ABSTRACT
The pragmatic approach allows us to examine ideas about children's nursing in a historical context. First using a framework of ethical symmetries to explore whether children's nursing should operate to different ethics and moral standards than those used in the nursing care of adults, then using Margaret Urban Walker's expressive collaborative morality to discuss the allocation of responsibilities for children's nursing. Walker proposes the expressive collaborative model in opposition to a theoretical judicial model. Thinking and talking about children's nursing as addressing ethical symmetries is a political stance and, if adopted, changes children's nursing. Taking responsibility for children using ethical symmetry is a political stance. The power relationships between the parties can be recognised and who accepts or refutes responsibility for aspects of or the entirety of children's nursing can be negotiated. Through Walker's expressive collaborative morality, all the voices in children's nursing can be valued.
