ABSTRACT
Developing a Confucian ethics of nursing and care is necessary and possible. The necessity arises from the persistent crisis of nursing as a profession in China, and how official socialist medical ethics and healthcare organization impact on nursing and nursing ethical practice. Confucianism has rich intellectual resources for the ethics of care and nursing. Among other possibilities, such a Confucian ethics can be centred on the fundamental ethical concept of ren (benevolence, humaneness, or humanity), and this positions nursing as moral practice or renshu, the art of humanity. Despite its ill fate in the past century and a half, Confucianism can significantly contribute to better cultivating the morality of nursing and care in China and globally.
