Compassion=incentives? ... RE: [Ailist] PsyBlog: Do YouBelieve inFree Will?

[Lionel Boxer]

Further to Roger's explanation about compassion, I ask why do people care?  Perhaps:
- they have been brought up within a culture that makes the issue at hand worth caring about
- their employer offers to pay an incentive if they deal with the issue at hand in a certain way

When I hear people say, "Why should I care?  I get paid the same thing either way" I think:
- that person has not been brought up in a culture that teaches them to care about things
- that person has experienced years of abusive management
- that person is paid in a way that they are not able to care (confounded incentive system)

I tend to agree with Roger and Dr W. Edwards Deming that incentives are not a good idea.  However, they are most common in commercial and non-commercial organisations.

On one hand, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are in some ways necessary to let people know what they are expected to achieve in their jobs.  However, on the other hand people learn how to "work" KPI measurements to their benefit.  That can destroy the passion Roger is referring to.  So (what I was referring to in my earlier post), in that sense incentives are related to compassion; that is, an incentive can confounds or reinforce a person's ability to care.

It appears that under the Foucauldian management gaze there is no such thing as Free Will.  By accepting employment a person accepts the subjectivity of the employer.

Lionel Boxer CD PhD MBA BTech(IndEng) - 0411267256
Associate of RMIT University - lionel.boxer at rmit.edu.au
Graduate School of Business
my "Assessment of Quality Systems with Positioning Theory" 
now in a googe book - see link at http://intergon.net
>>> "Roger Davies" <rdavies at rtpcompany.com> 27/01/09 8:55 AM >>>
Hi Lionel,

.....

As with my example of a firefighter, acts of compassion occur
because an individual chooses to act a particular way because they care
about the outcome of a situation.