Understanding Time's Value
Interpreting the relevant works through a psychological lens entails more than trying to interpret the underlying mindsets that drove these changes in healthcare .To understand the full repercussions of the changes in medicine, one must understand the natural, psychological resistance to change and sacrifice that many exhibit. By acknowledging the potential, subconscious influences in human thought processes, medicinal technology can be viewed from a more neutral perspective.
By using Freud’s pleasure principle, as outlined in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, the psychological explanation for controversial health practices such as euthanasia and abortion become evident. Most adults can manage to cope with Freud’s reality principle and the “unpleasure as a step on the long indirect road to pleasure” (7). However, these same adults can revert to unrealistic thinking and judgment when the situation becomes hypothetical. The controversy at and outrage from euthanasia and abortion stems largely from an inability to go beyond the present death of a living organism to consider the long term benefits. By applying Singer’s “preference utilitarianism” (133) and establishing the preferences of beings as the criterion for action, decisions that maximize preference satisfaction become justifiable. As with many other medical developments throughout time, the main objective of simply lengthening life spans and reducing illness frequency reveals a Freudian, infantile desire for immediate satisfaction of health problems. At its most fundamental level, time is valuable not in and of itself, but because of the experiences, joy, and pleasure that is possible during that time. While the idea that time is inherently valuable to humans was acceptable for most of medical technology’s development, the ability to sustain life in undesirable life (e.g. permanent vegetative states) requires a re-evaluation of these defining judgments.
By using Freud’s pleasure principle, as outlined in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, the psychological explanation for controversial health practices such as euthanasia and abortion become evident. Most adults can manage to cope with Freud’s reality principle and the “unpleasure as a step on the long indirect road to pleasure” (7). However, these same adults can revert to unrealistic thinking and judgment when the situation becomes hypothetical. The controversy at and outrage from euthanasia and abortion stems largely from an inability to go beyond the present death of a living organism to consider the long term benefits. By applying Singer’s “preference utilitarianism” (133) and establishing the preferences of beings as the criterion for action, decisions that maximize preference satisfaction become justifiable. As with many other medical developments throughout time, the main objective of simply lengthening life spans and reducing illness frequency reveals a Freudian, infantile desire for immediate satisfaction of health problems. At its most fundamental level, time is valuable not in and of itself, but because of the experiences, joy, and pleasure that is possible during that time. While the idea that time is inherently valuable to humans was acceptable for most of medical technology’s development, the ability to sustain life in undesirable life (e.g. permanent vegetative states) requires a re-evaluation of these defining judgments.
