Minor’s Refusal of Treatment Essay Example for Free

Minor’s Refusal of Treatment Essay In the case of Daniel Hauser, a thirteen-year old boy from Minnesota, who was diagnosed as having Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which is considered as one of the most curable types of cancer, conflicting ethical values can be appreciated.   According to Wikipedia (2009), the principle of autonomy gives the person the right to self-determination which allows the patients to choose their own treatment.   In the case provided, the patient wishes not to endure traditional chemotherapy and radiation but instead undergo alternative medicine treatments that are yet to be proven effective by science. Since the health care providers in the case know that this particular type of cancer is curable, they are very adamant in trying to convince the patient to undergo proper treatment.   This exemplifies the principle of beneficence, which refer to the health care providers’ actions that promote the well-being of the patient (Wikipedia 2009) while the principle of non-maleficience means that the health care providers should refrain from actions that can cause harm to the patient (Wikipedia 2009) such as deviating from the standard form of treatment. The four senses of autonomy which are free action, effective deliberation, authenticity and moral reflection are being exercised by the patient.   Free action refers to the patient’s choice to ignore the recommendations of his health care providers and opting to do what he believes is right for him without any force or intimidation from anyone.   Effective deliberation means that the patient duly understands the facts and the risks before he made his decision in a systemic and rational way. In our case, the patient knows the risk that he is taking when he refused medical treatments.   Authenticity means the ability of the patient to be true to his self as exemplified by his belief and claim to be a medicine man.   Moral reflection means to act on the person’s accepted after beliefs after critical assessment.   The patient believes that he is leading by example through standing firm on his decision to avoid the prescribed medical treatment and undergo alternative forms of therapy. The case that the lawyers have against the Daniel’s parents is based on the subjective good of the patient which is the cure of his cancer through chemotherapy and radiation treatments that he simply does not prefer.   The stand of the Daniel’s parents, on the other hand, is based on the objective good of the patient, which is respecting the values and wishes of the patient to undergo alternative forms of treatment such as drinking ionized water and modifying his diet. Although a person may be freely entitled to choose for themselves, certain liberty limiting principles should be observed.   These principles include paternalism, which justifiably restricts a person’s liberty to prevent the person from harming himself and the harm principle, which justifiably restricts a person’s liberty to prevent the person from harming others (Arisaka 2009). The principle of paternalism can only be applied if the courts would rule in favor of the medical practitioners who are asking that the patient should be subjected to the standard treatment for Hodgkin’s disease.   The judicial system would violate the harm principle if they would allow the minor patient to choose to act on his beliefs to not undergo proper remedies because this may pave the way for other teens to have the choice to refuse treatment and simply do what they think is right for them. Measures in order for minors to understand the gravity of their disease should be undertaken.   Participation with group discussions with others who are suffering the same illness should be encouraged in order to gain more understanding on what to expect of the disease and its treatment rather than simply being subjected to a grueling process of standard therapy without any form of support and being forced to decide based on the experience. Bibliography Arisaka (2009). Ethics. Retreived 5 June 2009 from http://www.arisaka.org/ethics02LLP.html Wikipedia (2009). Medical ethics.   Retreived 5 June 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_ethics

An Enquiry Concerning The Principles Of Morals Essay example -- essays

What is a moral? This is a question that has plagued philosophers for many years. Is it possible to have a set of universal morals? There are many questions that surround the mystery of morals. They seem to drive our every action. We base our decisions on what is right and what is wrong. But what is it that actually determines what is right and what is wrong? Is it our sense of reason? Is it our sense of sentiment? This is a question that David Hume spent much of his life pondering. What exactly is it that drives our actions? Yes, morals drive them, but what determines what our morals are? What is it that ultimately drives our actions; our feelings or our minds? Hume would say that it is our sentiment that ultimately drives our actions. According to Hume, reason is incapable of motivating an action. According to Hume, reason cannot fuel an action and therefore cannot motivate it. Hume feel that all actions are motivated by our sentiment. For example, on page 84 Appendix I, he gives the example of a criminal. "It resides in the mind of the person, who is ungrateful. He must, therefore, feel it, and be conscious of it." Here, it is evident that Hume is saying that unless the person, or criminal in this case, sincerely believes in what he wants to do, he will not be able to motivate the action. In other words, unless the sentiment is there, the action cannot be willed into being. Hence, the sentiment is the driving force behind the action. Hume does not however say that reason is incapable of determining wether an action is virtuous or vicious (moral or immoral), but instead he tries to say that the reason for the morality of an action does not dictate the execution or perversion of an act so far as determination of wether the action is executed or not. In simpler terms, reason has it's place in determining morality, but it is not in the motivation of an action. Motivation must come from the heart, or better yet, from within the person; from their beliefs. Reason merely allows the person to make moral distinctions. Without reason, there would be no morality. Without reason, one moral clause would not be differentiable from another. That is to say that below all morals, there must be some underlying truth because "Truth is disputable; n... ...reasons are NOT necessarily the person's sentiments, they do not motivate actions. One other reason why reason does not impel action is because reason is based on truths. Truths are never changing whereas sentiments are dynamic and are in a constant change of flux. At one moment, the criminal could feel sympathy for his victims and decide to spare a life, and the very next, the same criminal could become enraged at the pimple on a hostage's forehead and shoot him. Of course these are extreme cases, but the point is clear. Reason would dictate that only the first action would be moral. If reason drove actions, then moral behavior would prevail and there would be no immoral actions and hence there would be no crimes. This shows how sentiments can change as the individual's perception of the universe changes. Obviously, the driving force behind the criminal shooting the victim because of a skin blemish is not one based on reason, but instead it is based on feeling, emotion, sentiment. Although it is an abstract idea and a seemingly tiny technicality, it is easy to see that indeed reason is not the ultimate motivator but instead sentiment is.

Performance Management Plan Essay

Compensation and benefits concerns are very important to employees and employers. A lot of the top performing employees are drawn by successful organizations, as well as the organization providing a detail compensation and benefit plan. Now it is time to focus on the performance management structure that will help you succeed in your business. In this document I will focus on different aspects that will help you launch a well-done performance plan. This plan will also help you increase the performance of your associates and prevent a high turn over. Performance management is part o Lean Manufacturing, and even though your company does not belong to manufacturing, we can implement it and get good results. Performance Management is about letting you employees know the health of the company and taking the appropriate actions to prevent a decrease in performance, efficiency, high costs, etc. The first objective in implementing Performance Management is that there must be a commitment between the associates and the organization to improve the performance. Communication plays an important role here, the objectives must be clear in order to have a good communication between departments and this will arises alignment. As part of having a good communication, employees must have clear their responsibilities, goals ad how they are performing. You must also be prepared to correspond to the good performance of your associates; you must also create a plan for professional growth for them. Associates tend to be motivated and work as a team in continuous improvement projects and finding ways to improve the quality of the organization. The second objective would be setting up system a method to measure the  performance of your employees. We already talked about how to measure the health of your company and we talked about Key Performance Indicators as a method to measure the objectives of your different departments. Now it is time to go a little bit deep and set up a method for measuring the performance of your employees. During a performance appraisal you must abroad skills, ethics, how he/she is performing according to the tasks that are cited in the job description. There is not a specific method for measuring the skills of an associate, what is really important is to monitor your employees on a consistent basis. An employee appreciates to know where he/she stands and know what he is doing right or the things that need to be improved. 360-degree feedback is a method that I would like to recommend. The reason is that in this method the employee not only receives feedback from the supervisor; peers, subordinates or even customers if applicable provide feedback. Obviously this method involves more and provides a better picture. I can provide more specific information or if you want to use the traditional way is correct. Third, so far we have covered the base. Now it would be time to execute what has been planned. In this step I would like to cover how to convince your people that Performance Management is important. Your supervisors must understand that if something is not measured it cannot be improved, and that associates are important for the success of the company. Performance Management is a cycle where data is collected, analyzed, it is seen if there is room for improvement and then action is taken to make the corrections needed. I recommend the usage of board to communicate the performance of your employees and at some point build an internal competition in order to reach better results. These board also helpful for monitoring and you can even add a log of corrective actions with responsible and due dates. Here is an example of the information that I used to post in another company. Every operator used to receive weekly feed back about their performance and at the end of the month the results were posted and they knew the bonus percent they has earned. As far as daily information transmitted to the  associates, s software was bought and we configured every machine with the appropriate standards and the associates were able to see the weekly schedule, plan fulfillment, performance, waste, etc. This company in specific belongs to another industry but the purpose is the same. Also, keep in mind that at the end customer satisfaction is almost the most important thing. Finally, I would like to make some comments regarding how to provide feedback to the employees, As mentioned before, feedback is important to help employees perform at their best. You will notice that Performance management is being effective when they ask how they can improve and what are the things that are doing right. This practice will lead you to create a training plan or training matrix. The information provided must be specific and if possible with examples. Also, let them speak and listen to what they tell. Keep in mind that at the end, they are the one that are in contact with the process. In conclusion, motivation is very essential for every person in your business and every body must keep in mind that what they do is important for your clients. Performance Management is about measuring and knows what to do with the collected data. With this information you will be able to provide feedback and achieve goals. References Lean Six Sigma Resources. Retrieved January 29,2015 From http://www.beyondlean.com/

Refutation Definition and Examples

In rhetoric, refutation is the part of an argument in which a speaker or writer counters opposing points of view. Also called  confutation. Refutation is the key element in debate, say the authors of The Debaters Guide  (2011). Refutation makes the whole process exciting by relating ideas and arguments from one team to those of the other (The Debaters Guide, 2011). In speeches, refutation and confirmation are often presented conjointly with one another (in the words of the unknown author of Ad Herrenium): support for a claim (confirmation) can be enhanced by a challenge to the validity of an opposing claim (refutation). In classical rhetoric, refutation was one of the rhetorical exercises known as the  progymnasmata. Examples and Observations Refutation is the part of an essay that disproves the opposing arguments. It is always necessary in a persuasive paper to refute or answer those arguments. A good method for formulating your refutation is to put yourself in the place of your readers, imagining what their objections might be. In the exploration of the issues connected with your subject, you may have encountered possible opposing viewpoints in discussions with classmates or friends. In the refutation, you refute those arguments by proving the opposing basic proposition untrue or showing the reasons to be invalid...In general, there is a question about whether the refutation should come before or after the proof. The arrangement will differ according to the particular subject and the number and strength of the opposing arguments. If the opposing arguments are strong and widely held, they should be answered at the beginning. In this case, the refutation becomes a large part of the proof . . .. At other times when the opp osing arguments are weak, the refutation will play only a minor part in the overall proof. -Winifred Bryan Horner, Rhetoric in the Classical Tradition. St. Martins, 1988 Indirect and Direct Refutation Debaters refute through an indirect means when they use counter-argument to attack the case of an opponent. Counter-argument is the demonstration of such a high degree of probability for your conclusions that the opposing view loses its probability and is rejected...Direct refutation attacks the arguments of the opponent with no reference to the constructive development of an opposing view...The most effective refutation, as you can probably guess, is a combination of the two methods so that the strengths of the attack come from both the destruction of the opponents views and the construction of an opposing view. -Jon M. Ericson, James J. Murphy, and Raymond Bud Zeuschner,  The Debaters Guide, 4th ed. Southern Illinois University Press, 2011An effective refutation must speak directly to an opposing argument. Often writers or speakers will claim to be refuting the opposition, but rather than doing so directly, will simply make another argument supporting their own side. This is a fo rm of the fallacy of irrelevance through evading the issue. -Donald Lazere,  Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy: The Critical Citizens Guide to  Argumentative Rhetoric. Taylor Francis, 2009 Cicero on Confirmation and Refutation [T]he statement of the case . . . must clearly point out the question at issue. Then must be conjointly built up the great bulwarks of your cause, by fortifying your own position, and weakening that of your opponent; for there is only one effectual method of vindicating your own cause, and that includes both the confirmation and refutation. You cannot refute the opposite statements without establishing your own; nor can you, on the other hand, establish your own statements without refuting the opposite; their union is demanded by their nature, their object, and their mode of treatment. The whole speech is, in most cases, brought to a conclusion by some amplification of the different points, or by exciting or mollifying the judges; and every aid must be gathered from the preceding, but more especially from the concluding parts of the address, to act as powerfully as possible upon their minds, and make them zealous converts to your cause. -Cicero, De Oratore, 55 BC Richard Whately on Refutation Refutation of Objections should generally be placed in the midst of the Argument; but nearer the beginning than the end. If indeed very strong objections have obtained much currency, or have been just stated by an opponent, so that what is asserted is likely to be regarded as paradoxical, it may be advisable to begin with a Refutation. -Richard Whately, Elements of Rhetoric, 1846)​ FCC Chairman William Kennards Refutation There will be those who say Go slow. Dont upset the status quo. No doubt we will hear this from competitors who perceive that they have an advantage today and want regulation to protect their advantage. Or we will hear from those who are behind in the race to compete and want to slow down deployment for their own self-interest. Or we will hear from those that just want to resist changing the status quo for no other reason than change brings less certainty than the status quo. They will resist change for that reason alone. So we may well hear from a whole chorus of naysayers. And to all of them, I have only one response: we cannot afford to wait. We cannot afford to let the homes and schools and businesses throughout America wait. Not when we have seen the future. We have seen what high capacity broadband can do for education and for our economy. We must act today to create an environment where all competitors have a fair shot at bringing high capacity bandwidth to consumers—es pecially residential consumers. And especially residential consumers in rural and underserved areas. -William Kennard, Chairman of the FCC, July 27, 1998 Etymology: From the Old English, beat Pronunciation: REF-yoo-TAY-shun