Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/1567
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dc.contributor.authorArmstrong, Alan Eric-
dc.date.accessioned2013-03-14T16:28:51Z-
dc.date.available2013-03-14T16:28:51Z-
dc.date.issued2004-
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10443/1567-
dc.descriptionPhD Thesisen_US
dc.description.abstractIllness creates a range of negative emotions in patients including vulnerability, powerlessness and dependence on others for help. The nursing literature is saturated with debate about a 'therapeutic' nurse-patient relationship. However, despite the current agenda regarding patient-centred care, literature concerning the development of good interpersonal responses and the view that a satisfactory nursing ethics should focus on persons and character traits rather than actions, nursing ethics is dominated by the traditional obligation, act-centred theories such as consequentialism and deontology. I critically examine these theories and the role of duty-based notions in both general ethics and nursing practice. Because of well-established flaws, I conclude that obligation-based moral theories are incomplete and inadequate for nursing practice. Instead, the moral virtues and virtue ethics provide a plausible and viable alternative for nursing practice. I develop an account of a virtue-based helping relationship and a virtue-based approach to nursing. The latter is characterized by three features: (1) exercising the moral virtues such as compassion and courage, (2) using judgment and (3) using moral wisdom - moral perception, sensitivity and imagination. Merits and problems of this approach are examined. Following Macintyre, I conceive nursing as a practice; nurses who exercise the virtues and seek the internal goods help to sustain the practice of nursing and thus prevent the marginalization of the virtues. The strong (action-guiding) practice based version of virtue ethics proposed is context-dependent, particularist and relational. Several areas for future philosophical inquiry and empirical nursing research are suggested to develop this account yet further.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipDepartment of Psychiatry, University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Catherine Cookson Bequest Bursary, 1998-2001.en_US
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherNewcastle Universityen_US
dc.titleTowards a strong practice-based virtue ethics for nursingen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
Appears in Collections:Institute of Neuroscience

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