Assignment # 1: Critical Article Review

Muhammad Umer Naeem

01-229212-009
MPhil (MS) 1-A

Principles of Administrative Science

Philosophy for managers? An exploration of what the great philosophers do to

assist ethical decision making by Gillian D. Green published in Journal of
Management in Medicine in 2001

A Critical Review:
This paper offers a profound and multi-dimensional philosophical understanding of ethical
decision making and provides guiding principles for today's managers; facing this dilemma.
This article used a philosophical approach to provide bases for ethical decision making thus
enabling managers to remain justified and fair in the ethical decision making process. This
paper converses through one of the ethics related health problem of “Suicide Prevention” in
mental health services. The reduction in rate of suicide has become a challenge for the
government also on the contrary for mental health professionals to justify their patient
understandability. The author attempted to put light on the ethical dimension of the said
issue to provide bases to address them in a more rational and generalizable way.
It is a bitter truth but human behaviors are greatly influenced by the negative societal
trends that may leave an individual under immense psychological pressure that leads to the
termination of one’s life in order to overcome the sufferings which may be avoided if
properly supported by the society. For the sake of argument, let’s now consider Suicide as
one’s “right to die”, in a state of prolonged mental illness like schizophrenia or under
psychological disorder of Self-harm but such patients needs more care than others to
prevent suicide. According to the article of Human Rights Act 1998 although it is the right of
the individual to accept or refuse the treatment but it is the obligation of the state and
matter of human right that such individual deserves the right of treatment. Also the two
points “unsound mind” and “rational decision of suicide” are questionable in the court of
law.

Author hypothetically considered two scenarios in order to scale the action of one’s “right
to die” against the preventing suicide. Among the two situations one is a patient with
schizophrenia and other is a patient with a personality disorder who committed several
suicide attempts in past. In both cases the patients committed suicide against the
consideration of “right to die” after getting hopeless to live a normal healthy life. The writer
constructs ethical arguments among the perspectives of two ethical approaches of
utilitarianism and deontology. Utilitarianism is society-centered whereas deontology is
 Assignment # 1: Critical Article Review
patient-centered but the common thing about these is they both deal with the ethics and
consequences of one's actions and behavior despite the outcome. The main theme of the
author is on four considerations of Self-Love, Humanity, the value of human life and duty
to others while autonomy and respect being the sub-theme areas against which the impact
of aforementioned emotions on human behavior is discussed.

The above mentioned emotions are very difficult to evaluate whether a person committed
suicide out of negative thoughts or he is so much involved in himself that he took such
decision. The rationality of such a decision is highly questionable. It should be kept under
consideration, a person already mentally disturbed can make such a decision rationally. It is
quite obvious that a sick mind cannot make decisions rationally. We are in a state of
disagreement that such patients be allowed to commit suicide. However, it is agreeable
that the way these patients are treated needs to be upgraded. The approach to treat these
patients should be changed. rather than making them alone and relaizing them that they
are not normal is like torturing them. It is seen that current intervention practices to
prevent suicide are established on unstable basis. Under the slogan of Keep them safe,
patients are confined to the restricted environment and always kept under observation
which may lead patient to postpone his decision of suicide under influence environment as
we have seen in the case of woman with mental disorder. Secondly it is said that this is the
responsibility of healthcare professional to refrain such patient from committing suicide.
However the current practices beholds patients and healthcare professionals from societal
biased judgments. They should be treated like normal human beings and their behavior
should be assessed scientifically. The mental health professionals and managers need to get
insights of the latest research in this field as the author suggested in this article.

This is a point to be noted that these patients should made realize the emotions of
self-love, for humanity, the value of human life and duty to others, autonomy and respect
for the sake of living not to alow them to commit suicide as the “Right to Die” inline with
the said basis. No one has the right to kill himself when he is given life to live naturally. to
end one’s life is against the law of nature.

Despite what are the philosopher’s view points, the suicide is not admissible according to
law and also the current practices of healthcare professionals are not in accordance to
ethical framework and it does not allow the managers to make ethical decision while
making suicide prevention strategies.

But this does not mean that health professions overlook their responsibilities, they have
moral obligation as well as regulations compel them to prevent self-destruction. Though
method of preventions needs to be changed and should be more ethical and does not
 Assignment # 1: Critical Article Review
compelling one to think more of suicide rather than refraining. Thus, to achieve the
ultimate ethical standards that are desired.
This article provides good understanding of ethical decision insights through philosophical
approach and compels readers to study the psychological dimensions in a very exciting way.
The paper is quite understandable for interested people. The contents of the paper are
technically very sound and induce thought provoking ideas to the reader and the results are
described in a very simple manner. Although there is disagreement at several points that
were discussed, overall there is a need to change the methods and approaches to prevent
self-harm and destruction. At the same time it makes society, healthcare professionals and
managers making decisions to change their view point and come up with more rational
solutions to the problems.

Future implications involve the study of the same variables but in different directions i.e.
these emotions do not give a person “Right to Die” rather “Right to Live”.