Her careful building of positions, her unique approaches to analyzing problems, and her excellent insights make this an important work for feminists, those ...

David Hume's essay Of Moral Prejudices offers a spirited defense of "all the most endearing sentiments of the hearts, all the most useful biases and instincts, ...

How is feminism changing the way women and men think, feel, and act? Virginia Held explores how feminist theory is changing contemporary views of moral choice. She proposes a comprehensive philosophy of feminist ethics, arguing persuasively for reconceptualizations of the self of relations between the self and others and of images of birth and death, nurturing and violence. Held shows how social, political, and cultural institutions have traditionally been founded upon masculine ideals of morality. She then identifies a distinct feminist (...) morality that moves beyond culturally embedded notions about motherhood and female emotionality. Examining the effects of this alternative moral and ethical system on changing social values, Held discusses its far-reaching implications for altering standards of freedom, democracy, equality, and personal development. Ultimately, she concludes, the culture of feminism could provide a fresh perspective on--even solutions to--contemporary social problems. Feminist Morality makes a vital contribution to the ongoing debate in feminist theory on the importance of motherhood. For philosophers and other readers outside feminist theory, it offers a feminist moral and social critique in clear and accessible terms. (shrink)

Nel Noddings, in Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (1984), presents and develops an ethic of care as an alternative to an ethic that treats justice as a basic concept. I argue that this care ethic is unable to give an adequate account of ethical relationships between strangers and that it is also in danger of valorizing relationships in which carers are seriously abused.

Nel Noddings, in Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, presents and develops an ethic of care as an alternative to an ethic that treats justice as a basic concept. I argue that this care ethic is unable to give an adequate account of ethical relationships between strangers and that it is also in danger of valorizing relationships in which carers are seriously abused.

Annette Baier sets the title, the genre, and the task of her book from Hume’s essay "Of Moral Prejudices." Rather than arguing from or towards general principles, these essays call upon a wide range of reading, observation, and experience: we are not only meant to be enlightened, but also invited to adopt the reflective habits of mind they exemplify. Like Hume, Baier analyzes and evaluates our attitudes and customs; like him, she finds that our foibles and our strengths are closely (...) linked; and like him, she is both a proponent and a model of good sense. When she is unfairly prejudiced— as she is against what she sees as the harsh and narrow rigors of Kant—she is, with all the bonnehommie of Hume, more ready to tease than to demolish. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to report what can be learned about nurses’ ethical conflicts by the systematic analysis of methodologically similar studies. Five studies were identified and analysed for: (1) the character of ethical conflicts experienced; (2) similarities and differences in how the conflicts were experienced and how they were resolved; and (3) ethical conflict themes underlying four specialty areas of nursing practice (diabetes education, paediatric nurse practitioner, rehabilitation and nephrology). The predominant character of the ethical conflicts was (...) disagreement with the quality of medical care given to patients. A significant number of ethical conflicts were experienced as ‘moral distress’, the resolution of which was variable, depending on the specialty area of practice. Ethical conflict themes underlying the specialty areas included: differences in the definition of adequacy of care among professionals, the institution and society; differences in the philosophical orientations of nurses, physicians and other health professionals involved in patient care; a lack of respect for the knowledge and expertise of nurses in specialty practice; and difficulty in carrying out the nurse’s advocacy role for patients. (shrink)

In this companion volume to their 1981 work, A Philosophical Basis of Medical Practice, Pellegrino and Thomasma examine the principle of beneficence and its role in the practice of medicine. Their analysis, which is grounded in a thorough-going philosophy of medicine, addresses a wide array of practical and ethical concerns that are a part of health care decision-making today. Among these issues are the withdrawing and withholding of nutrition and hydration, competency assessment, the requirements for valid surrogate decision-making, quality-of-life determinations, (...) the allocation of scarce health care resources, medical gatekeeping, and for-profit medicine. The authors argue for the restoration of beneficence to its place as the fundamental principle of medical ethics. They maintain that to be guided by beneficence a physician must perform a right and good healing action which is consonant with the individual patient 's values. In order to act in the patient 's best interests, or the patient 's good, the physician and patient must discern what that good is. This knowledge is gained only through a process of dialogue between patient and/or family and physician which respects and honors the patient 's autonomous self-understanding and choice in the matter of treatment options. This emphasis on a dialogical discernment of the patient 's good rejects the assumption long held in medicine that what is considered to be the medical good is necessarily the good for this patient. In viewing autonomy as a necessary condition of beneficence, the authors move beyond a trend in the medical ethics literature which identifies beneficence with paternalism. In their analysis of beneficence, the authors reject the current emphasis on rights- and duty-based ethical systems in favor of a virtue-based theory which is grounded in the physician- patient relationship. This book's provocative contributions to medical ethics will be of great interest not only to physicians and other health professionals, but also to ethicists, students, patients, families, and all others concerned with the relationship of professional to patient and patient to professional in health care today. (shrink)

Nel Noddings argues that hers is not an ethics of agape. I want to argue, on the contrary, that it is, and that this is a problem. My central thesis is that the unidirectional nature of the analysis of one-caring reinforces oppressive institutions.

The current reform of nursing education is resulting in major changes in the curricula of colleges of nursing. For the first time, ethical and moral issues are being seen as an important theme underpinning the entire course. The moral theorist with whose work most nurse teachers are acquainted is Kohlberg. In this paper, it is suggested that his work, and the conventions of morality which he exemplifies, may not be the most appropriate from which to address the moral issues facing (...) the nurse. The author suggests that the work of Carol Gilligan of Harvard university is of great significance, not only for nurses involved in the teaching of ethics, but for all nurses. Gilligan's emphasis on caring and relationships accords with the common experience of the nurse, and echoes the current revival of interest within nursing in examining, and valuing, the phenomenon of caring. (shrink)

Hearing the difference between a patriarchal voice and a relational voice defines a paradigm shift: a change in the conception of the human world. Theorizing connection as primary and fundamental in human life leads to a new psychology, which shifts the grounds for philosophy and political theory. A crucial distinction is made between a feminine ethic of care and a feminist ethic of care. Voice, relationship, resistance, and women become central rather than peripheral in this reframing of the human world.

First Published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This new edition of Genevieve Lloyd's classic study of the maleness of reason in philosophy contains a new introduction and bibilographical essay assessing the ..

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.

"These essays advance a reinterpretation of pivotal categories such as self-knowing, moral agency, and altruism.

Virginia Held's Feminist Morality defends the idea that it is possible to transform the "public" sphere by remaking it on the model of existing "private" relationships such as families. This paper challenges Held's optimism. It is argued that feminist moral inquiry can aid in transforming the public sphere only by showing just how much the allegedly "private" realms of families and personal relationships are shaped-and often misshapen-by public demands and concerns.