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

ABSTRACT

The general neglect of character in nurse education means that there is a need for
attention to be paid to the development of professional virtues in students of nursing.
That is to say that the moral education of nurses is an important but often neglected area
of nurse education.

I argue that patients are by definition more-than-ordinarily vulnerable and that nursing
can be understood as a response to this extra-ordinary vulnerability of patients. One
legitimate aim of nursing practice is, therefore, human flourishing and as such nursing
can be categorised as a practice (in the sense that Alasdair MacIntyre uses the term). In
this conception nursing is an essentially moral practice and one, moreover, in which the
cultivation and expression of virtue is made possible.

I argue that a good nurse is one who is engaged in nursing as a practice and who, while
working as a nurse, exhibits, at the very least, virtue in a minimum conception. This
minimum virtue requirement is what I have termed professional virtue. After identifying
ways in which the three core virtues of honesty, justice and courage are essential for
nursing practice, I examine trustworthiness and open-mindedness as two professional
virtues necessary for the practice of nursing.

Finally, I make a case for a virtue ethics approach to the moral education of nurses and
suggest ways in which nurse educationalists can make use of this approach to cultivate
the appropriate sorts of necessary professional virtues for the moral practice of nursing.

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