Health and Social Care, London South Bank University, London, UK.
Nurs Philos. 2012 Jul;13(3):214-23. doi: 10.1111/j.1466-769X.2012.00536.x.
This paper will examine a claim that nursing is united by its moral stance. The claim is that there are moral constraints on nurses' actions as people practising nursing (nurses qua nurses) and that they are in some way different from both what for now can be called standard morality and also different from the person's own moral views who also happens to be a nurse, hence the defining and unifying factor for nursing. I will begin by situating the claim within the broader area about the need for a definition to state features that are essential to all and only members of its class. This will highlight the fact that there are two distinct types of definition used by authors seeking to find a unity for nursing. One type of definition has to do with goals or purposes given to nursing and the other with ends discovered as nursing. But even if there are ends waiting to be discovered a particular practical concern is how we can have knowledge of them. I will suggest that knowledge by intuition is plausible but that as things currently stand in moral epistemology it will not provide the unifying ground for nursing. Then I will argue that in the latter approach to definition a certain account of human nature has been advanced in order to provide features that are there to be discovered and so not dependent on human beings for the definition or classification. However, such an attempt to define nursing cannot do what is wanted. Rather than the account of human nature grounding morality and doing so for nursing, the account of human nature itself relies upon a prior account of morality. Because of this it loses its supposed ground of unity for the profession. Nursing is not united by its moral stance especially if this is understood in a strong sense as unique moral stance, but as things currently stand in moral epistemology this is not necessarily a bad thing for practitioners or patients.
本文将探讨一个主张，即护理是通过其道德立场来统一的。该主张认为，护士在作为护理从业者（即护士本身）的行动中受到道德约束，并且在某种程度上与当前所谓的标准道德以及碰巧也是护士的人的个人道德观点不同，因此成为护理的定义和统一因素。我将首先将该主张置于更广泛的领域内，即在需要定义来陈述对其类别中的所有成员和仅对成员来说是必要的特征时。这将突出这样一个事实，即寻求为护理找到统一的作者使用了两种截然不同的定义类型。一种类型的定义与赋予护理的目标或目的有关，另一种与作为护理发现的目的有关。但是，即使有待发现的目的，一个特殊的实际问题是我们如何获得对它们的了解。我将提出，直觉知识是合理的，但就目前道德认识论的情况而言，它不会为护理提供统一的基础。然后，我将论证在后者的定义方法中，已经提出了某种人性解释，以提供有待发现的特征，因此，它们的定义或分类不依赖于人类。然而，这种定义护理的尝试并不能满足要求。不是人性解释为道德奠定基础，并且为护理如此，而是人性解释本身依赖于先验的道德解释。由于这种依赖性，它失去了护理专业假定的统一基础。护理并不是通过其道德立场统一的，特别是如果将这种立场理解为独特的道德立场，那么就目前道德认识论的情况而言，这对从业者或患者来说不一定是一件坏事。
