Values, Beliefs & Ethics

Tim G

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

What are values and beliefs?

Consider how you would describe them, and then how are they related?

What are morals?Ethics?

Four ethical principles

Beauchamp & ChildressRaanon & Gillon

Law & the Code leads to a ‘good’

nurse?

The Code leads to a ‘good’ nurse?

Are all nurses morally and professionally competent at point of registration?

No assumption that nurses develop morally as they work.

Individuals who are “personally accountable for actions and omissions” … are we islands?

Statements beginning with “You must ….”, and yet it asks nurses to be virtuous?

UtilitarianismDeontologyVirtue Ethics

Deontology

Kant “Everyone is obligated to act only in ways that

respect the human dignity and moral rights of all persons”.

Do as you would be done by

The Categorical Imperative

1. Act only according to that maxim by which you can also will that it would become a universal law.

2. Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.

3. Act as though you were, through your maxims, a law-making member of a kingdom of ends.

Tim G

Virtue EthicsAristotle

Eudaimonia

Establishes what is virtuous.The goal is ‘good’.The ultimate goal is Eudaimonia.

“flourish”

Not precise knowledge, like logic and mathematics, but rather a general knowledge, a practical discipline rather than

a theoretical one.Develop an “eye for a situation”.

Context is part of the decision process

Tim G