In this study we tried to gain information about the ethical sensitivity (as well as the ethical knowledge) of nurses working at the bedside in our country. Four scenarios were presented to 165 nurses working in hospital wards in Kocaeli. More than half of the nurses can be considered to have made decisions based on beneficence for the first scenario, while more than half of them preferred to make decisions based on autonomy for the second and the fourth scenarios. For (...) the third scenario, most of the nurses (76.4%) can be said to have based their decisions on veracity. These results suggest that these nurses were sensitive to issues of confidentiality, truth telling and beneficence; however, they were not equally sensitive when the right to refuse treatment was concerned. (shrink)

Most contemporary moral philosophy is concerned with issues of rationality, universality, impartiality, and principle. By contrast Laurence Blum is concerned with the psychology of moral agency. The essays in this collection examine the moral import of emotion, motivation, judgment, perception, and group identifications, and explore how all these psychic capacities contribute to a morally good life. Blum takes up the challenge of Iris Murdoch to articulate a vision of moral excellence that provides a worthy aspiration for human beings. Drawing on (...) accounts of non-Jewish rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust Blum argues that impartial principle can mislead us about the variety of forms of moral excellence. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Principles of Biomedical Ethics. By Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress.

Nursing practice invites nurses to embody caring practices that meet, comfort and empower vulnerable others. Such a practice requires a commitment to meeting and helping the other in ways that liberate and strengthen and avoid imposing the will of the caregiver on the patient. Being good and acting well (phronesis) occur in particular situations. A socially constituted and embodied view of agency, as developed by Merleau‐Ponty, provides an alternative to Cartesian and Kantian views of agency. A socially constituted, embodied view (...) of agency is less mechanistic and less deterministic than Descartes' and Kant's radical separation of mind and body, and more responsive and generative than Kant's vision of moral agency as constituted by autonomous choice makers who are uninfluenced by emotion. The role of emotion in perception and judgement is explored in this paper. Distinctions between techne and phronesis are drawn. The role of emotion in market relationships and procedural ethics drawn for the abstract, general other are strategies for exchange of goods and services, but these same market relationships are dependent on well‐functioning nonmarket relations of noncalculated giving and receiving. (shrink)

A resurgence of interest in virtue ethics has engendered new insight into the fundamental link between selfhood and morality. In contradistinction to the currently ascendant justice-reasoning research paradigm, it appears that a virtue ethics approach to moral psychology provides a theoretical framework which is amenable to the empirical investigation of the nature and formation of the moral self. Six primary features of virtue ethics are delineated with a unifying emphasis throughout on the inextricable link between virtue and moral selfhood. Questions (...) and issues concerning the possibility of a psychology of virtue ethics are directly addressed throughout. (shrink)

Neither the corporate view of whistle blowers as tattle-tales and traitors, nor the more sympathethic understanding of them as tragic heroes battling corrupt or abused systems captures what is at stake in whistle blowing at its most distinctive. The courage, determination and sacrifice of the most ardent whistle blowers suggests that they only begin to be appreciated when they are seen as the saints of secular culture. Although some whistle blowers may be attempting to deflect attention from their own deficiencies (...) and others may be disgruntled employees, the most serious instances involve a level of moral sensitivity that approaches religious proportions that are baffling for a culture that has dispensed with sainthood. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to describe the synthesis of the concept of moral stress and to attempt to identify its preconditions. Qualitative data from two independent studies on professional issues in nursing were analysed from a hypothetical-deductive approach. The findings indicate that moral stress is independent of context-given specific preconditions: (1) nurses are morally sensitive to the patient’s vulnerability; (2) nurses experience external factors preventing them from doing what is best for the patient; and (3) nurses feel that (...) they have no control over the specific situation. The findings from this analysis are supported by recent research on stress in the workplace but differ in that the imperatives directing work are moral in nature. Stress researchers have found that persons who experience that they have no control over their work situation and at the same time experience high demands may be prone to cardiovascular diseases. An important question raised by this study is whether moral stress should be recognized as a health risk in nursing. Further research is required in order to generate intervention models to prevent or deal with moral stress. (shrink)

This paper investigates the possibility of understanding the rudimentary elements of clinical sensitivity by investigating the works of Edmund Husserl and Emmanuel Levinas on sensibility. Husserl's theory of intentionality offers significant reflections on the role of pre-reflective and affective intuition as a condition for intentionality and reflective consciousness. These early works of Husserl, in particular his works on the constitution of phenomenological time and subjective time-consciousness, prove to be an important basis for Levinas’ works on an ethics of alterity and (...) infinite responsibility for the other person. In fact, it is difficult to understand the core of Levinasian ethics, of vulnerability as proximity, of ethical sensitivity as passivity and a suffering for the suffering of another, without understanding the influence from Husserl's work. Crucially, the paper will, on the basis of Levinasian ethics, establish an understanding of sensibility as vulnerability and receptivity that is fundamental also for understanding significant intuitions in clinical nursing. Clinical sensitivity and carefulness in nursing are shaped by the concrete and also bodily expressions of vulnerabilities in a receptivity that is pre-reflective and pre-ontological. (shrink)

Most contemporary philosophers accept Kant's view1 that the central question of morality is what ought I to do. This gives choice a pivotal role, for choice is what one faces when the question has to be answered. Since what is chosen is an action, this view of morality—I shall call it the current view —is action-orientated. And since actions are directed towards people, the current view stresses altruism and universalizability. Morality is thus supposed to be activist and social. It is (...) a sensible, public-spirited enterprise in which responsible members of society will participate because they realize that reason requires it. Kantians, Utilitarians, Contractarians, and Marxists disagree, of course, about the nature of the relation between reason and morality. But they agree that choice intending to lead to action contributing to the welfare of others is the central concern of morality. (shrink)

Recently within the critical accounting literature Funnell (1998) has argued that accounting was implicated in the Holocaust. This charge is primarily related to the technical, mathematical nature of accounting and its ability to dehumanise individuals. Broadbent (1998, see also DeMoss and McCann, 1997) has also contended that "accounting logic" excludes emotion. She suggests that a more emancipatory form of accounting could be possible if emotion were given a voice and allowed to be heard within accounting discourse (see also Kjonstad and (...) Wilmott, 1995). This paper contends that emotion should be introduced into accounting education and in particular emotional commitment to other individuals should be encouraged. It is suggested that one way to do this may be through business ethics education. It is also suggested that increasing ethical commitment to other individuals may go some way towards combating the tendency for accountancy to dehumanise other people. While there have been specific studies of ethics and accounting education there has, as yet, been little open debate about what the objectives of accounting ethics education should be or the specific techniques that could be used to meet the desired aims. This paper contends that accountancy has become dangerously dehumanised and that one of the most important objectives for any business ethics education must be to develop an empathy with "the other". The paper studies the developments within the medical, legal and engineering profession in order to suggest some specific methods which could be employed in order to re-humanise accountancy and develop a sense of moral commitment towards other individuals. (shrink)

Unable to answer the call of our patients: mental health nurses’ experience of moral distress When health practitioners’ moral choices and actions are thwarted by constraints, they may respond with feelings of moral distress. In a Canadian hermeneutic phenomenological study, physicians, nurses, psychologists and non‐professional aides were asked to identify care situations that they found morally distressing, and to elaborate on how moral concerns regarding the care of patients were raised and resolved. In this paper, we describe the experience of (...) moral distress related by nurses working in mental healthcare settings who believed that lack of resources (such as time and staff) leads to dispiritedness, lack of respect, and absence of recognition (for both patients and staff) which severely diminished their ability to provide quality care. The metaphors of flashlight and hammer are used to elaborate nurses’ possible responses to intolerable situations. (shrink)

BackgroundMost medical schools in Japan have incorporated mandatory courses on medical ethics. To this date, however, there is no established means of evaluating medical ethics education in Japan. This study looks 1) To develop a brief, objective method of evaluation for moral sensitivity and reasoning; 2) To conduct a test battery for the PIT and the DIT on medical students who are either currently in school or who have recently graduated (residents); 3) To investigate changes in moral sensitivity and reasoning (...) between school years among medical students and residents.MethodsQuestionnaire survey: Two questionnaires were employed, the Problem Identification Test (PIT) for evaluation of moral sensitivity and a portion of the Defining Issues Test (DIT) for moral reasoning. Subjects consisted of 559 medical school students and 272 residents who recently graduated from the same medical school located in an urban area of Japan.ResultsPIT results showed an increase in moral sensitivity in 4th and 5th year students followed by a decrease in 6th year students and in residents. No change in moral development stage was observed. However, DIT results described a gradual rising shift in moral decision-making concerning euthanasia between school years. No valid correlation was observed between PIT and DIT questionnaires.ConclusionThis study's questionnaire survey, which incorporates both PIT and DIT, could be used as a brief and objective means of evaluating medical students' moral sensitivity and reasoning in Japan. (shrink)

This article considers the foundation of nursing as a moral practice. Its basic claim is that all nursing knowledge and action reside on a moral foundation. The clinical gaze meets vulnerability in the patient’s human condition. To see a patient’s wound is to see his or her hurt and discomfort; it is a concerned observation. To see the factual and pathophysiological is at the same time to see the ethical: the moral realities of suffering, pain and discomfort. A nurse’s emotional (...) sensitivities are central to understanding a patient’s experiences of illness. Emotions reveal value and ascribe moral importance to certain situations; they are addressed centrally by vulnerability and the moral realities of illness. Hence, the essence of nursing knowledge and nursing performance cannot be understood merely as ontology (i.e. as being-with-the-other). Nursing is basically being-for-the-other; it is responsibility; it is ethics. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to develop a measure of ethical sensitivity to racial and gender intolerance that occurs in schools. Acts of intolerance that indicate ethically insensitive behaviors in American schools were identified and tied to existing professional ethical codes developed by school-based professional organizations. The Racial Ethical Sensitivity Test consists of 5 scenarios that portray acts of racial intolerance and ethical insensitivity. Participants viewed 2 videotaped scenarios and then responded to a semistructured interview protocol adapted from Bebeau and (...) Rest. After a 2-week interval, this procedure was repeated. Stability of the REST across time was determined by using the overall test-retest coefficient. Internal as well as interrater consistency was also calculated for each scenario. Overall findings indicate promise for the REST as a reliable measure to assess racial and ethnic sensitivity. (shrink)

Past research has examined the ethical judgments of consumers in the U.S., but few studies have investigated such attitudes in foreign-market settings. The current study compares ethical attitudes of consumers in two countries (Ireland and Lebanon) which share a cultural similarity of ongoing war and terrorism. The findings reveal that both cultures exhibit low sensitivity to ethical issues. Furthermore, the findings show that the Irish consumers are less sensitive to consumer ethical practices, less idealistic, more relativistic, and more Machiavellian than (...) Lebanese consumers. The authors recommend that other researchers need to further investigate this perplexing issue because ethics is a research topic which often discourages survey respondents to be candid. (shrink)

ABSTRACT All ethical systems seem to call for more ethical sensitivity. The dangers to personal life of too much ethical sensitivity have received much attention lately, in attempts to limit the demands of morality. But the ethical dangers of ethical sensitivity have hardly been noticed. I argue that, in a number of different ways, too much ethical sensitivity can be ethically harmful. The normative, the psychological and the pragmatic pictures are for more complex than is commonly realised.

In this article, we explore ethical perceptions of three product packaging issues as viewed by packaging professionals, brand managers, and ethically-interested consumers. We examine, differences between business practitioners and consumers with respect to ethical sensitivity, perceived consequences of business practices, and perceived industry norms. Additionally, we explore the prevalence of two types of values, pragmatic and moral, to determine if the use of these value-types differs among the three groups. We find that business practitioners exhibit less ethical sensitivity. Businesspeople also (...) feel that the likelihood and severity of negative consequences resulting from a packaging practice is lower than do ethically-interested consumers. Finally, business practitioners do not differ from consumers with respect to moral values. (shrink)