Caring: Nurses, Women and Ethics

This volume provides a critical introduction to contemporary attempts to base nursing ethics on a feminine "ethics of care". At the heart of this book is a philosophical and practical examination of what has come to be known as the "justice versus care" debate. The ′care′ approach, Kuhse argues, is dangerous and may perpetuate the moral disenfranchizement of women and nurses. In advancing a conception of "just caring", the author suggests a decision–making framework in which nurses play a central role. In such a framework the terminally ill would not only be able to refuse treatment, but would also be able to receive direct help in dying. It provides essential reading to students of ethics, nursing and feminist philosophy.

Preface. 1. Two Nurses. 2. A History of Subservience. 3. Advocacy or Subservience for the Sake of the Patients?. 4. Ethics. 5. Women and Ethics – Is Morality Gendered?. 6. Care Versus Justice : An Old Debate in New Clothes?. 7."Yes" to Caring – but "No" to a Nursing Ethics of Care. 8. Just Caring at the End of Life. 9. Nursing – The Slumbering Giant. Bibliography.

Helga Kuhse is the Director of the Centre for Human Bioethics at Monash University, Australia. She has published widely in the field of bioethics and is editor of Monash Bioethics Review and, with Peter Singer, co–editor of the international journal Bioethics.

"This book is provocative and a ′must′ for all nurses who are or ought to be engaged in nurse ethics." Ulla Fasting, Nursing Ethics "Kuhse′s book is a contribution to the professionalisation of the nurses and contributes also to the improvement of the ethical discourses regarding end–of–life discussions in clinical care." Marieke Janssen, Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy