(Normative) Moral Theory and Nursing Practice

The chapter explores the role of moral theories in decision making in nursing. Loosely based on a case study involving deception in care, utilitarian, deontological and virtue ethics approaches are briefly applied with advantages and pitfalls identified. All theoretical approaches would support, with some variation and the possibility of difference, a view that the nurse should be truthful in the case study. This broad agreement in theoretical approach, the lack of emphasis of moral theory in many ethical decision-making frameworks, the influence of law and professional issues in decision making processes and the need for practical application over theoretical debate all provide reasons why the study of detailed moral theories in nursing courses can probably make way to other content in a crowded curriculum. However, a broad understanding of consequences, duty and virtue are useful and necessary to ethical decision making.