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



32


Derek Sellman


practices that go to make up the life of the individ-
ual - that which goes to make up the narrative unity
of the person. Tlrus if the business person relies on
these attributes of ruthlessness and economy with
the truth for a successful money earning activity
MacIntyre would want to ask if these attributes can
be carried over in any consistent way into other activ-
ities of his or her life that might be considered as prac-
tices. Are ruthlessness and economy with the truth
appropriate attributes for the maintaining and sus-
taining of family life? MacIntyre would answer that
they are not and would conclude that while ruthless-
ness and economy with the truth may be essential and
desirable characteristics for a certain form of activity
they do not meet the criteria for virtues.

In addition,MacIntyre would point out that the dis-
sonance apparent in the example above is part of the
fragmentation of modern life. MacIntyre is a severe
critic of the modern condition. He claims that our
present moral fragmentation is a result of an incom-
plete appreciation of those moral traditions lost to us
as a consequence of our modern belief in a neutral
and scientific rationality. What we have inherited is a
rationality pieced together from fragments of earlier
understandings. If practices exist at all in the modern
milieu then they are testament to the survival of
an older, Aristotelian type of rationality. The virtues
that sustain practices are subject to the corrupting
influences of the modern fragmentation and the
survival of a practice relies on sufficient numbers
of individuals able and willing to pursue both the
standards of excellence and the internal goods of
that practice. Tlius there remains a certain inevi-
tability about the moral fragmentation of modern life
together with an uncertainty about the continued
survival of practices.

The modern individual has learned to live with
uncertainty. Many modern individuals are able to
engage with a practice in one area of their lives
without transferring either the virtues or the stan-
dards of excellence into their other activities. The fact
that a person can recognize chess as a practice in the
MacIntyrean sense suggests not only that practices
continue to survive but also that the modern world
can accommodate practices. We might recognize a
good chess player as one who exhibits all the virtues
we have come to expect of someone engaged in the
practice of chess, but we would not necessarily expect
nor require that the same individual should display
those virtues in other areas of his or her life. Whereas
when we recognize these things in a good nurse we
have a tendency to expect those same virtues to be
transferred into other aspects of the life of that indi-
vidual. Indeed this is made explicit in the opening
statement of the UKCC
Code of Professional
Conduct
which states that ‘Each registered nurse,
midwife and health visitor shall act, at all times, in
such a manner as to:...’ (UKCC, 1992) and goes on
to identify certain principles of appropriate profes-
sional behaviour.The important words here are ‘at all
times’ because this implies that the nurse shall live
a life in a way that is consistent with the tenets of
the UKCC
Code of Professional Conduct, what
MacIntyre would describe as a life of narrative unity.

The potential for the engagement in a practice to
influence other activities of an individual’s life would
seem to depend upon a number of factors. One of
those factors might be the time spent engaged in that
practice. A professional practice as I have defined it
with its demanding requirement of commitments has
the potential to spill over into other activities of that
person’s life. In addition, the influence of the virtues
and standards of excellence in the tradition of nursing
would seem to intend to influence other aspects of the
life of a given individual engaged in the professional
practice of nursing.

In order to identify the virtues necessary for nursing
there would appear to be two tasks: the first is to iden-
tify those virtues required for a practice, the second is
to consider the virtues that maintain and sustain the
professional practice of nursing. The core virtues
required for a practice have been identified by MacIn-
tyre as the virtue of justice, the virtue of courage, and
the virtue of honesty. The reason for distinguishing
nursing as a professional practice is to build upon these
core virtues. It is necessary to ask if the attributes
required for nursing can be shown to be attributes con-
sistent with other practices that might make up the
unity of an individual life and then to ask if these
attributes can be identified within the moral traditions
of nursing. Edgar (1993) suggests that the UKCC
Code
of Professional Conduct
(UKCC, 1992) and the asse-

ts) Blackwell Science Ltd 2000 Nursing Philosophy, I, pp. 26-33

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