify the family. I and another nursing student were ordered to clean the room and make the patient presentable for the family. While disconnecting the tubes and bringing the room into order we could hear that woman scream and cry in the hallway. When she was finally allowed in the room she came up to the body, held her husband’s hand and talked to him quietly. It was a shocking experience for me, my first time seeing death up-close and touching a dead body. I finished the day, came home and cried for hours. After a week or so went by, I gradually came out of this shocking experience. I was still disturbed by the fact that the family was escorted outside of the room during resuscitation. I strongly believed that presence of the family members during resuscitation could support the emotional being of the dying patient, make his dying process more comfortable and less frightening, and would provide a chance for the family to say the last good-bye to the dying loved one.
Unfortunately, shortly after graduation, I found myself on the other side of the line. It was me, kneeling by the bed and holding the hand of my dying grandmother, who was being resuscitated by physicians and nurses. This time, I was screaming and crying, not outside of the room, but inside, by the bed, holding the hand of my dear and closest person. I was seventeen. During those 7-10 most horrible minutes of my life, not even once did I say anything that would comfort her death, and not even for a second did I think about saying my last good-bye to her. My grandmother spent ten days in the hospital after suffering massive burns on her body. She was healing well until one day she suffered a mild heart attack and was transferred to the cardiac unit. While being a teenager, I never thought that something bad could happen to my family member, especially to the person that raised me. She passed away ten minutes before midnight on November 24th, 2002.
How ludicrous that I thought that presence of a family member during attempts of saving a life would be beneficial to the patient, relatives and medical personnel. Now, after this horrible experience I realized that it didn’t really benefit me or my grandmother in any way. This encounter with death of a close family member left a scar in my heart and I am sure it was emotional and distracting for the doctor and nurses to observe my reaction which may have in turn prevented them from doing the best job they could. I yelled at the nurse and almost hit her, when she turned off the oxygen flow and was about to take off the oxygen mask. I ordered the doctors to continue the chest compressions. After the healthcare team pronounced my grandmother dead, I begged them to continue resuscitation and blocked the door with my body in order to keep them in the room and continue CPR. I was becoming helpless, at the same time aggressive, and I refused to accept the fact that my grandmother had passed away.
Weeks afterwards, this day seemed like a bad dream. I was hoping that I would wake up one day and my grandma would be cooking my breakfast and everything would be fine like it was before. I spent three sleepless weeks with a horrible picture of my grandmother in the casket, the sound of dirt hitting the coffin lid. Later, I was still alone with no-one to support me around. These emotional experiences were aggravated by seeing my grandmother die and witnessing the resuscitation.
Today is May 2nd, 2010; my grandmother would have turned eighty-two on this day. The image that I see in my head is of my grandma holding my hand, closing her eyes and a straight line on the monitor. I don’t feel that I expressed much needed love or provided support to my grandmother during the last few minutes of her life; instead I feel terrible that I haven’t had a chance to say “Good-bye” and say “I love you more than anything in this world.” Even if my presence would have stimulated her will to live in any way, nothing could have changed her physical condition. Her kidneys failed to perform and her heart would have stopped. Instead, if she heard me screaming while she still could, she would probably be worried about leaving me all alone. I really feel terrible about the fact that she left this world worried and concerned and possibly not in peace. Up until now I do not feel that medical personnel did everything possible to save my grandmother, even though deep inside, as a nurse, I know that there was absolutely nothing else they could have done. Being present during resuscitation didn’t help me cope with my grandmother’s death in any way; instead this scene keeps hunting me several years later and will probably stay in my mind forever. I am more than sure, that if I would have stayed outside of the room with the nurse and was being updated on grandmother’s condition I would have coped much better with her death, would have told her my last good-bye, and it would have helped me to accept the reality faster.
Besides my personal experience, I have conducted a survey study over a period of one week on people’s opinions regarding family members being present during resuscitation. Here are the results of this research: twenty-two percent of all participants said that at least one family member should be present during resuscitation. None of those twenty-two percent were healthcare providers. And other twenty-two percent stated that presence of a family member should be offered and discussed with the patient and his family prior to the critical moment. Again, none of the partakers were related to healthcare industry. And the last fifty-six percent, sixty percent of which were in healthcare industry and other forty percent in technology and computer science, stated that family should not be present during resuscitation attempts due to the pressure and stress on healthcare providers, risk of interference and potential injury, and resulting emotional difficulties from the mental trauma undertaken by family members during resuscitation. All fifty six percent agreed upon family being kept outside of the room with a nurse or a social worker keeping them aware of the patient’s condition. Based on this research I can tell that family presence during resuscitation can be offered depending on special circumstances, but in most cases family members should be encouraged to stay outside and be kept well aware of the situation.
As a nurse I strongly believe that while in the hospital, patients and their families should be viewed as one, cared for, and taken in consideration during patients’ care. Even before the terminally ill patient is admitted to the hospital, his/her family should be under close supervision of the healthcare providers due to the risks of developing mental and emotional distress. Families should be offered the emotional and psychiatric support not only after the death of a family member but also before in order to guide and prepare them for the worst. Families need to better understand the situation and accept the fact of what’s coming to ease the burden of coping with the loss.
The first resuscitation that I witnessed was during my clinical rotations at the critical care unit/ER where a woman and her sixteen year old son carried a fifty year old man onto the second floor of our hospital. Two nurses and one doctor helped her to put this man on the gurney and one of the nurses walked both the woman and her son out of the room. It was there and then that I was first startled by the thought that the family wasn’t allowed to stay with their dying loved one. The patient passed away and the doctor and one of the nurses went outside of the room to notify the family. I and another nursing student were ordered to clean the room and make the patient presentable for the family. While disconnecting the tubes and bringing the room into order we could hear that woman scream and cry in the hallway. When she was finally allowed in the room she came up to the body, held her husband’s hand and talked to him quietly. It was a shocking experience for me, my first time seeing death up-close and touching a dead body. I finished the day, came home and cried for hours. After a week or so went by, I gradually came out of this shocking experience. I was still disturbed by the fact that the family was escorted outside of the room during resuscitation. I strongly believed that presence of the family members during resuscitation could support the emotional being of the dying patient, make his dying process more comfortable and less frightening, and would provide a chance for the family to say the last good-bye to the dying loved one.
Unfortunately, shortly after graduation, I found myself on the other side of the line. It was me, kneeling by the bed and holding the hand of my dying grandmother, who was being resuscitated by physicians and nurses. This time, I was screaming and crying, not outside of the room, but inside, by the bed, holding the hand of my dear and closest person. I was seventeen. During those 7-10 most horrible minutes of my life, not even once did I say anything that would comfort her death, and not even for a second did I think about saying my last good-bye to her. My grandmother spent ten days in the hospital after suffering massive burns on her body. She was healing well until one day she suffered a mild heart attack and was transferred to the cardiac unit. While being a teenager, I never thought that something bad could happen to my family member, especially to the person that raised me. She passed away ten minutes before midnight on November 24th, 2002.
How ludicrous that I thought that presence of a family member during attempts of saving a life would be beneficial to the patient, relatives and medical personnel. Now, after this horrible experience I realized that it didn’t really benefit me or my grandmother in any way. This encounter with death of a close family member left a scar in my heart and I am sure it was emotional and distracting for the doctor and nurses to observe my reaction which may have in turn prevented them from doing the best job they could. I yelled at the nurse and almost hit her, when she turned off the oxygen flow and was about to take off the oxygen mask. I ordered the doctors to continue the chest compressions. After the healthcare team pronounced my grandmother dead, I begged them to continue resuscitation and blocked the door with my body in order to keep them in the room and continue CPR. I was becoming helpless, at the same time aggressive, and I refused to accept the fact that my grandmother had passed away.
Weeks afterwards, this day seemed like a bad dream. I was hoping that I would wake up one day and my grandma would be cooking my breakfast and everything would be fine like it was before. I spent three sleepless weeks with a horrible picture of my grandmother in the casket, the sound of dirt hitting the coffin lid. Later, I was still alone with no-one to support me around. These emotional experiences were aggravated by seeing my grandmother die and witnessing the resuscitation.
Today is May 2nd, 2010; my grandmother would have turned eighty-two on this day. The image that I see in my head is of my grandma holding my hand, closing her eyes and a straight line on the monitor. I don’t feel that I expressed much needed love or provided support to my grandmother during the last few minutes of her life; instead I feel terrible that I haven’t had a chance to say “Good-bye” and say “I love you more than anything in this world.” Even if my presence would have stimulated her will to live in any way, nothing could have changed her physical condition. Her kidneys failed to perform and her heart would have stopped. Instead, if she heard me screaming while she still could, she would probably be worried about leaving me all alone. I really feel terrible about the fact that she left this world worried and concerned and possibly not in peace. Up until now I do not feel that medical personnel did everything possible to save my grandmother, even though deep inside, as a nurse, I know that there was absolutely nothing else they could have done. Being present during resuscitation didn’t help me cope with my grandmother’s death in any way; instead this scene keeps hunting me several years later and will probably stay in my mind forever. I am more than sure, that if I would have stayed outside of the room with the nurse and was being updated on grandmother’s condition I would have coped much better with her death, would have told her my last good-bye, and it would have helped me to accept the reality faster.
Besides my personal experience, I have conducted a survey study over a period of one week on people’s opinions regarding family members being present during resuscitation. Here are the results of this research: twenty-two percent of all participants said that at least one family member should be present during resuscitation. None of those twenty-two percent were healthcare providers. And other twenty-two percent stated that presence of a family member should be offered and discussed with the patient and his family prior to the critical moment. Again, none of the partakers were related to healthcare industry. And the last fifty-six percent, sixty percent of which were in healthcare industry and other forty percent in technology and computer science, stated that family should not be present during resuscitation attempts due to the pressure and stress on healthcare providers, risk of interference and potential injury, and resulting emotional difficulties from the mental trauma undertaken by family members during resuscitation. All fifty six percent agreed upon family being kept outside of the room with a nurse or a social worker keeping them aware of the patient’s condition. Based on this research I can tell that family presence during resuscitation can be offered depending on special circumstances, but in most cases family members should be encouraged to stay outside and be kept well aware of the situation.
As a nurse I strongly believe that while in the hospital, patients and their families should be viewed as one, cared for, and taken in consideration during patients’ care. Even before the terminally ill patient is admitted to the hospital, his/her family should be under close supervision of the healthcare providers due to the risks of developing mental and emotional distress. Families should be offered the emotional and psychiatric support not only after the death of a family member but also before in order to guide and prepare them for the worst. Families need to better understand the situation and accept the fact of what’s coming to ease the burden of coping with the loss.
Determinism or a free will
Do we have a predetermined fate that awaits us or do we make the decisions ourselves?
I am going to speak for myself because I don’t want to offend anyone, especially religious people.
I personally do not believe that we have a fate that is awaiting us. The only destiny we might have that is definitely predetermined for all of us is the death. Every living, breathing, kicking creature ends up dying. Other than that we are not preset to what we are going to do or who we will become. We make these decisions ourselves based on the circumstances, based on the actions of other people, and based on the outcomes of our own actions. Of course there is always a chance to calculate the possibility of someone else’s actions by determining what you are or somebody else is going to do. Just like playing chess, people calculate the probability of the next five steps.
Of course I am not denying the fact that we are influenced by the outside laws, like physical and electromagnetic laws. If there weren’t any laws of Nature, we wouldn’t be able to survive. But we still control our thoughts. For example, I know I cannot fly, because I don’t have wings, but I can still dream about flying. Therefore the law of gravity doesn’t affect my thoughts. Also let’s say someone made me very angry and I am thinking in my head, that I would like to hit this person. But I choose not to. As a result I am not driven by the electric activity in my brain to raise my hand and hit that person, instead I chose to create another electric activity that will allow me to turn around and simply leave. Based on this I can say that we do have a free will and laws of nature, physical and electrical laws are helping us execute our free will. Choices we decide to pick, actions we choose to make are executed with the help of laws of nature, but not always driven by them.
What are your thoughts?
I am going to speak for myself because I don’t want to offend anyone, especially religious people.
I personally do not believe that we have a fate that is awaiting us. The only destiny we might have that is definitely predetermined for all of us is the death. Every living, breathing, kicking creature ends up dying. Other than that we are not preset to what we are going to do or who we will become. We make these decisions ourselves based on the circumstances, based on the actions of other people, and based on the outcomes of our own actions. Of course there is always a chance to calculate the possibility of someone else’s actions by determining what you are or somebody else is going to do. Just like playing chess, people calculate the probability of the next five steps.
Of course I am not denying the fact that we are influenced by the outside laws, like physical and electromagnetic laws. If there weren’t any laws of Nature, we wouldn’t be able to survive. But we still control our thoughts. For example, I know I cannot fly, because I don’t have wings, but I can still dream about flying. Therefore the law of gravity doesn’t affect my thoughts. Also let’s say someone made me very angry and I am thinking in my head, that I would like to hit this person. But I choose not to. As a result I am not driven by the electric activity in my brain to raise my hand and hit that person, instead I chose to create another electric activity that will allow me to turn around and simply leave. Based on this I can say that we do have a free will and laws of nature, physical and electrical laws are helping us execute our free will. Choices we decide to pick, actions we choose to make are executed with the help of laws of nature, but not always driven by them.
What are your thoughts?
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