becomes incumbent on all nurse teachers to strive to be practitioners of the sort we
would want those learning the practice to become. Hence it may not be necessary for
our nurse teachers to try to aim to teach others to be moral as such, rather it is in
exemplifying what the role encompasses in moral terms (being honest, just, courageous,
trustworthy, open-minded and so on) that offers the student a glimpse of what moral
practice requires. Those who are sufficiently moved to wish to convert their raw
altruistic emotions, their well meaning intentions, to informed good will in order to best
meet the moral requirements of nursing will wish to emulate those traits of character
they see as admirable both for their own sake and for their contribution to the
flourishing of more-than-ordinarily vulnerable persons. This may also work in reverse
insofar as our well meaning student may witness unedifying actions that hinder the
flourishing of more-than-ordinarily vulnerable persons and by the same token may
work towards ensuring they do not emulate those vices.
Steutel and Spiecker claim that the tutor who takes on the role of a mentor is the
essential ingredient of an Aristotelian habituation in the inculcation of moral virtue.
They note that habituation may be an entirely appropriate way of developing habits but
that the case for habituation leading to the cultivation of affective dispositions is much
harder to make. They say:
.. .the relationship between consistently doing the proper things and the
establishment of corresponding habits is quite easy to grasp, whereas a
relationship between such a way of learning and acquiring sentimental
dispositions is difficult to fathom. Doing virtuous things on a regular basis is
likely to result in virtuous habits, but how could such a practice also result in
dispositions to be affected in virtuous ways?
(Steutel and Spiecker 2005 p. 540)
Of course, this raises an essential difference between the aims of moral education
generally in which the teacher is attempting to inculcate dispositions to those who may
not be disposed to value those dispositions, and the aims of moral education for nursing
(at least as I am framing it here) where the teacher is attempting to encourage students
to develop enduring traits of character (at least in professional life) in those who are
assumed to have the appropriate, if raw, altruistic emotions. Nevertheless, their claim
that habituation in the attempt to inculcate moral virtue can only be successful with the
supervision of a virtuous tutor is readily translatable to nursing education. And the fact
that the professional body for nursing has chosen as the preferred term mentor, to
denote the practising nurse whose primary role is in direct patient care, suggests just this
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