Philosophical Perspectives on Trustworthiness and Open-mindedness as Professional Virtues for the Practice of Nursing: Implications for he Moral Education of Nurses

possibility that our criteria might act to reduce rather than promote the capacity for
human flourishing. Suchjudgement requires the exercise of those human capacities that
afford us the ability to make reasoned judgements and is characterised by Aristotle as
practical wisdom.

Even so there is nothing in the fact that I hold firm beliefs about things that fit into the
category of things about which I should not ordinarily be open-minded that prevents me
from remaining open-minded about them in the sense that there may, on occasion, be
good reason for calling them into question. As it happens, I am confident that I shall not
need to revise many, if any, of these types of firmly held beliefs but I am still open to
the possibility that I may be wrong. Practical wisdom may help me to determine those
things about which I should hold firm beliefs, while still being open-minded (sense iv
above), if I am to flourish in the world: and it will also help me to recognise those things
about which I should remain open-minded in the sense of i-iii above. The uncertainty
about these things reflects our human vulnerability and attempts such as those of
Gardner to eliminate this uncertainty by creating clear ‘either/or’ categories only serve
to distract us from the inherent difficulties of the human condition.

As noted above there are legitimate limits to open-mindedness. Gardner (1993)
maintains that there is a whole range of issues about which it would be absurd to remain
open-minded. Thus, the Pope cannot be open-minded about the existence of God and
we should not be open-minded about the wickedness of child abuse. Hare and
McLaughlin (1994) accept that there are indeed limits to open-mindedness but, for
reasons similar to those outlined above, they do not believe this to undermine their
account of open-mindedness. It does, however, cause some difficulties. They note four
such limitations which might be categorised as: the practical limit; the rational limit; the
moral limit; and the logical limit.

i) The practical limit

The practical limit is illustrated by noting that a defendant in a murder trial who is
actually innocent cannot be open-minded about his innocence (Hare 1985).

U) The rational limit

The rational limit is the set of firmly held beliefs which it would be bizarre and
misleading to claim to be open-minded about. It would only be in very particular and

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