Original paper
Alasdair Maclntyre and the professional
practice of nursing
Derek Sellman RGN, RMN, BSc (hons), MA
University of the West of England. FacUty of Health & Social Care. Glenside Campus, Blackberry Hιι!. Bristol BS16 IDD, UK
Abstract
In his attempt to explain and draw together disparate aspects of the tra-
dition of the virtues MacIntyre develops a complex and specific concept
that he terms a practice. By a practice he means to describe certain types
of activities in which excellences can be pursued and that offer those
engaged in a practice access to the goods internal to that practice.
Sellman and Wainwright have both suggested that there are ad-
vantages to be had in understanding nursing as a practice in this
Maclntyrean sense. This paper suggests that nursing should be con-
sidered as a particular type of MacIntyrean practice, and I have used
the term a pro fessional practice to identify this species.
This paper also considers some of the implications of such a per-
spective and suggests that one benefit of thinking of nursing as a pro-
fessional practice is that it may offer a route by which the virtues
necessary for nursing can be identified.
Introduction
In his book After Virtue Alasdair MacIntyre (1984)
attempts a history of the virtues in moral philosophy.
He implies that existing claims for a virtue tradition
tend to take insufficient cognizance of the disparate
historical and cultural contexts in which the virtues
occur. He suggests that our accounts generally do not
amount to a tradition as such, but rather offer a
number of separate traditions linked only by attach-
Correspondence: Derek Sellman, 7 West Lea Road, Bath BAl
3RL, UK. Tel.: (0117) 958 5655 ext. 8771: fax: (0117) 975 8443;
e-mail: [email protected]
merit to an ill-defined concept of the virtues - a
concept that is understood in different ways in both
historical and contemporary discourses. For example,
it makes sense to talk of an Aristotelian virtue tradi-
tion because Aristotelians have a clear picture of that
claim and will be able to provide a detailed account
that is both consistent and logical in its development
from the writings of Aristotle, and it would not be
inappropriate to talk of other traditions of the virtues
in the same way.
One of MacIntyre’s purposes in After Virtue is to
develop a more homogenous notion of a virtue tra-
dition and he goes about this enterprise by exploring
a number of effectively separate accounts before
offering what he believes to be a unifying concept.
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© Blackwell Science Ltd 2000 Nursing Philnsophy. 1. pp. 26-33
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