A Reaction to Uncle Toms Cabin essays

A Reaction to Uncle Toms Cabin essays A Reaction to Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin So this is the little lady who made this big war. Abraham Lincolns legendary comment upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe demonstrates the significant place her novel, Uncle Toms Cabin, holds in American history. Published in book form in 1852, the novel quickly became a national bestseller and stirred up strong emotions in both the North and South. The context in which Uncle Toms Cabin was written, therefore, is just as significant as the actual content. Among other things, Stowes publication of her novel was stimulated by the increasing tensions among the nations citizens and by her fervent belief that slavery was brutally immoral. While she was still young, Harriets family moved from Hartford, Connecticut to Cincinnati, Ohio. At the time, Cincinnati was a battleground for pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces, as well as being a city of religious revivalism, temperance conflicts, and race riots. Her father was a congregationalist minister and her oldest sister, Catherine, was a writer on social reform questions. It is not surprising, therefore, that because of her environment, Harriet became involved in movements emphasizing the moral injustice of slavery. Probably the most significant influence on Harriets writing Uncle Toms Cabin, however, was the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1950. Under the law, people who assisted a runaway slave could receive a fine of $1,000 and six months in prison. Naturally, the statute broadened the slavery debate by involving the northern states in the apprehension of runaway slaves. The North, who had previously adopted a not-our-problem attitude toward slavery, now was forced into a direct role in its propagation. These influences were directly responsible for Stowes creation of Uncle Toms Cabin and its characters, which in h...

Spinozas Theory of Emotions Essays

Spinozas Theory of Emotions Essays Spinozas Theory of Emotions Paper Spinozas Theory of Emotions Paper Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 Analysing and synthesizing passions Aspects of Cartesian and Spinozist method It has often been noted that in the third part of his „Ethicsâ€Å" Spinoza follows in his list of definitions of affects to a great extent the one of passions given by Descartes in his â€Å"Passions de lAme† (apart from divergent evaluations of some of the passions1, like Spinoza? s refusal to include admiratio among them). It also appears that both of them are building a taxonomy of passions that introduces some kind of hierarchical order among these. We find both in Descartes as well as in Spinoza a set of passions2 out or by means of which further, in some sense more complex or specific passions are being developed from. What will be my guiding interest in this essay, is to compare and distinguish the two theories of passion according to the sense in which basic or primary passions are named thus and the way they are being discovered or identified and thereby hinting at a difference on the more general level of methodology. I want to begin with what is a starting point in Descartes? and Spinoza? s defining the passions in a general manner. It is very interesting and insightful to compare the procedures through which they arrive at their different conceptions of passions and at identifying and defining the basic ones. It is true that they both operate with the notion of causa as a starting point for their distinction between action and passion, but we should draw our attention to what follows and what comes in between their principles of causality and the definitions of the basic affects to rightly appreciate the differ ence in their approaches. In reality, though, we already find important differences in the relational structure between the notions of action, passion and cause. In the very first paragraph of the â€Å"Passions de lAme†, Descartes starts with a very general principle, adopted from other philosophers, which consists in distinguishing within the components of a causal event between two things: an 1 As Spinoza, like Descartes, names several of the defined entities in part III of the „Ethicsâ€Å" „passionsâ€Å", except from those actions whose „adaequata possimus esse causaâ€Å" (see EIIID3), I will subsequently continue to talk about pas sions, without differentiation between their being cartesian or spinozist, where this distinction by Spinoza can be applied. The references in my quotations from Spinozas â€Å"Ethics† I will always abbreviate with â€Å"E†, followed by roman num bers for the respective part, then the letters â€Å"D† for â€Å"definitione†, â€Å"P† for â€Å"propositio† plus the respective arabic numbers, â€Å"Sch† for â€Å"scholium†, â€Å"Cor† for â€Å"corollarium† etc. References to the â€Å"Passion de lAme† will be abbrevi ated by â€Å"P† plus â€Å" §Ã¢â‚¬  and the respective number of the paragraph. Also here it is adequate to speak only of passions in Spinoza`s use or the term because indeed in part 3 of the Ethics we find such affects that are derived from tristitia (which is always a passion) and laetitia only as far as „in nobis aliquid fit vel ex nostra natura aliquid sequitur, cujus nos non nisi partialis sumus causaâ€Å" (EIIID2), which means being passive. Whether kinds of active joy or even such with compon ents of passive joy can be derived from the basic affects is another question and we will shortly come back on this again. Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 active and a passive part in relation to which one and the same event may be called either an action or a passion. So in every single case that falls under this kind of structure we necessarily have one active and one passive component that will determine the perspective on the event relating them and decide whether it is an action or a passion. In Spinoza, on the other hand, we find a completely different structure in the relational field among these notions and we may suppose that this will have consequences on his further proceeding. First we have to consider that for Spinoza it is not enough or even wrong to say of a thing that it is active or acting insofar as it is producing an effect on some other thing. Instead, he is connecting the property of being active to self causality, when he writes in part I that God alone, as a free cause, exists and acts solely out of the necessity of his own nature 3. As God is not only causing all the finite modes but unlike these and primarily himself, it would be absurd to say that he is therefore active and passive at once. Thus, we somehow find the paradigm for activity in God? s self-causation. This also means that we can only define action and passion in their meaning for human beings in a different, more specific sense, namely, characterized as affections (and their ideas) that either augment or diminish some body? s potentia agendi. Compared to Descartes then, we also get a different idea of cause and effect, as they are not in every case identifiable as one active and one passive component connected through some affection that is always action and passion at the same time; rather, insofar as we are the adequate cause of this affection in us it is an action and we can be called active, whereas insofar as we are only an inadequate and partial cause of some affection in us we suffer a passion and are passive 4. So, what is a passion and what an action is less seen in relation to a cause and it? s effect as the one acting on the other, but rather in relation to a contextual or local conception of cause. It seems that one and the same affection can be seen in Spinoza? s thinking as action and passion at once just in case that it can be achieved to conceive of the cause in question (an idea for example) as at the same time adequate and inadequate concerning the scope that the idea of this cause comprises 5. As God can never be conceived of as 3 See EIP17Cor I and II. There is of course a very delicate aspect about the use of the words „inâ€Å" and „extraâ€Å" when Spinoza for example writes: „Nos tum agere dico, cum aliquid in nobis aut extra nos fit, cujus adaequata sumus causa ( )â€Å" (EIIID2). One might ask in what sense there can be effects outside of us insofar as we (our ideas, the affections of our body) have to be seen as their adequate causes without which the effect can not be conceived of nor exist (see EIID2, where „es senceâ€Å" is defined which is not easy to distinguish from an adequate cause). What one can follow along such considerations is a certain expansive trait in Spinoza? s theories of body and mind. 5 Therefor Spinoza writes in EIIIP1: „Further, whatever necessarily follows from an idea which in God is adequate, not insofar as He not only comprises the mind of a single man, but also the minds of other things together with the mind of this man, of this [†¦] the mind of this man is not the adequate, but the partial cause, and therefor (according to definition 2 of this part), insofar as the mind has inadequate ideas, it necessarily suffers some things. (Mind that all the English quotations from primary literature will be my translations from the original language (in this case Latin) with support drawn from the respective German translation, which is due to my lack of English edition at the time of writing this essay. ) 2 Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 partial cause of himself, he can only be thought of as active. A changing from passion to action in a mode is not being accomplished then by changing the direction in the relation between cause and effect, but by changing the affective condition of the mode by expanding it and transforming it to an adequate cause of the affect that has been a passion. I would like now to concentrate on the two philosophers proceeding in establishing the basic passions; and here I think we can observe some important features that can help us to recognize the pe culiarities of their methodologies which are commonly referred to as analytic in Descartes? ase and geometrical or synthetic in Spinoza? s. Unlike Spinoza, who gives us a ready definition of affects that already includes the two possible versions of them (actions and passions) in the beginning of part III after not even having mentioned them in the preceding text 6, Descartes first has to go through a long process by employing his general principle of action and passion to the relationship between body and soul to arrive at a defini tion of passions. After distinguishing what we can find as the soul? s and the body? proper functions and he makes us realize that there is a number of mental functions that could rightly be called passions of the soul; namely all those perceptions or cognitions (P §17: â€Å"toutes les sortes de perceptions ou connoissances†) which have the body as their cause and not the soul itself (see P §19). Then he goes on to distinguish different sorts of such perceptions among themselves, relying in every step of analysis on criteria of how their formation dependence from soul or body or if they show a relation to a notable and determinate perceptual cause that has been transmitted to the soul by nerves 7. Among the latter sort of perceptions, he again distinguishes and at last finds to which the name â€Å"passions of the soul†, following an ordinary restriction in the use of the expression, can be applied8, defining them in a general manner as follows: â€Å"After having considered in what the passions of the soul differ from all the other thoughts, it seems to me that one can generally define them as perceptions or sentiments or emotions of the soul which particularly referred to her, and which are caused, maintained and fortified by some movement of the animal spirits. (P §27) 6 Apart from one rather nontechnical occurrence in part one and one very general reference to affects as â€Å"modi cogit andi† in the third axiom of part two. 7 See P §21: â€Å"Or encore que quelques unes de ces imaginations soient des passions de lame, en prenant ce mot en sa plus propre plus particuliere signification; quelles puissent estre toutes ainsi nommees, si on le prend en un e signification plus generale: toutefois, pource quelles nont pas une cause si notable si determinee, que les perceptions que lame recoit par lentremise des nerves (†¦), il faut considerer la difference qui est entre ces autres. 8 See P §25: â€Å"Or encore que toutes nos perceptions (†¦) soient veritablement des passions au regard de nostre ame, lors quon prend ce mot sa plus generale signification: toutefois on a coustume de le restreindre a signifier seulement celles qui se rapportent a lame mesme. Et ce ne sont que ces dernieres, que jai entrepris icy dexpliquer sous le nom de passions de lame. † 3 Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 We can already see in this process that, what Descartes does, is a systematic and methodical analysis of notions that we usually do not understand properly. We are aware that there is something in each of us that we commonly call passions. But we do not, until now, really understand what they are, in what they consist, how they come about, etc. So if we want to understand our passions, just like with all the other phenomena that our scientific mind can be concerned with, we in the end need to understand their causes. In his monography â€Å"Expressionism in Philosophy, Spinoza†, Gilles Deleuze characterizes Descartes? analytic method as a process of rendering on the basis of clear and distinct ideas of effects the initially confused ideas of their causes clear and distinct. One can even say that the clear and distinct knowledge of a cause depends on the clear and distinct knowledge of its effect9. Spinoza, opposing these basic ideas in Descartes method, conceives of the right way to attain to real knowledge in an entirely different way in thinking that we always have to proceed from adequate ideas of some causes to adequate ideas of their effects and that the former consist in definitions that are appropriate for expressing the essence of this cause and also involve already the essence of its effects. So we can see how from Spinoza? s point of view the whole procedure of Descartes tries to go in a wrong direction. What has to be done first in Descartes method is not to elaborate a definition that adequately expresses the essence of the cause of the things that we want to explain and get to know, but to attain to clear and distinct ideas of those things whose causes we subsequently want to discover, â€Å"and thence show that the effect would not be what we know it to be, did it not have such a cause on which it necessarily depends†10. In Descartes? iew, the synthetic method is nothing more than a way of demonstrating a proof what has been found by means of the analytic method that has the disadvantage of not demonstrating the concrete way in which we really attained to the demonstrated knowledge, how effects really depend on their causes (which can only be achieved by analytic demonstration) and only has the merit of expositing the strict dependency of the propositions befo re discovered11. So, if Descartes demands starting with elaborating a clear and distinct idea of the effect that we want to examine, we can see now how he attains to this in the first part of the â€Å"Passions de lAme†. Descartes speaks of the causes of our perceptions with a different interest before in part two he starts to develop the particular definitions of the single passions. First his aim appears to be exactly to form a clear and distinct idea of the passions in a general sense concerning which the main prob9 See Deleuze, Gilles: â€Å"Expressionism in Philosophy, Spinoza†, pp. 155-156 10 Ibid. , p. 156. In a footnote to this sentence, Deleuze quotes Descartes third meditation to give an example that is apt to show the extreme difference to Spinoza? method: â€Å"I recognize that it would not be possible for my nature to be as it is, that is, that I should have in myself the idea of God, did not God really exist. † 11 See Deleuze, Gilles: â€Å"Expressionism in Philosophy, Spinoza†, p. 159; Roth, Leon: â€Å"Spinoza and Cartesianism (II)†, p. 161 4 Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 lem seems to be that we usually feel our passions like effects in our soul itself, without seeing any proximate (physical or nervous) cause 12. Only by distinguishing them from the other (passive) perceptions we can have a clear and distinct idea of our passions in general. But in part two Descartes explains that for gaining knowledge of the particular passions this knowledge of the proximate physical cause (some particular movement in the pineal gland) will not suffice and that instead we have to ask for their first cause in order to distinguish the single passions. But, having in mind that Descartes wants to proceed from clear and distinct ideas to their causes and render them clear and distinct as well, the question seems to be again: How can we find the causes of the single passions, if we dont have a clear and distinct idea of them yet? And: Do we not need first the causes of the single passions in order to be able to distinguish them and see them clearly? How do we, so to say, fill the gap which is lurking here? But, as we can see in  §51, there is really a priority of the knowledge of effects over the knowledge of their causes, as Descartes writes: â€Å"( ) still it can be inferred from what has been said that all of these passions can be aroused by the objects that move the senses, and that these objects are their most common and principal causes: from this it follows that, for finding them all, it is sufficient to consider all the effects of these objects. In the next paragraph Descartes specifies that we have to consider, in enumerating and ordering the effects (the passions) in the soul, nothing than the different manners in which their causes have importance or are useful for us, and these manners we can find in the effects themselves before we can know their exact (physical) causes. After having distingu ished the single passions we then can go on to infer their exact causes and define them in a precise way. It is important to notice that the â€Å"passions principales† that Descartes enumerates in the beginning of the second part correlate to the clear and distinct ideas of the effects through which we want to infer their necessary causes, but that there is an additional step in between. It is actually the conclusion from a reduction along these preliminary characterizations to the six passions that are recurring in these everywhere to the reduction to physical causes through which we will be able to explain especially those â€Å"simple primitives† passions, which gives us the sense in which they are conceived as simple and primitive. According to Descartes, we do not need and will not find an independent, distinct cause for each of the principal passions, but as we saw that some of them are contained in the clear and distinct ideas of others and that those few together cover all of them, it will be sufficient to discover their causes alone. The explanations of the â€Å"passions particulieres† (at least in their physiological part) will depend solely on them. Even more, Descartes seems to infer that these six 12 See P §25: â€Å"Les perceptions quon raporte seulement a lame, sont celles dont on sent les effets comme en lame mesme, desquelles on ne connoist communement aucune cause prochaine, a laquelle on les puisse raporter. † 5 Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 basic passions are also â€Å"primitive† in a developmental psychological sense when he is tracing back the specific movements of the blood and animal spirits while feeling love, hate, joy, sadness and desire to first experiences of basic physiological processes in the soul after being connected with the body. Thus, the â€Å"primitive passions† are also more primitive as they occur first in every individuals life (see P §Ã‚ §107-111). And in a third sense they are primitive or simple as they can be conceived as simple or pure when we think of their initial occurrences in an individual and also the possibility of their being isolated from certain inclinations and dispositions or their combination/mixture with other primitive passions 13. So, we can read in  §82 about the different kinds of love that, if freed from all desires to possess, the love of a father to his children is pure, as well as can be (especially) admiratio and the other primitive passions. Thus Descartes â€Å"passions particuliers† are found to be complex, secondary passions as a result of his analytical or reductive method: First, they are explainable by means of the definitions or causes of the simple passions. Secondly, they develop in the process of experiences, in the interaction between body and soul out of the primitive passions. Thirdly, they are always mixed out of simple passions, they are their proportions in addition to certain physical inclinations and provoked by cer tain ideas. So, how does Spinoza arrive at defining primary passions and and how does he relate further ones to them? What are the principles behind his taxonomy? As we know, Spinoza does not use the concept of affect in a significant way before his definition in the beginning of the third part. This seems strange and dissatisfying from the perspective of Descartes` method. Does Spinoza just invent a definition? But as inventing does not at all appear like a methodical step in an inquiry, there seems to be a arbitrary element14. There are no conceptual analyses by means of relevant distinctions and no inferences of proximate or first causes from ideas that we can perceive clearly in our mind. What is rather the source for the general definition of affects in part three, the ground on which it rests, is Spinoza`s theory of mind and body, developed in the preceding part, whose major characteristic is its parallelism and which again has its origin in the metaphysics of substance mon 13 Indeed we find in most of the definitions of the particular passions in the third part of the â€Å"Passions de lAme† either an explanation through a certain inclination or disposition of the soul which are caused by a certain movement of the animal spirits in the brain that leave impressions which in return reinforce certain ideas that we form about an object (like in the case of esteem and disdain: see P §149). On the other hand there are those passion that are defined as mixtures of the movements that cause one or the other primitive passion (like in the case of hope and fear: see P §165) 14 See chapter 4 in Jonathan Bennett? s â€Å"A Study of Spinoza? s Ethics†, where he criticizes Spinozas geometrical method as highly self-referential or idiosyncratic and therefore not well founded. I believe that he is misinterpreting what Spinoza himself saw as the merits of his method, on which his â€Å"Tractatus de intellectus emendatione† can shed some light. 6 Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 ism in part one. Contrary to Descartes in the â€Å"Passions†, he therefore does not grasp an idea, like passion, action, perception and the like, to subsequently try through a process of analysis to arrive at an adequate definition of this concept by distinguishing it from other ideas; but really begins from his definition of substance, God, or Nature, from which he attempts to show that everything else follows. In the â€Å"Tractatus de intellectus emendatione†, Spinoza stresses that in attaining knowledge through a right method we can only proceed from causes to effects 15 and that we have therefore to start with the best definitions of what we take as a cause: â€Å"Quare recta inveniendi via est ex data aliqua definitione cogitationes formare: quod eo felicius et facilius procedet, quo rem aliquam melius definiverimus. †16. According to this, Spinoza`s way can be described rather like a productive process of construction (truly reminding of the geometrical sense) in which the developed figures are a posteriori given names that have already been familiar to us, like â€Å"action† and â€Å"passion†, â€Å"joy† and â€Å"sadness†. He is less looking for their appropriate content, but rather encounters or meets proceeding along the axioms, definitions and laws that he establishes by and by, and thus with a method – the true natures of those things of which we have always had only inadequate ideas. We can very well observe this procedure in how Spinoza arrives at his definitions of the basic af fects and we can also try to rightly understand the sense in which they are primitive or primary and the others composite or deduced. The crucial step in developing something that can bear the name â€Å"affect† is maybe, when in EIIIP4 first we find the proof (based on evidence) that a thing can only be destroyed by an external cause and then in EIIIP6, Spinoza concludes that, as nothing contrary to a subject? s existence can be part of it, there has to be a strive for self-perseverance in every thing according to its own nature. It is the conscious idea of this strive which explains our first basic affect: desire (cupiditas). The deduced strive for self-perseverance, named conatus, then also serves as the concept by which our two other primary affects can be understood: an alteration in our mind that conforms to our conatus will be called joy (laetitia), while an alteration opposed to it will be called sadness (tristitia). We should note here that between desire on the one hand and joy and sadness on the other there seems to be a certain difference, as Spinoza calls the latter ones in the same passage where he defines them â€Å"passiones†, whereas the former is first characterized only as affect and in 15 See the â€Å"Tractatus de intellectus emendatione†: â€Å"Nam revera cognitio effectus nihil es, quam perfectiorem causae cognitionem acquirere. (†¦) Sed optima conclusio erit depromende ab essentia aliqua particulari affirmativa, sive a vera et legitima definitione. †, p. 70; and also Deleuze, Gilles: â€Å"Expressionism in Philosophy, Spinoza†, pp. 157f. An important aspect is that Spinoza correlates a legitimate and true definition to an affirmative essence. There we can see that defining a certain thing can not consist in showing difference to another thing, be it even an essential difference, but only in affirming its positive essence. 16 Spinoza: â€Å"Tractatus de intellectus emendatione†, p. 70 7 Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 deed it seems difficult to conceive of how desire, as being the conscious idea of our conatus could be a passion. But Spinoza will specify (in EIIIP58 f. ) that joy as well as desire must and indeed only they can be called active insofar as their cause consists in an adequate idea. So, although desire might be taken somehow to follow from the two other basic affects, expressing rather a current condition of our mind than a transition into a different state of perfection, the guiding distinction that accounts for Spinoza? exclusive occupation with definitions of passions in part three, separates active desire and joy from passive desire, joy and sadness. Spinoza tells us in the same paragr aph in which he is introducing joy and sadness that he is acknow ledging only these along with desire as the three primary passions and that he will show how all the remaining originate in them 17. But how exactly does he achieve this? The main means which will allow him to account for a diversity of passions will be certain mechanisms or – better – dispositions of the mind by which it is urged to behave in a certain way and to proceed from one idea or one affect to another. The main enetic principles guiding the deduction of the variety of passions in part three are those of attribution of causality (through which love and hate are being defined), associ ation of affects (we can suffer a certain affect just because it has regularly accompanied another one, by which we are affected now, in the past), similarity (unknown things can cause affects in us simply because of their similarity to things we have already been affected by) and imitation (insofar as we have an idea of something similar to us suffering an affect, we will be naturally brought to suffer the same)18. Of great effectiveness are also Spinoza? s assumptions about how the mind will behave in reaction to certain ideas (for example to exclude the existence of a thing which is thought of as the cause of our sadness). These principles seem to suffice to develop the same variety of passions as have been defined by Descartes. But, as we have seen, there is obviously a significant difference between the two methods insofar as Spinoza, so to say, meets our common notions for passions on the way and annexes or almost usurps them for his purposes. The main focus about his method is on the deductive and genetic force of his concepts and definitions. This is why we often have to realize that, in spite of their relative conformity with how we would intuitively describe what our passions consist in, Spinoza is giving quite unconventional definitions that would maybe not convince us if taken out of the context of their interrelation. It is therefore not surprising that in several passages we find con 17 See EIIIP3: â€Å"( ) et praeter hos tres nullum alium agnosco affectum primarium: nam reliquos ex his tribus oriri in seqq. ostendam. † 18 See Renz, Ursula: â€Å"Spinoza: Philosophische Therapeutik der Emotionen†, pp. 322-327. 8 Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 iderations concerning the relation between his definitions and our common language for emotions, an aspect that is not at all as noticeable in Descartes because of his analytic approach that allows him to use our common language already before att aining to the knowledge of those phenomena we do have words for. Most remarkably, Spinoza admits that in defining the most important passions he does not want or can not (for some reason which might be very interesting to ask for as an explana tion of this fact) detach himself completely from the usual meanings of the names he adopts: â€Å"Haec nomina ex communi usu aliud significare scio. Sed meum institutum non est verborum significationem, sed rerum naturam explicare easque iis vocabulis indicare, quorum significatio, quam ex usu habent, a significatio, qua eadem usurpare volo, non omnino abhorrent, quod semel monuisse sufficat. † (EIIIDef. XX) On the other hand there is more than one passage in which seems to be completely indifferent to wards any affinities between his definitions and common meanings, as he repeatedly asserts that we can find much more affects than we have words for: â€Å"Et ad hunc modum concipere etiam possumus odium, spem, securitatem et alios affetus admirationi junctos; atque adeo plures affectus deducere poterimus, quam qui receptis vocabularis indicari solent. Unde apparent affectuum nomina inventa esse magis ex eorum vulgari usu quam eorundem accurata cognitione. † (EIIIP52Sch) Here again, it is significant that Spinoza talks of deducing an indefinite number of affects, while Descartes talks about distinguishing (see P §68). We also find the awareness in Descartes that he uses the general and particular words for our passions in a different way than we usually do (which seems always to go along with elaborating a theory). It may as well be supposed that Descartes ex pects there to be new combinations of the primitive passions that might lack a correspondent name in our ordinary language. But my comparison should have shown that the idea about generating new passions is of completely different kind than in Spinoza`s theory. Bibliography Beaney, Michael: Analysis, in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed. ), URL = . Bennett, Jonathan: A Study of Spinoza? s Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1984. Christian Scherrer, student number: 013851259 Deleuze, Gilles: Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, New York: Zone Books 1990. Descartes, Rene: Die Leidenschaften der Seele, Hamburg: Felix Meiner 1984. Renz, Ursula: Spinoza: Philosophische Therapeutik der E motionen, in: Klassische Emotionstheori en – Von Platon bis Wittgenstein, Hilge Landweer Ursula Renz (ed. ), Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter 2008. Spinoza, Baruch de: Opera/Werke, zweiter Band (Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione/Ethica), Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1978. Spinoza, Baruch de: Ethik in geometrischer Ordnung dargestellt, Hamburg: Felix Meiner 2007. 10

US Policy toward the Kazakhstan Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

US Policy toward the Kazakhstan - Term Paper Example From the very beginning United States had brought down some set of objectives in Central Asia, and had stuck these ideas to Kazakhstan, for this reason Kazakhstan remained the heart of Central Asia forever (Legvold, 82). The first country to recognize Kazakhstan was United States and this recognition took place on December 25, 1991. Since then a very strong bond had developed between these two countries (Kazakhstan). The administrations of United States starting from George H.W Bush to Clinton had made strategic decisions to achieve their goals (Legvold, 67). U.S. Policy According to President Obama main motive of Kazakhstan is to make sure that the country is well developed and stabilization is maintained in political sphere of the nation. According to the administration, Kazakhstan has made remarkable progress, and this was possible as U.S. had supported them throughout and finally the country gained independence in the year 1991 and could achieve their goals. For FY2012, U.S. government had helped to strengthen Kazakhstan as a strategic partner. The Obama administration had helped in launching annual bilateral consultations on various financial and political issues with Kazakhstan. The first meeting took place in Washington, DC, in the month of March 2010 and the second meeting took place in Astana which is Kazakhstan’s capital. ... The two leaders also decided various other ways by which Kazakhstan would help Afghanistan expand their transportation network in the northern region. President Obama also decided to continuously support the efforts of the government of Kazakhstan and helped in liberalizing its media and smoothen its political system with the help of legal reforms. Furthermore keeping in mind Obama’s interest in Kazakhstan, a consulate general named Almaty was opened (Nichol, 12-13). Economic Development of Kazakhstan Kazakhstan is one of the most financially developed nations of the Central Asian Republics. A major portion of the GDP is generated by two sectors that are Oil and Gas. Kazakhstan has been ranked sixth in the field of producing wheat, and it is also known to be the major exporter of wheat in the world. Around 33% of the population lies below the poverty line. President Nazarbayev had launched a plan to create a financially well developed, educated and self-sufficient country with in 2030.Again in 2005 he proposed to bring Afghanistan within the top 50 developed countries of the world in the next ten years. He emphasized on restoring tax and budgetary policies and paid more attention to developing the manufacturing sector so that the GDP growth not solely depends on the Oil and Gas sectors. In the year 2010, President Nazarbayev proposed a five year plan to give a big push to the industrial sector, in order to reach their goal as planned for 2030 (Nichol, 7-8). The Kazakhstan Massacre December 16, 2011 could have been one of the most memorable days for the people of Afghanistan as the nation became independent on that very day. But inspite of being a day of celebration, it was transformed into a doom’s day. Due to the Kazakhstan Massacre,

Text (chapter 7) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Text (chapter 7) - Essay Example Relevant employees should be recruited in their relevant fields of expertise so as to ensure quality output from each employee. Besides, Karen has also maintained that constant motivation is the only sure way of maintaining employees of high quality. The quality of output by each employee, according to her is determined by the level of motivation from the management. Karen suggests a number of ways through which motivation can be conducted in order to achieve the required target. To mention, she highlights promotion, salary increments, positive appraisals such as commendations are among the key factors she considers integral in developing positive contribution from each employee. To conclude, the quality of employees maintained by a business enterprise determines its success over time and space. A highly competent team of employee with adequate motivation from the management promotes the performance of the organization. However, the role of determining the quality of employees for any business enterprise lies with the management. Besides, it is the sole responsibility of the management to ensure that their employees are constantly motivated to maintain a high-quality

Francois Truffaut Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Francois Truffaut - Essay Example â€Å"Tradition of Quality† is the inclination of certain French scriptwriters and directors to mainly depend on literary adaptations to come up with their celluloid works. Although, the term was coined by Jean-Pierre Barrot in LÉcran franà §ais to refer to the inclination of directors like Claude Autant-Lara, Jean Delannoy and Yves Allà ©gret for literary adaptations, and the work of scriptwriters such as Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, it was Truffaut who denounced it and opposed it in his journalistic works. (Gonzà ¡lez 2003). Truffaut points out what constitutes â€Å"Tradition of Quality† and why films based on it are only regarded as France’s mainstream cinema. That is, with majority of the prominent French filmmakers and scriptwriters opting for literary adaptations for their films, as part of the â€Å"Tradition of Quality†, and importantly winning accolades including international appreciation for those works, it naturally came to be regarde d as the mainstream French cinema. However Truffaut is totally against this stereotyping of â€Å"Tradition of Quality† as the French cinema and also criticises the creators for forcefully stereotyping it both in the domestic as well as in the international arena. â€Å"†¦they force, by their ambitiousness, the admiration of the foreign press, defend the French flag twice a year at Cannes and at Venice where, since 1946, they regularly carry off medals, golden lions and grands prix† (Truffaut 1954, p. 9). The other key component which constitutes â€Å"Tradition of Quality† and which is also a ‘loose end’ of this concept is the instances of â€Å"equivalence betrayals† during literary adaptations. As part of â€Å"Tradition of Quality† scriptwriters in association with directors will change certain scenes featured in the novels and come up with equivalent scenes in the film’s

Benefits of Patient Representatives and Advocates

Benefits of Patient Representatives and Advocates What are patient representatives and advocates, and in what ways do they benefit patients? There has been an arguable change within the working practices of the healthcare systems in the UK (and elsewhere) in the recent few decades. One can point to the gradual evolution of the general public perception of the doctor / physician from an unchallengeable, unapproachable all-knowing figure embodying benign paternalism at the inception of the NHS to the still knowledgeable, but nevertheless accountable, healthcare professional who has to consider the patient’s needs and requirements but can still be capable of making decisions which may not be in the patient’s best overall interests. (1) This has been coupled with the ascendancy of other stakeholders, such as the pharmaceutical industry, whose aims and objectives may not always run parallel with the concept of holistic patient care. (2) One can also argue that the concept of advocacy has risen to the fore in recent years, as a result of such evolutionary processes, with most stakeholders agreeing that the role of the patient advocate is an essential prerequisite of modern healthcare systems and is believed to be a means of safeguarding good patient care. At first sight, this movement could be considered a universal concept of excellence with no downside, after all, patient centred care and patient empowerment and education are considered current ideals in healthcare delivery and surely patient advocacy must be considered a major tool in helping to achieve these goals? This essay challenges this notion and intends to set out the arguments both for and against this proposition. There is no doubt that the concept of advocacy has gained credence in the recent past and is considered to be a means of safeguarding standards of good patient care. (3) It is perhaps unsurprising that a number of different healthcare professional groupings claim the intrinsic right to be patient advocates suggesting, in support of their claims, that their particular branch of the profession has an inherent capability in the role. Closer inspection might suggest that the different professions, and indeed different individuals within these professions, may actually have different interpretations of, and applications for the role of the patient advocate. (4) The result of this spectrum of beliefs is that there is both confusion and uncertainty as to what advocacy is, or actually should be, what it entails and what values it should have. This is disturbing from an analytical viewpoint, as it is generally agreed that the concept of advocacy brings with it a number of privileges, some of which are largely based on the acceptance of the fact that the patient advocate is presumed to have insights into the way in which patients perceive their own interests, others include an enhancement of the individual’s own professional standing. To expand the first point further. We have used the term â€Å"patients perceived interests† to include their perceived beliefs into their rights and protective mechanisms, including their entitlement of force and degree of input into clinical decision making, relating to their own case. Despite the comments and considerations already presented, we would suggest that inherent in the discussions relating to patient advocacy, will be an element which considers whether there is an actual need for the patient advocate. If we are able to demonstrate a need, then we should also consider exactly what are the features that a patient advocate would need to embody and also it follows that we should discuss who is best suited to fulfil the role. Firstly then, we need to consider whether or not a patient advocate is actually needed in the current mechanisms of delivery of NHS healthcare. Is there actually a need to support patients, to express their perceived needs more vociferously, to ensure that their needs are taken seriously and that their interests are actively promoted? This is probably best illustrated by considering cases at the extreme end of the continuum of need. We can cite recently publicised cases where conjoined twins were separated by direction of a court despite the protestations and direct opposition of their parents (5). One can also consider a more frequently encountered practical problem, where the mentally ill patient decides to stop medication and the doctor in charge of the case disagrees. On face value, these types of situations appear to make a fairly unanswerable case for the existence of the patient advocate. On deeper examination however, one can take the view that the concept of advocacy can appear to impose certain difficulties in the obvious and necessary relationship between the healthcare professional and the patient, which may give it an appearance which is possibly neither required, desirable or actually merited. The presence of an advocate in the therapeutic negotiations between doctor and patient carries with it an implied suggestion that the two parties are not only in conflict over the decisions relating to the best (or most appropriate) treatment for the patient, but that the professionals may not actually have patient’s best interests in sight and may actually have ulterior motives from which the patient needs to be protected. Clearly this is an extreme position, and may well not be representative of the vast majority of doctor-patient interactions. We do not seek to argue against the fact that the ideal (and probably normal) relationship between doctor and patient is anything other than one of holistic care and that the healthcare professional takes the requirements and desires of the patient fully into account when formulating care plans and carrying out professional interactions. If we are correct in the assumption that this is actually the case, then it follows that, in the normal doctor-patient interaction, there is palpably no need for a patient advocate as this can be interpreted as being seen as an inherent part of the professional activity of a healthcare professional. This point of view is enhanced by an examination of the advice given and regulations imposed by the various professional regulatory bodies in the UK. For example, the GMC gives advice to all registered doctors: make the care of your patients your first concern, respect patients dignity and privacy; listen to patients and respect their views; respect the right of patients to be fully involved in decisions about their care. (6) The United Kingdom Central Committee for Nursing and Health Visiting (UKCC) also add that their recommendation is that their registered professionals should â€Å"ensure that the interests of patients inform every act of the practitioner† (cited in 7). Nurses specifically are directed to: act at all times in such a manner as to safeguard and promote the interests of patients and clients. Work in an open and cooperative manner with patients, clients and their families, foster their independence and recognise and respect their involvement in the planning and delivery of care. (8) All of these arguments and professional statements are consistent with the Ethical principal of Beneficence, which effectively charges all healthcare professionals with a duty to protect the patient from harm. It is probably beyond dispute that the vast majority of healthcare professionals, if asked, would suggest that they would adopt these principles in their professional work. If this is the case, then one could reasonably argue that there is no need for the patient advocate since the professionals in the healthcare system are already aware of their responsibilities in this respect and that an insistence on a requirement for a distinct and separate role of a patient advocate could be considered unnecessary, alarmist and fraught with the potential to produce conflict. (9) Part of the discrepancy in these viewpoints becomes obvious when one considers the right of the individual patient and the collective rights of all patients. Healthcare professionals have a duty of beneficence to the patient that they are treating, but there is also a wider responsibility to â€Å"The Public Health† in a general sense, and this certainly is a major source of potential conflict. This is not an academic argument but a very practical one. Closer examination of the documents cited above shows that, for example, the GMC requires doctors to consider and respond to the needs of â€Å"all patients† not just the individual patient that they are treating at the time. This clearly has a huge potential for producing conflict when, since the advent of initiatives such as Fundholding, many doctors also have varying degrees of responsibility for running their own budgets which then directly reflect on patient care. (2). Such conflicts enhance the perception, by the public at large, that their own perceived individual interests are being balanced by the doctor (or other healthcare professional) against the interests of other factions. If the doctor needs to prioritise treatment (as inevitably they must in a rationed service such as the NHS), the patient may believe that their own needs are being subsumed by a consideration of the greater public good, thereby depriving them of both autonomy and the possibility of achieving those treatment goals that would otherwise have been set for them. (10) One only has to consider the furore surrounding the Alderhey organ retention issue to appreciate that such a view has a considerable validity and topical resonance. This issue has been addressed by a number of authorities in the past. In a milestone paper on the issue, Fried compared the role of the advocate in the medical field with the eponymous role in the legal profession. (11) He drew a number of analogies between the doctor patient relationship and the relationship between the lawyer and the client, describing them both as non-utilitarian because: The ideal of professional loyalty to ones client permits, even demands, an allocation of the lawyers time, passion, and resources in ways that are not always maximally conducive to the greatest good for the greatest number. Both professions affirm the principle that the professionals primary loyalty is to his client, his patient. The case would therefore seem to be made for the presence of the patient advocate, although it is neither as transparent nor as clear cut as it might appear on first consideration. If we now consider the argument from a different perspective, we could look at the reasons why the calls for advocacy still persist in the literature. The NHS Plan 2000 called for the acceptance of multidisciplinary team working and the adoption of the concept of the healthcare team. As a result of this initiative, decisions relating to patient care tend to me made more often by a multi-input team of professionally qualified individuals than by one individual alone, particularly in the hospital setting ( although the same comments are arguably less true in a primary healthcare team setting). (12) In general terms, such decisions are made when the patient is typically ill, vulnerable or may have diminished degrees of (legal) competence. In circumstances such as these, it is easy to see why some authorities can argue that the patient may need a degree of extra support (possibly both practical and moral) to be sure that their own wishes, preferences and choices are heard, weighed and fully considered by the team. This is particularly the case where the patient’s choices may appear to be bizarre, irrational or counterintuitive. Certainly it is the case when the patient’s choice is not the one that is preferred by the clinical staff. Authorities such as Seedhouse suggest that, in these circumstances, the patient advocate can assume the mantle of helping the patient translate their expressed desires into a cogent treatment plan and to help to steer the healthcare team in the direction preferred by the patient. (13). The practicalities of this function being invested in a professional member of the treatment team become obvious when one considers that it is still normal practice to exclude the patient, even intelligent and informed ones, from the discussion forum where treatment plans and goals are formulated. The advocate can thereby ensure that the patient’s wishes and desires are still represented even in the circumstances when the patient is absent. (14). The other side of this argument is that the dual role of the patient advocate is also to report back to the patient the decisions of the team in a language and a context that is appropriate for the patient’s level of comprehension, thereby keeping the patient informed of decisions made. This degree of communication also provides an obstacle in the arguments supporting advocacy because it implies a full understanding and clear insight , by the advocate, of the patient’s needs (as the patient perceives them) so that the advocate can present them to the healthcare professionals in the team. Incomplete understanding of these issues can clearly lead to distortion and bias which undermines the usefulness of the arrangement. We alluded earlier to the fact that there was â€Å"both confusion and uncertainty as to what advocacy is, or actually should be†. Before we examine the subject further, it is useful to consult the literature for authorities on the subject. We have already presented Seedhouse’s view that an advocate speaks on behalf of another person as that person perceives his interests. This may be true, but it is not the way that advocacy is generally employed in the medical literature and medical practice. A brief overview of the literature on the subject will reveal a number of different interpretations of the essential characteristics of a patient advocate specifically in the healthcare setting and these include: Inform the patient and promote informed consent (8) Empower the patient and protect autonomy. (12) Protect the rights and interests of patients where they cannot protect their own. (3) Ensure patients have fair access to available resources. (15) Support the patient no matter what the potential cost (4) Represent the views/desires of the patient and not just their needs (4) If we follow Schwartz’s analysis it would appear that advocacy has two related tensions: Conflict between what can reasonably be an expected duty of health care practitioners, and what might be beyond reasonable expectations The difficulty in distinguishing between what is actual representation of patients wishes, and what is an assertion of what the advocate believes to be in the best interests of the patient, which would be better described as paternalism. The logical conclusion from the first point is that there is a dichotomy of opinion as to whether advocacy is an essential ethical professional duty or whether it is a burden which is not an essential prerequisite, but a choice that can be made voluntarily. It follows, from the arguments already set out, that if a patient advocate assumes the mantle of agreeing to try to present the patient’s perceptions of their situation and needs, unconditionally and accurately, then they may find themselves in a dilemma of discovering that the patient’s choices conflict with their own and require professional compromise which they may be unwilling to make. On a different level, it may impose a burden of anticipated conflict with other professionals. This may put the patient advocate in a situation which is clearly at odds with the views and guidance published by the profession’s governing bodies expressed earlier. For these (and other) reasons, we could therefore argue that advocacy may be better described as an admirable choice rather than and expectation and duty of healthcare professionals. (16). Wu (17) gives a good practical illustration of this point. How should a potential patient advocate respond to a request for an amputation of a healthy limb from a patient suffering from a body dimorphic syndrome? One might suspect that such a request would produce considerable conflict in the professional practice of the advocate, quite apart from the almost certain conflict that it would arouse with most other professionals when this view was expressed. The assumption of such a role in these circumstances would suggest that the advocate would have to exhibit unconditional support of the patient’s expressed needs and the ability to suppress their own professional feelings on the subject. The concept of paternalism is commonly confused with advocacy in the literature. Some authorities refer to advocacy (wrongly in our view) as the action of assisting a patient through their illness trajectory, or particular clinical procedure, by acting as a resource to provide clarification, advice and education. Halbach (18) suggests that this type of activity is not advocacy for the patient, as it is not as a representative of the patient that the advocate is acting, but as a representative of the healthcare system and clearly this is quite a different concept. It is clearly admirable to help and guide the patient through the complexities of a medical procedure and to minimise the possibilities of miscommunication that can occur if the patient’s own intellectual capacities and abilities are limited. This type of â€Å"advocacy† does not however, represent the patient, Indeed, one could argue that such paternalism may be inadvertently (or even overtly) utilised as an opportunity of the albeit well meaning healthcare professional to bias or frankly manipulate the patient into making the preferred choice. This type of activity, although promoted as one of the attributes and requirements of advocacy, does little to clarify the confusion that exists in this area, as it is essentially doing what the healthcare professional believes is best for the patient, or in the patient’s best interests, even though it may actually override the patient’s expressed needs. It needs to be contrasted with the definition of advocacy that we are arguing in this essay which is advocating what the patient wants, even if this goes against what the healthcare professional actually believes is best for the patient. Obviously there are a number of clinical situations where advocacy and paternalism may appear to overlap, but a critical analysis of the situation should allow a clear, albeit fine, distinction between these two states. If the overriding analysis is that the advocate is essentially supporting the decisions that they believe are in the best interests of the patient, but not necessarily putting forward the views of the patient, then the action is paternalistic. This difference is all the more important when the patient is actually capable of expressing their own considered views in any event Malin (19) reminds us of the generally accepted definition of paternalism which is to override a person’s autonomously self determined choices on the grounds that they believe that it is in the patient’s best interests. If this is presented as paternalism then so be it. If it is presented as advocacy, then it is morally and ethically wrong. There are occasionally circumstances in which it is not possible to be sure of exactly what the patient wants. The paradox is that those who are able to express themselves are probably least likely to require an advocate and yet those who are actually in the greatest need of advocacy are those who may be unconscious or legally incompetent. If we embrace the arguments that we have set out so far, it follows that the healthcare professional who is acting in the capacity as patient advocate must do all that they can to help the patient. This is morally appropriate and recognised as part of the responsibility of the office. This is in direct distinction from considerations relating to the rest of the community, ones colleagues or, for that matter, other patients, which must not be considered if they are antagonistic to the position that the patient finds themselves in. The thrust of this argument clearly means that there may well be situations encountered, which may professionally, or even personally, compromise the activities of the patient advocate. We can return to Fried’s analogy with the criminal lawyer advocate in an attempt to find a compromise solution. Later in his article, Fried points to the fact that lawyers have to compromise themselves to provide optimum help for their clients and this includes acting knowing that they may compromise the position of others. As we have already outlined, a healthcare professional who agrees to be a patient advocate, may have to antagonise others if they are to carry out their duties impartially and with a proper ethical respect for client autonomy. (20) Fried takes his rationalisation to the limits when he states: The lawyer acts morally because he helps to preserve and express the autonomy of his client vis-à  -vis the legal system. Rights are violated if, through ignorance or misinformation about the law, an individual refrains from pursuing a wholly lawful purpose. Therefore, to assist others in understanding and realising their legal rights is always morally worthy. (11) If we accept the validity of this argument then we can also accept the corollary can apply to healthcare professionals. True representation is, in Fried’s terms, morally worthy and can be justified because it protects patient autonomy in the face of a â€Å"potentially overwhelming and intimidating healthcare system† (21) To bring this thread of argument full circle, we can point to the fact that it can therefore be considered part of the duty of the healthcare professional to provide assistance and guidance because, by virtue of their training knowledge and expertise, they have the experience to be expert navigators in the healthcare system. In the words of Schwartz The patient advocate assists the patient to do what they would otherwise be unable to do themselves. These arguments justify numbers five and six on the list above. Having established both the need and the parameters of the role of the patient advocate, we should now consider the qualities and the position of the patient advocate in general terms. The patient may be in a position to fulfil the role adequately themselves. In theoretical terms this may be seen as the best possible outcome, as clearly the ability to give informed consent is a natural sequel to the ability to represent oneself. In practical terms this is seldom accomplished as, by the very nature of being a patient, there is an implication of the state of illness and this brings with it a degree of vulnerability in all but the most stoic of individuals. Few patients have sufficient knowledge to be able to assimilate all that is told to them in the context of their illness and may also therefore benefit from having an â€Å"external† or uninvolved advocate. The friends and family of a patient are natural candidates for the role as they generally know the patient as a person, they are familiar with their needs and desires and can (sometimes) be relied upon to have an empathetic desire to ensure the best outcome for the patient. Such candidates may not be universally altruistic however, as there may be the possibility of family and friends having a vested interest in a less than optimum outcome of a patient’s illness. They may therefore be perceived as being at risk of overtly manipulating the situation or misrepresenting the patient, as there may be an outcome-related benefit for the family member. Inevitably there will be a commitment to a great deal of involvement, both in terms of time and emotional energy, which may be generously given, but should not be taken for granted. Such comments should obviously be considered by the healthcare professionals involved, but this should not be allowed to blind them to the common clinical e xperience that the vast majority of friends and family who wish to have an input in these circumstances are often both informed (about the patient) and deeply committed on their behalf. We should draw attention to the fact that some cultures and healthcare systems have experimented with the concept of the professional patient advocate, particularly in the area of psychiatric disease. (22). In countries such as Canada and Austria, patient advocates are trained and employed specifically to fulfil this role and nothing else. The theory being that by doing this there is no conflict of interest, and the element of paternalism is effectively eradicated from the scenario. Such advocacy should be in its purest form therefore with undivided loyalty to the interests of the patient and no professional bias or personality issues. In such a context, it is believed that there will be less intimidation or inhibition by medical beliefs or dogma and their official status will prevent them from being ignored. The studies that have been carried out in this area have revealed a downside which may not have been widely anticipated. The presence of a designated and professional patient advocate in the decision making process has the ability to engender an adversarial atmosphere where healthcare professionals may adopt a defensive stance which is not optimal for efficient and effective patient care, particularly in the field of psychiatric illness. (23). Practical difficulties ensue when personnel, who may not have wide experience in assessing and handling people in the course of an illness trajectory, may actually be unable to accurately assess the patient’s own goals, values and beliefs. Because such projects are still in their infancy, a number of other potential practical problems have yet to be resolved. The issue of responsibility and accountability is not formalised. One has to question the options open to a patient who finds that they believe that their professional advocate has given them bad advice or poor representation. There are, as yet, no formalised pathways for redress. Doctors have a track record of fulfilling the role as the patient advocate. To an extent, it may be considered a natural extension of their â€Å"job description† and role in the community. Some doctors may be more fitted than others by virtue of their particular position in the medical hierarchy, their personality or their disposition towards particular patients. For example the GP is likely to have built up a relationship over the years with many of his patients and will know them, their families, their wishes, and their personality intimately. One might think that they might be prime candidates for the job. Equally a specialist who may have no knowledge of the patient and may be (for example) and excellent technician in his field but suffers from an inability to communicate well with patients may be a very poor candidate. In addition to these considerations we have already referred to the potential conflict of interests which have arisen in respect of GP Fundholding in the UK where the GP has a theoretical, and in some cases, real problem in balancing his ethical duty to the patient with his financial responsibilities to the community at large (2). For this reason, some doctors find that they cannot realistically act for the interests of the individual patient when they are overtly conscious of their obligations to the pressures of funding a balanced service for the community at large. Some doctors also have cultivated a paternalistic approach to their practice. This is an observation and not intended as criticism, as some would hold that it is an approach which works, and is appreciated by certain sections of the community. (24) In the context of this essay however, for reasons which we have set out in detail above, it is an approach which is not compatible with our definition of advocacy. Such an approach is capable of not being trusted to set out the patient’s interests as the patient perceives them. As we have illustrated earlier, it is more likely to be set out as the doctor believes would be best for the patient, and this removes the possibility of true patient autonomy. (25) Acting in accordance with the Principle of beneficence does not necessarily imply that one is acting in accordance with the patient’s explicit wishes. We have also considered peripherally, the fact that, in acting in a capacity as an advocate, a doctor may find certain other professional conflicts of interest and may therefore find his capacity to act as an unbiased advocate severely impaired. Traditionally the nurse has frequently filled the role of the patient advocate and, on face value, it would appear that the nurse is possibly in the most favourable position to fulfil the role. (26) The nurse has a professional medical training and is well versed with healthcare procedures and practicalities. In a hospital setting, they are the healthcare professionals who tend to spend most of their professional time in direct contact with the patients and are therefore perhaps best placed to be able to holistically assess their needs, aspirations and goals in the widest connotation of these terms. Their professional body (the UKCC) endorses their involvement in this role. The converse of these points include the fact that the nurse, like the doctor, has potential conflicts of professional interest, not often the financial considerations that may fall to the doctor, but other considerations, where there is an antagonism of a professional position where there is a duty to society in general, or perhaps a duty to the profession and the duty to the patient in the role of a patient advocate. A topical situation could be illustrated by the debate over Herceptin (Trastuzumab) which has not yet been fully evaluated and costed by the regulatory authorities, but is in demand by sufferers of advanced forms of breast malignancy. If a nurse was acting in the capacity of an advocate for such a patient, one would have to consider how she would resolve her professional difficulties in recommending a drug that is not yet fully licensed, her duty to society in general to uphold the regulatory pharmaceutical mechanisms and her obligations to the patient who is telling her that she believes that this drug is her best chance of long term survival. (after 27) The NHS Plan 2000 sets out to promote the â€Å"seamless interface of care† between healthcare professionals together with concepts such as multidisciplinary team working. (28) Such concepts are difficult to reconcile with what may transpire to become an adversarial situation. As we have already examined this type of situation in respect of doctors, we shall therefore not set it out again. It is however, appropriate to observe that this adversarial element may be particularly problematic for the nurse as working practices in the past have required appropriate deference to the doctor, and this shift of loyalty may cause particular difficulty in those healthcare professionals who are uncomfortable with this apparent change of stance. Lastly, we note that the formal nursing and medical training in the UK does not currently contain any element of specific learning about this topic. (12). Clearly the general knowledge relating to the workings of the healthcare services and the profession specific training are good preparations for the role but it is quite possible to become qualified without becoming aware of the potential problems associated with advocacy that have been set out here. Medical law and ethics are traditionally poorly represented in the professional curriculum (29) as is specific training in communication skills and the art of negotiation. There is one point that is common to all potential patient advocates that we have not yet addressed. We have considered the fact that the patient may make seemingly irrational, bizarre or idiosyncratic choices may place the patient advocate in a difficult position. If this is the case,

Deception Essay -- Communication, Witholding Information

Deception exists in media, among prestigious universities, and perhaps most commonly in the workplace. According to Dunleavy (2010), reasons for deception in the workplace include: competitiveness, conflict, or a response to a supervisor or fellow employee (p. 241). Dunleavy develops hypotheses’, conducts experiments, and collects data to determine what is considered acceptable and unacceptable behavior as it applies to deception in the workplace. Ultimately, the reason for deceiving and the method in which one deceives, through either withholding (omission) or distortion (commission), directly effects the perception of coworkers’ credibility, power, and trustworthiness (Dunleavy, p.241). This article focuses on two different approaches of deception: withholding information versus distorting information, and how that may or may not change employees’ perception of the deceiver (Dunleavy, p.239). Dunleavy defines deception as â€Å"the conscious attempt to create or perpetuate false impressions among other communicators† (Dunleavy, p.240). Three hypotheses’ are presented in the article...

Lecture Summary

The lecture is about traffic congestions, which is one of the major problems in the UK’s transport system. The lecture consists of 2 main points which are, firstly, the effects of the congestions and secondly, how the British government have tried to address the problem by creating the Integrated Transport Policy. The first point made by the lecturer is that overcrowded roads have its effects. First of all, they affect directly in the country’s economy, as all the lost time have its repercussion decreasing the productivity.Similarly, the pollution affects the local and global environment. In addition to this, has a detrimental effect on public health. In order to solve this problem, the lecturer states that the British government created the Integrated Transport Policy. They carried out a consultation and find out that the improvement of the transport system was not very successful and people prefer to use their own car. Finally, the lecturer moves to explain some succe ssful measures that the government approved with the purpose of reducing congestions.One of the measures was to enable some fast lines in the motorways for cars with more than one occupant. The other one was to charge car user to get access to the city centre from London. Both of the measures were successful and the money that they get from the congestion charging was invested in improving the public transport system. To summarise, the lecturer affirms that the best solution to the problem of overcrowded roads is to implement some small measures to each specific problem, instead of trying to one big solution which can solve all the problems.

Why Principals Must Build Relationships with Parents

Why Principals Must Build Relationships with Parents Much has been made about the need for teachers to foster healthy relationships with the parents of their students. Likewise, a principal must seek out opportunities to build cooperative relationships with parents.   Though the relationship between principal and parents are much more distant than the relationship between teacher and parents, there is still considerable value there.   Principals who embrace the opportunity to build the relationships with parents will find it to be a worthwhile investment.   Relationships Build Respect Parents may not always agree with your decisions, but when they respect you, it makes those disagreements easier.   Garnering parental respect helps to make those tough decisions a little easier. Principals are not perfect, and all their decisions will not turn to gold. Being respected gives principals a little latitude when they do fail. Furthermore, if the parents respect you, the students will respect you.   This alone makes any time invested in building relationships with parents worthwhile. Relationships BuildTrust Trust is sometimes the most difficult thing to earn. Parents are often skeptical. They want to know that you have the best interests of their children at heart.   Trust happens when parents bring issues or concerns to you and know when they leave your office that it is going to be addressed. The benefits of earning a parent’s trust are fantastic. Trust gives you the leeway to make decisions without looking over your shoulder, worrying about being questioned, or having to defend it.   Relationships Allow for Honest Feedback Perhaps the biggest benefit of having a relationship with parents is that you can solicit feedback from them on a wide variety of school-related issues.   A good principal seeks out honest feedback. They want to know what works well, but they also want to know what needs to be fixed.   Taking this feedback and examining it further can spark great changes in a school. Parents have great ideas. Many will never express those ideas because they do not have a relationship with a principal.   Principals must be okay with asking the tough questions, but also receiving the tough answers.   We may not like everything we hear, but having feedback can challenge the way we think and ultimately make our school better. Relationships Make Your Job Easier A principal’s job is difficult.   Nothing is predictable. Each day brings about new and unexpected challenges.   When you have healthy relationships with parents, it simply makes your job easier.   Calling a parent about a student discipline issue becomes much easier when there is a healthy relationship there.   Making decisions, in general, become easier when you know that parents respect you and trust you enough to do your job that they are not going to be beating down your door and questioning your every move. Strategies for Principals to Build Relationships with Parents Principals spend a large amount of time after school at extra-curricular activities. This is a great opportunity to reach out and build informal relationships with parents.   Great principals are adept at finding common ground or mutual interests with almost any parent.   They can talk about anything from the weather to politics to sports.   Having these conversations helps parents see you as a real person and not just as a figurehead for the school.   They see you in part as the person who really likes the Dallas Cowboys as opposed to the guy that’s out to get my kid. Knowing something personal about you will make it easier to trust and respect you. One simple strategy for building relationships with parents is to randomly call 5-10 parents each week and ask them a short series of questions about the school, their children’s teachers, etc.   Parents will love that you took the time to ask them their opinion. Another strategy is a parent’s luncheon.   A principal can invite a small group of parents to join them for lunch to talk about key issues the school is dealing with.   These luncheons can be scheduled on a monthly basis or as needed.   Utilizing strategies like these can really solidify relationships with parents. Finally, schools are almost always forming committees on a variety of school-related topics. These committees should not be limited to school personnel. Inviting parents and students to serve on a committee brings a different perspective that can be beneficial for everyone.   Parents get to be a part of the inner workings of the school and provide their stamp on their child’s education. Principals are able to utilize this time to continue to build relationships and solicit a perspective they may not have otherwise been given.

Montanna essays

Montanna essays Native Americans first settled in Montana about twelve thousand years ago. The Salish and Kootenai migrated to Montana from the Pacific Northwest and settled in the Rocky Mountains. The Black feet, Crow, and Cheyenne moved from the east and settled in the Great Plains of Montana. In 1803 the United States bought land from France that included Montana. It didnt take long for the United States Explorers to start exploring the newly acquired land, even the famous Meriwether Lewis and, William Clark. Lewis and Clark entered Montana 1805. One of the many things the great explorers wrote about was Montana abundance of buffalo. Manuela Lisa established Montanas first fur trading post in the 1860s. The post was set up on the Bighorn and Yellowstone Rivers meet. Beaver pelts were one of the many hot furs being traded in the new trading post, and Montana was the place to trap beavers. The 1860s brought the a Gold craze to Montana when prospectors ( a prospector is a person who looks for minerals) started to find gold in the southern Rockies. Mining towns sprung up all over Montana when thousands o prospectors rushed to Montana in the hope of finding gold. The same years that the gold rush came to Montana cattle ranching also made its way to the territory. Texas cattle rancher brought longhorn. Montana was the ideal place for ranching due the large amount of plains and open space. The ranchers benefited from the gold minors by selling the beef to the mining towns. When the United States government set aside lands in Montana for Indian reservations, the gold miners and rancher ignored the Indians rights to those land. When they ignored the land reservations Native Americans attacked them. U.S troops arrived in 1876, to try and stop the attacks. General George Custer attacked, the uprising Native Americans, at Little Bighorn River. The Sioux and Cheyenne won and even killed Custer and his men. Even though ...

MGM600-0803B-02 Applied Managerial Decision-Making - Phase 4 Essay

MGM600-0803B-02 Applied Managerial Decision-Making - Phase 4 Individual Project - Essay Example Thus: This type of relationship between the two variables exists when both of them move in the same direction, i.e. either both of them move upward or downward. If we consider two variables X and Y, they are positively or directly correlated if the have values as given under in two cases and when these values are plotted on a graph, the graph will rise from left to right. This type of relationship exists between the two variables when both of them move in the opposite directions i.e. one variable moves upwards while the other moves downwards. If two variables are negatively correlated then they will have the values as given under and if these values are plotted on a graph, the graph will fall from left to right. Correlation between the two variables is said to be perfectly positive if the coefficient of correlation is calculated as +1 and perfectly negative if the coefficient of correlation is calculated as -1. Forecasting is a critical job for the managers around the world and correlation is a statistical tool that can considerably help the managers at Widge Corp to arrive at decisive conclusions, so far as the marketing of their soft drinks in public schools is concerned. 1. According to the article ‘Closing the Digital Divide: Internet Subsidies in Public Schools by Goolsbee and Guryan, there definitely exists a positive correlation between the two variables ‘Number of school lunch eligible students in the school’ and ‘Amount of federal and state funding for the school for education related programs’ (2003) . Thus it will be positively beneficial for the managers at Widge Corp to focus their marketing activities on the schools where the number of ‘School lunch eligible students’ is

Monolingual and bilingual approach in language classrooms Essay

Monolingual and bilingual approach in language classrooms - Essay Example As our world has become smaller, more countries have recognized the importance of English becoming an international language. They have seen the importance of upgrading their language teaching skills. Government policies across the world such as ‘Teaching English through English’ (TETE) had begun in Korea (Nunan, 2003; Kang, 2008). As learning English has become more popular in many countries, teachers have asked whether it is better to teach English through a monolingual approach or a bilingual approach. "Monolingual approach is teaching English by only using English; and the bilingual approach is teach the target language which in this case is English (L2) using both the mother tongue (L2) and the target language.(L2)" (Atkinson, 1993; Edstrome, 2006). Learning English by using the mother tongue has been considered a less efficient method in some countries. Parents and governments have the tendency to favour only an English language teaching syllabus but there are teac hing professionals who advocate that teaching using only L2 may not be the most efficient and profitable way of teaching. The importance lies in deciding what is the best teaching method; and whether or not L1 should be used in teaching. The teaching approach depends on the teachers and the parents. All circumstances need to be taken under consideration to determine what is best for learners (Atkinson, 1993).A brief historical background of both approaches will be presented including the pros and the cons of L1 bilingual approach and the L2 approach.... A brief historical background of both approaches will be presented including the pros and the cons of L1 bilingual approach and the L2 approach. Emphasis will be made showing that L1 helps target language learning. To conclude a format will be introduced showing strategies of when and how to use students' native language and strategies how to limit the use of L1 use in order to maximize the use of L2. 2. Historical view of L1 and L2 use in language classroom When teaching L2 (English)as a second language began several hundred years ago, using the target language was well accepted (Auerbach, 1993). This phenomenon was due to emphasizing writing competence rather than speaking competence. From the 19th century, there was a reversed phenomenon and speaking became more important that writing. The monolingual approach took precedence in language learning. (Baron, 1990; Crawford, 1991; Auerbach, 1993).Each wave of immigration considered speaking English part of the process of assimilation. The U.S government attempted to Americanize immigrants considering speaking good English as patriotic (Baron, 1990, p. 155) The earlier form of teaching in colonial times stressed monolingual teaching in order homogenize the language (Phillipson, 1992; Hawks, 2001). It was possibly a major influence that the L1 varied depending on the immigrants' nationality. Using both languages was seen as non efficient and abnormal way of teaching the language so that L2 was their only tool to teach the target language (Pennycook, 1994). The Makere report, presented at Makere University in Uganda at a conference in 1961, gives an excellent example in how much the monolingual approach was favoured. There are five main tenets: 1. English is best taught in a monolingual