How sociological theories can be applied to Geriatric Care?

As we are moving from generation to generation, our life expectancy is increasing steadily. In addition, the birthrate is on the decreasing trend. This has lead to the rise in the elderly population across the world. It is often known to us that we tend to value things we do not have than things we have in abundance. Just like that, our value for older people is decreasing with the increase in their population. Although our love and care towards them is still the same in many countries notably in Asian countries (and my country too), older people feel more stigmatized now than in the past. I personally feel bad that older people who did so much for their children when they were young are bound to spend their later life in nursing homes or elderly homes nowadays.

Moving on to the usual situations in the nursing homes where the elderly people do not feel the same freedom like their home, they should be encouraged and allowed to do things they like. If we consider the Activity Theory, it states that they should remain as much active as possible, more precisely in the activities which give them more satisfaction. If they are not allowed to complete the things they like, the things that give them satisfaction, they may feel morally down and stigmatized. They should have the freedom to overcome the social pressure they feel during old age. Similarly, according to the Continuity Theory, older people continue the same pattern which they used to follow in their younger days. Unless their fitness level prohibits them from carrying on, they like to maintain their habits learned in their youth. So, they should be helped so that they can keep on doing things they like, including appropriate medical help.

Euthanasia and philosophical views

There are some things in our lives which we simply cannot decide whether it is right or wrong. The debate goes on between proponents of both sides yet nothing can be agreed upon universally. Such topics are hard to resolve and no conclusion can be extracted from them so that all would concur to a certain extent; the differences simply continue between the two extremes. Because of such disputable nature, taking an ethical decision regarding those topics is equally hard. To be more precise, the doubts about the righteousness of the decision always prevail. One of such topics, I should say a “hot topic”, about which numerous discussions and arguments have been done worldwide is Euthanasia.

The definition of Euthanasia varies according to different sources and perspectives. Some say that Euthanasia is a voluntary termination of someone’s life if the person requests one to relieve him/her from severe pain or suffering. Some other ideas suggest that it is also Euthanasia if we believe that somebody cannot tolerate the pain or suffering, if the person cannot explicitly express the desire to die, and end that person’s life. The ones to decide such could be family members, doctors and even courts of justice (BBC, 2013). So, basically these two aspects can be related with the two classifications of Euthanasia: Voluntary Euthanasia when the sufferer requests and Non-voluntary Euthanasia when some responsible people adjudge (Young, 1996).

Carbon Trading and its Ethical Concerns

"Environmental Ethics"

            As a regular listener of BBC World Service, it was intriguing for me to listen to a particular episode of their “Business Daily” program several months ago. It was quite remarkable that it was about one of the important issues related with environmental ethics. The main theme of the program was about Carbon Trading and its economic aspects, but it also had a lot of discussions about the moral obligations related with it. After listening to it and reading few more articles on the internet, it was not a surprise for me to choose this topic for expressing my views. So, this article will address the ethical issues related with Carbon Trading.

            Before proceeding with the concerned ethical questions let us examine what exactly Carbon Trading is. Carbon Trading, or alternately Emissions Trading, is a mechanism using which a country that produces more carbon emissions (Carbon Dioxide and similar Greenhouse Gases) pays some amounts to a country that produces less carbon emissions. It is like purchasing the right to release more Carbon into atmosphere (Investopedia, n.d.) if some country is releasing more carbon emissions than global average or some accepted standards. This can also be applied to individual businesses where bigger polluting businesses can buy emission rights from relatively cleaner businesses (Investopedia, n.d.). The ultimate goal of international as well as inter-business Carbon Trading is to keep the average emissions under balance or under some specific targets.

Copyrights and Piracy

            There were days in the past when if somebody stole your work and claimed to be the original author, you could do nothing but prove by some means that it is in fact your own work. If the original papers too were stolen, you could only try to persuade people to believe you. It is entirely possible that many people with malicious intents or out of greed might have taken credit for others’ work, and who knows some of the famous works might have been works of some unknown geniuses. Some might say that it would be absurd to claim such a thing, but I am just trying to point that in those days you could not protect your work in advance and there were no specific legal provisions for that too. It is not very long before the concepts of Copyrights (legal protection given to the original author of an intellectual work), Piracy (use and/or distribution of work without authorized permission or author’s knowledge) and Intellectual Property (the right to own your intellectual creations) came out.   

            The present business world is very competitive. Now, there are not only physical sites to sell your products, but you can sell productions online i.e. e-commerce. People can find the different types of products at just a mouse click, and even if they choose to buy on physical sites, they are very selective regarding the products and their features. Therefore, it is very important for a business to make their products stand-out and be able to compete in the market. For that, the businesses work very hard, come up with innovative ideas and materialize them into revolutionary products, with an equal probability of failure. However, it is possible that after some success a competitor might use the same idea, which took literally years of investment and research, and without same level of hard work or risk, make the same amounts using that concept. Thus, it is very important to protect your intellectual property and register the copyright. Doing this would force other businesses to think twice before using your ideas, or at least give you a good deal for legal permission to use it.

Ethics and Deontological Theories

The part of philosophy that deals with the issues of “good” is called Ethics. It deals with the moral principles that influence our actions. There are many viewpoints and theories on Ethics and one of them are “Deontological Theories”.

Deontological theories are non-consequentalist theories which do not give importance to the result of any ethical decision (Alexander, L., Moore, M., 2012). They rather give importance to moral norms and that our actions should conform to those norms regardless of the consequence. The main idea of not keeping the consequence at the focal point is that is it not always desirable. Even a morally wrong action or decision can produce better results but that does not reflect that we are “good”. For example, we can take a situation when somebody with malicious intentions takes an action to do something bad, which fortunately does something good. According to consequentalist theories, this might be ethically correct because the result is good. However, we know that the person had bad intentions. So, this is pointed out by Deontological theories. Such actions cannot be morally correct because even though the consequence is good, it was not meant to be good.

Existentialism and Sartre's Theory

          Existentialism is a philosophical movement which puts more focus on individual existence, freedom and choice (Pecorino, 2000). It is a view taken up by scholars who wanted to get rid of the disputes between the materialist and the idealist viewpoints (Pecorino, 2000). Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was one such writer and philosopher who influenced this view very much. His theory holds a special place in Existentialism which gives us a unique perspective on what is real and what is unreal. We will examine the features, strengths and weaknesses of the Existentialist view, and appealing and discouraging parts of Sartre’s Theory in this paper.

          The main feature of Existentialist view is that they see the things from humans’ perspective. They place an individual at the center and explore how that human thinks, acts and feels. They place their ideas on what can be certainly known by humans. It focuses on the fact that first of all a person is an individual and only then he/she is bounded by other social and psychological aspects (Wikipedia, 2013). The strength of Existentialism is that it puts an individual as the main character of determining reality and giving meaning to life, which has been used in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapies by inspirational scholars like Viktor Frankl. The weakness of this view might be that it disregards things beyond human experience which can be taken as simply avoiding disputable things rather than proving something to solve them or help in better understanding.

What is good?

          Good is something we feel is right for us and other people similar to us. This is basically matter of personal opinion. If we think that something is good for us, it does not mean that others will think that too. In fact, what we think is good for others may be considered exactly opposite by the very people. Another thing we have to consider is the situation. Our perception about good is also determined by the influences of the surrounding. What we think “good” in a given scenario may be different under different conditions. Our judgment about right and wrong depends on our personal values as well as environmental influences. Personal values in this sense are about ethics and environmental influences are about socio-cultural influences. Hence, even though good is something “right” to do, it depends on individual perspective and context.

          It is important to consider “what is means to be good?” before moving onto the examples of goodness. Again this is also matter of personal thinking. People will always go for good if they know what is right. So, being good is all about being “right”, not for yourself, but for others. Thus, goodness is all about our acts to show that we are good people and that we do “right” things according to popular beliefs. It again comes to ethics and socio-cultural influence.

          Considering all of the above facts, examples of goodness too depend on our values and the situation. Say as a general example, helping a poor person in any way is an act of kindness which is obviously something good. However, if the person wants to find his/her way out of problems alone, would it still be good to help? Also, there are some universal cases like telling lies is regarded “bad” across the world, but what about a lie that prevents a catastrophe? Again, is it ethical? Is it socially acceptable? The iteration of our thought process goes on and on, the confusion about good and bad still remains, until we realize what is right.

©Dixit Bhatta 2014

Comparing Socrates' Philosophy with Voltaire's

          Since the inception of human civilization, there have been philosophers who have pursued answers to the fundamental ideas related with our lives. Philosophers have investigated abstract things such as thinking, metaphysics, logic, art, religion, knowledge, mind, and ethics and so on. They have inquired answers to the fundamental problems of human life by critical thinking and using rational arguments. And there have been ideas that have been pondered upon by people of different civilizations and time. Out of many philosophers we will compare and contrast the philosophical attitude of two brilliant minds of markedly different time: Socrates and Voltaire.

          Socrates’ attitude about philosophy was mainly dominated by the argument about what is good and the disagreement between people about it. He claimed that people always go for good things. They do wrong because they think that it will do good to them or give them some sort of pleasure. Upon realizing that it is bad, they would not do it anymore. On the other hand, Voltaire’s view, based on the Good Brahmin’s case, stresses on happiness and ignorance. He states that happiness is best achieved when we are ignorant but that kind of happiness is not worthwhile. The Brahmin laments his lack of knowledge about reality and his own existence despite being a learned man. Had he been a “simpleton” he would have had no regrets, yet he does not desire such felicity. This creates a contradiction in itself and raises even further questions.

          As of now, both seem to have different ideas. Nevertheless, if we see things from a different angle, we may still find some similarities between them. According to Socrates, people do wrong things because they think that it will give them happiness. This is analogous to the old lady in Voltaire’s description who was content with the life without knowledge and considered herself the happiest women. If she was educated, she would have never liked such life- a life of illusions. Another similarity between their attitudes towards philosophy is that Socrates used inductive method to develop “universal definitions”, and we can clearly see that Voltaire used the same inductive approach to derive his conclusion from the Good Brahmin’s case. 

References:

Pecorino, P.A. (2000), Chapter 2: The Greeks- Socrates Legacy, An Introduction to Philosophy, Accessed: September 9, 2013 from http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/INTRO_TEXT/Chapter%202%20GREEKS/Socrates_Legacy.htm

Voltaire (n.d.), Story of a Good Brahmin, Translated by: Woolf, H.I., Accessed: September 9, 2013 from http://www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english287/Voltaire-Story_of_a_Good_Brahmin.htm

©Dixit Bhatta 2014