The Theory Of Feminist Care Ethics

As a registered nurse practicing in the state of California I am responsible for practicing within my states legal regulations and nursing scope of practice. My concern for the welfare of the sick and injured allows me to practice ethical provisions of nursing. These are required if I am to carry out competent and effective nursing care. Nursing encompasses the prevention of illness, the alleviation of suffering, and the protection, promotion, and restoration of health in the care of individuals. Therefore, as health care professionals we must be familiar with the different philosophical forces, ethical principles, theories and values that influence nursing. At the same time, we must be respectful to our patient’s

In health and social care, four key Ethical Principles that are taken into account during these settings. Which are:

Nurses rely on personal knowledge and their professional skills to provide ethical care (Creasia & Friberg, 2011). In everyday practice, nurses must balance the needs of their patients against those of the organization, society and themselves. They strive to deliver the highest level of care for patients, but adjusting for limited organizational and personal resources often requires difficult decisions. This paper explores the following scenario suggested by Maville and Huerta: “You are a nurse providing home care to a mother, and you suspect child abuse after observing the mother’s reaction to her child” (as cited by Arizona State University, 2014). When faced with a moral dilemma, a competent nurse incorporates ethical, bioethical and legal considerations. In the proposed story, incorporating the nursing ethics of advocacy, beneficence, nonmaleficence and collaboration will guide the nurse towards an appropriate and legal course of action.

Moreover, an emphasis is imposed on the rights of a single patient to commit an act or decision even though it is in contrast with the views of the others. In regards to the ethical dilemma, a nurse could not justify the morality of the two possible choices based on their results and consequences. The Deontological approach would encourage the health care staff as well as the patient to ask themselves the most righteous choice for their situation. With this in mind, a combination of ethical theories can also be employed to give light to the dilemma. In view of this, another ethical approach could be applied to solve the issue, and this is the Right-based approach. This theory also aim to promote the rights of every person, and that, they are indispensable just to make ends meet. However, not all ethical theories can be incorporated in every dilemma in a health care setting because their foundations would contradict one another. In order to provide an effective and efficient solution, nurses should be knowledgeable of the principles enveloping each of the ethical theories and should be wise to apply them in appropriate issues and

Susan Sherwin’s view on abortion is primarily focused through the lens of feminist philosophy. Her article focuses primarily on how the feminist view provides more holistic, and less cold view on the topic of abortion that is more inclusive of the mother. The feminist view of abortion is primarily focused on looking at the factors that affect the mother through the process of the abortion, such as a woman’s feelings around the fetus, is conception, her partner, and her obligations. These are all factors that are not usually thought of by non-feminist thinkers. This is usually because the discussion around this topic is, as the author puts it “generally grounded in masculinist concepts of freedom (such as privacy, individual choice, and individuals’ property rights with respect to their own bodies)” (Sherwin.1997, 100). This view, as she puts it, primarily focuses on the morality and legal aspects of abortion. The basis of Sherwin’s paper centers around a feminist model from which to look at abortion. This model takes into account the emotional impact that an unwanted pregnancy has on the woman, who will be impacted most by this event. It gives sole power of design to the woman, who “may make mistakes in their moral judgements, but no one else can be assumed to have the authority to evaluate and overrule their judgements”. (Sherwin.1997, 102) Sherwin also advocates against the division of the mother and the fetus as separate entities during bioethical discussions. This also

The following memo was developed through deep reflection on the necessary decisions which lead to determine what possible areas of knowledge would be of importance to be analyzed, and the diverse methods and instruments that supported the understanding of the phenomena observed in the areas to be further discussed. In this vein, as a group, we decided to select articles that discuss the Ethics of Care Theory as a paradigm for nursing education. The reasons of our choice were, first due to a general knowledge about Ethics of Care Theory and its relationship with education; and second, the field of nursing provided a neutral arena for our discussions. None of us is related to nursing or any health-related educational

Effective nursing, in order to properly serve patients as well as the greater community, must necessarily be based on a strong, unshakeable foundation of ethical practice, which can be expressed through various theoretical nursing models. This paper will examine the theoretical basis for author’s own ethical nursing practice, and relate the theoretical discussion to the specific Phenomenon of Interest that was previously identified in earlier papers.

Ethic of justice is defined as “fairness and equality, verifiable and reliable decision-making based on universal rules and principles, autonomy, objectivity and impartibly, positivistic rationally.” Ethic of care is defined as care, involvement, empathy and maintaining harmonious relations, holistic, contextual and need-centered nature, extended communicative rationality.” The ethic of justice is described as fairness and equality, rational decision-making according to the universal rules and principles, and autonomous, fair and unbiased decision-making. In the other hand, the ethic of care is described as caring, involving and the maintaining of harmonious relationships from a need-centered, holistic and contextual point of view. The ethic of justice is treating everyone equally regardless of the situation, however, the ethic of care is generally treating an individual based on the situation; decision will be made on based on the motivations and need of an individual. Botes implies that using only one of these perspective of decision making can result to remain some of the ethical dilemmas unresolved. Botes’s suggestion for professor is to balance between the justice perspective with the care perspective when making ethical decisions, with the result that the solution would lie within the combination of both the ethics of justice and ethics of

With the utilization of the Act-utilitarianism mindset, an alternative plan of action to focus on the circumstances surrounding Andrea and the community at large can be established using Uustals ethical decision making model. The nine steps identified by Uustal can allow the nursing process to be applied in an effort to guide the nurse in practicing proper judgment. The quandary involves community, personal and patient dilemmas. While many nurses strive for adhesion to values of patient autonomy and keeping ones word, the very nature of health care can raise cause for nurses to contradict and deviate from their own ethical stand points, all in an effort to do the right thing. Due to Andrea’s development of cervical cancer, nurse Hathaway was right in disclosing the minor’s disease to her parents. Adolescents usually are covered by their family’s insurance, but they may not have coverage for unaccompanied care, and they may

Despite the knowledge that the ideology behind Ethics of Care requires a certain ability to hone in on the emotional aspects of an argument, it is admirable that one might explore the complexities that it might bring to a logical argument. Truthfully, relying on emotional knowledge aquired by experience is still somewhat relying on empirical evidence, however, solely relying upon such data can go as far as to skew the original argument presented. Unfortunately, several feminist debates have been undermined by a somewhat hysterical attempt at utilizing emotion as a point of logical reasoning, when, simply put, these actions are not a proper procedure to get ones philosophical standpoints herd. While it is obvious that the human mind is much

Ethics and Morals play an important role in the nursing profession; nurses are confronted with choices to make every day, and some of them more challenging than others. Ethics are affirmations between what it can be right or erroneous. For our society ethics is presented as a complex system of principles and beliefs. This system serves as an approach with the purpose of ensuring the protection of each individual within the society. On the other hand, morals are basic standards between what is right or wrong; each individual learns to identify these standards during the early stages of human development (Catalano, 2009). A person with morals is usually somebody who recognizes how to respond to the needs of another individual by giving care and keeping a level of responsibility while giving this care (Catalano, 2009).

The theory that I have chosen is Ethics of Care. Ethics of care was development by feminists in the second half of the twentieth century. According to Carol Gilligan, men and women look at ethical situations differently, which is why they handle situations very differently. For men this led to a morality based on each rights and devotion to abstract principles even at the sacrifice of people’s well-being. Men will handle a situation that benefits himself or his family even if it is hurting or harming others. For women, it had led to a morality based caring in which increasing maturity broadened the scope of the person’s sense of responsibility and compassion. For mature women it became more about equity and not about equality, when it came

The ethics of care may be a normative moral theory: a theory concerning what makes actions virtuously right or wrong. It's one amongst a cluster of normative moral theories that were developed by feminists within the half of the 20th century. Whereas consequentialist and deontological moral theories emphasize universal standards and non-partisanship, ethics of care emphasize the importance of response. Ethics of care contrasts with additional well-known moral views, like consequentialist theories and deontological theories. This kind of outlook is what feminist critics decision a justice view of morality. A morality is a care that rests on the understanding of relationships as a response to a different in their terms.

It is widely known that some people possess personalities that have the natural ability to be more empathetic and caring towards others compared to other people. Unfortunately, the stereotype and generalizing of viewing women as automatically more empathetic than men is also prominent in today’s culture. This fundamental image of women and men possessing different views on morality is discussed with Carol Gilligan’s theory of “care ethics” which is more based on feministic views compared to Kohlberg’s “justice ethics” which focuses on the moral development of boys (Caputo, 2000).

Introduction: Introduces the theory, purpose of the paper, and provides rationale for selecting the theory.