When human talent meets quality and ethics in caring

Editorial

WHEN HUMAN TALENT MEETS QUALITY AND ETHICS IN CARING

Isabel Amélia Costa Mendes¹

The social crisis, the indicators of which are in evidence at the end of this millenium, in addition to the tension and conflicts arising from the present work mode, has imposed the decadence of solidarity and generosity among men by giving less importance to the practice of human talent and to the understanding of the fact that caring fundamentally integrates man's nature.

The structure of contemporary life cultivates and values independence. If, on one hand, it is understandable and healthy that one should take advantage of the autonomy resulting from scientific and technological progress, on the other, the virtues expressed by compassion, gratitude, tolerance, sweetness, humor and love have been lost and become empty in our society, which has also made men lonelier and affectless. As a result, there is general unrest.

Care is needed.

Among various prophets, Leonardo Boff^* has given invaluable contribution in this aspect. He has emphatically argued about the emergence of a new sensitivity as well as of a new ethos. He has postulated that we urgently need an ethos that would include inspirations, values and principles that can conduct human relations to nature, society, alterities, oneself and to God. "Since we have awakened to the urgency of such questions, history has imposed to us this mission: to feed the sacred flame that burns in each human being, like a holy oil-lamp, with the oil of veneration and essential care. Only in this way, will we ensure that the essential ethos that inhabits human beings will continue to be their protecting angel and will never be obscured or become extinct from Earth" BOFF (2000).

¹

Vice-President of the Editorial Board of Revista Latino-Americana de Enfermagem and Full Professor in the Department of General and Specialized Nursing at the University of São Paulo at Ribeirão Preto College of Nursing, WHO Collaborating Center for Nursing Research Development.

^*

BOFF, Leonardo - World

Ethos: a minimum consensus among human beings. Brasília: Letrativa, 2000.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  20 Apr 2005
• Date of issue
  Dec 2000