Wonderings on Agape and Eros: Relationship of Nursing Experience and Values to Liberal Humanism and Posthumanism

Nursing values include commitment to care for all and facilitation of healthy environments. The actualisation of these values, however, is often constrained by healthcare systems when overly influenced by neoliberal priorities for revenue generation. Assuming this context, the dynamics of two ontological nursing motives, loving service (agape) and creative agency (eros), are considered as they relate to nursing axiology, lived experience, and practice. Transversal analysis is engaged to further explore the implications that posthumanist philosophy may have for the relationship of eros-agape dynamics. Consequences for nursing practice and qualitative experience are considered. The analysis concludes in three propositions. The first, that in realigning loving service (agape) aspects of nursing with the nurse person's development of creativity and agency (eros), the nurse-person may be more satisfied in ego reward, and the actualisation of nursing values that hold commitment to all persons, facilitation of healthy environments, and actions of human caring, could be better supported. The second, that posthumanism, particularly the aspects of intersubjectivity and co-being, may transform the possibilities of eros and agape ontological motives in nursing to support greater emergence of connected multidirectional caring; so that the nurse-person is less alienated in providing care and, instead, is an active member of caring ecologies. The third, that in realigning loving service (agape) aspects of nursing with the nurse person's development of creativity and agency (eros), the nurse-person may be more satisfied in ego reward, and the actualisation of nursing values that hold commitment to all persons, facilitation of healthy environments, and actions of human caring, could be better supported.