ABSTRACT
Drawing on Charles Taylor’s philosophical ideas on human agency, in this chapter, Franco A Carnevale articulates a conception of human agency for nursing which highlights that persons are self-interpreting moral agents who are continually discerning how things matter in light of the broader sociocultural contexts they navigate. Given the interpretive ‘nature’ of suffering – eluding objectification – understanding a person’s suffering requires hermeneutical approaches in nursing practice and research. Using descriptions of how nursing and nurses can imagine suffering within a hermeneutic conception of human agency, the experience of suffering is illuminated in ways that would otherwise be difficult to understand and comfort.
