ABSTRACT
In this chapter I present an argument that nursing education in the US and many other countries is largely failing to develop ethically astute nurses who can practice in accord with the goals, perspectives and reason-for-being of the profession. Ethical astuteness is needed for good everyday practice and as a basis for developing the higher-level skills and capacities needed for ethical decision-making in complex and conflictual situations and for acting accordingly (nurse moral agency). Suggestions are provided for enhancing ethics education across curricula levels. Defended is the proposition that regardless of curricula structure or the philosophical assumptions that underlie them (presuming these are discernable) if they are not anchored in an understanding of the everyday ethical nature of nursing practice and its associated responsibilities, nursing education efforts will be misdirected, fragmented and susceptible to prevailing economic and/or political movements that do not have the health and well-being of humans as their first priority. An underlying assumption of the chapter is that nursing is a profession; an assumption that is defended as a basis for the succeeding discussion of the status of contemporary nursing education. Sociopolitical influences on nursing education are summarized, with actual and potential problems for both the nursing profession and those who rely on nursing’s services (individuals and communities) exemplified. Finally, drawing on variety of sources including insights from moral psychology, participants in a year-long (96-hour) post-graduate clinical ethics program, extant literature, and my own observations as an academic educator and clinician, an essential ethics matrix for developing ethically aware and ethically astute nurses is proposed.
