The purpose of this phenomenological-hermeneutic study was to illuminate the meaning of being in ethically difficult care situations. The participants were 20 enrolled nurses employed in six intensive care units in Sweden. The results reveal a complex human process manifested in relation to one’s inner self and the other person, which transforms desolation into consolation through becoming present to the suffering other when perceiving fragility rather than tragedy. The main point of significance here is for all health professionals to create (...) an ethical work environment and strive for praxis that fosters ‘athomeness’, which renders us free to transform desolation into consolation. Consolation is of significance in ethics because it makes us available and helps us to fulfil the demands of life, while desolation makes us unavailable to others. (shrink)

Current focus in the health care ethics literature on the character of the practitioner has a reputable pedigree. Rather than offer a staple diet of Aristotelian ethics in the undergraduate curricula, perhaps instead one should follow Murdoch's suggestion and help the practitioner to develop vision and moral imagination, because this has a practical rather than a theoretical aim. The imaginative capacity of the practitioner plays an important part in both the quality of the nurse's role enactment and the moral strategies (...) which the nurse uses. It also plays a central part in the practitioner's ability to communicate with a patient and in the type of person which the practitioner becomes. Can the moral imagination be stimulated and nurtured? Some philosophers and literary critics argue that not only is this possible, but that literature is the means of doing so. If this is the case then a place should be made for literature in already crowded health care curricula. (shrink)

Moral imagination has been described by Murdoch as ‘a way of seeing’. The focus of concern here is the influence of belief upon moral imagination and those attitudes that are needed if moral imagination is to be developed. The perspective adopted endorses a Humean recognition of the potent influence of personal experience upon those beliefs that are held, and therefore upon how we see the world. Kantian commitment to the power of the will, and to the ability of individuals to (...) choose who they wish to be, allows room for optimism, a view which is supported by the findings of Liaschenko. (shrink)

Introduction In recent years there has been a welcome reawakening of philosophical interest in the emotions. A significant number of contemporary ...

The acclaimed author of The Good Apprentice draws on the entire history of philosophy--and particularly on Plato and Kant--to formulate her own model of morality and demonstrate how thoroughly it is bound up with our daily lives. "An utterly absorbing book".--The Wall Street Journal.

The "Cartesian Meditations" translation is based primarily on the printed text, edited by Professor S. Strasser and published in the first volume of Husserliana: Cartesianische Meditationen und Pariser Vorträge, ISBN 90-247-0214-3. Most of Husserl's emendations, as given in the Appendix to that volume, have been treated as if they were part of the text. The others have been translated in footnotes. Secondary consideration has been given to a typescript (cited as "Typescript C") on which Husserl wrote in 1933: "Cartes. Meditationen (...) / Originaltext 1929 / E. Husserl / für Dorion Cairns". Its use of emphasis and quotation marks conforms more closely to Husserl’s practice, as exemplified in works published during his lifetime. In this respect the translation usually follows Typescript C. Moreover, some of the variant readings n this typescript are preferable and have been used as the basis for the translation. Where that is the case, the published text is given or translated in a foornote. The published text and Typescript C have been compared with the French translation by Gabrielle Pfeiffer and Emmanuel Levinas (Paris, Armand Collin, 1931). The use of emphasis and quotation marks in the French translation corresponds more closely to that in Typescript C than to that in the published text. Often, where the wording of the published text and that of Typescript C differ, the French translation indicates that it was based on a text that corresponded more closely to one or the other – usually to Typescript C. In such cases the French translation has been quoted or cited in a foornote. (shrink)

This volume analyzes different types of knowledge and know-how used by practising professionals in their work and how these different kinds of knowledge are acquired by a combination of learning from books, learning from people and learning from personal experience.; Drawing on various examples, problems addressed include the way theory changes and is personalized in practice, and how individuals form generalizations out of their practice. Eraut considers the meaning of client-centredness and its implications, and to what extent professional knowledge is (...) based on intuition, understanding and learning. He considers the issue of competence versus knowledge and the effect of lifelong learning on the quality of practice. (shrink)

First-person accounts from practicing nurses provide students with expert role models in this authoritative yet personal text that focuses on patients' responses to stress. The breadth and value of the nursing experience is reinforced as nurses share how their caring made a critical difference for patients and their families. This text, winner of two American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Awards in 1988, is an ideal supplement for courses in advanced medical/surgical nursing, community health nursing, and particularly for (...) nursing trends and issues courses. (shrink)

This long-awaited sequel to Benner's earlier book, From Novice to Expert, this volume further analyzes and examines the nature of clinical knowledge and judgment, using the authors' major new research study as its base. The authors interviewed and observed the practice of 130 hospital nurses, mainly in critical care, over a 6-year period, collecting hundreds of clinical narratives from which they have refined and deepened their explanation of the stages of clinical skill acquisition and the components of expert practice.

In this book, his major work, Alfred Schutz attempts to provide a sound philosophical basis for the sociological theories of Max Weber. Using a Husserlian phenomenology, Schutz provides a complete and original analysis of human action and its "intended meaning.".

In _Caring_, Peta Bowden extends and challenges recent debates on feminist ethics. She takes issue with accounts of the ethics of care that focus on alleged principles of caring rather than analysing caring in practice. Caring, Bowden argues, must be understood by 'working through examples'. Following this approach, Bowden explores four main caring practices: mothering, friendship, nursing and citizenship. Her analysis of the differences and similarities in these practices - their varying degrees of intimacy and reciprocity, formality and informality, vulnerability (...) and choice - reveals the practical complexity of the ethics of care. _Caring_ recognizes that ethical practices constantly outrun the theories that attempt to explain them, and Bowden's unique approach provides major new insights into the nature of care without resorting to indiscriminate unitary models. It will be essential reading for all those interested in ethics, gender studies, nursing and the caring professions. (shrink)

Iris Murdoch's moral philosophy has long influenced contemporary ethics, yet it has not, in general, received the kind of sustained critical attention that it deserves. "Existentialists and Mystics" and "Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals" provide new access to most of Murdoch's philosophical writings and make possible a deeper appreciation of her contribution to current thought. After assessing the recent critical reception of Murdoch's thought, this review places her moral philosophy in the context of contemporary trends in ethics by tracing (...) her influence on the work of Charles Taylor, highlights the distinctive features of her moral philosophy, and suggests future directions for Murdochian ethics. (shrink)