ABSTRACT
This 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, 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 a 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 is useful and necessary to ethical decision making.
