practice in the technical sense in which Alastair MacIntyre (1985) employs that term to
denote human activity in which the virtues may be enabled to flourish. I then go on to
consider MacIntyre’s account of human flourishing together with the implications for
nursing practice. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of the place of
MacIntyre’s core virtues of courage, truthfulness and justice in the practice of nursing.
Chapter 4 offers an account of the nature of trust and trustworthiness and the place of
both in the practice of nursing. I argue that, while there are substantial difficulties with
the idea of trustworthiness as a virtue as such, it can, nevertheless, be considered as a
professional virtue, at least in the terms is which I define professional virtue. I argue
that, despite a general acceptance of the need for nurses (and other health care
practitioners) to be trustworthy, what is meant by trustworthiness in professional life is
poorly articulated. I argue that professional trustworthiness is essential to the moral
practice of nursing and as such is a core professional virtue.
Chapter 5 develops the argument that in addition to trustworthiness, open-mindedness
is another (currently neglected) essential professional virtue. I argue that many of the
problems that beset nursing practice (and education) result from failures of open-
mindedness. Failures of open-mindedness are of two kinds: i) those failures that result
from a general attitude of closed- or narrow-mindedness and ii) those failures that result
from a tendency to credulousness. Some of the conceptual and practical difficulties in
aiming for open-mindedness, and the implications for the ethical practice of nursing are
discussed.
Chapter 6 attempts to consider what sort of approach to the education of nurses is most
likely to encourage the development of those professional virtues appropriate for
nursing. Inevitably this discussion is constrained by the difficulties of providing suitable
evidence for the claims made but this should not be considered as a fatal obstacle to the
discussion. If it is true that nurses must be more than mere technicians of packages of
care then the debate about how best to educate for moral practice is of the utmost
importance and cannot wait until compelling evidence for change is available. The ways
in which nursing knowledge, nursing education and nursing practice are conceptualised,
organised and delivered will inevitably affect the ways in which students and
practitioners of nursing are encouraged or discouraged in the cultivation of virtues and
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