Impartiality and partiality in nursing ethics

• Main Author: Raustol, Anne
• Published: University of Reading 2010
• Subjects: 100
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.542065

This thesis is concerned with the role of partiality and impartiality in nursing ethics. Nurses are often faced with the following challenge: should I provide care for the patient who is my patient or should I give preference to someone else in greater need of nursing care? This challenge can be characterised as a conflict between impartial and partialist moral demands on the nurse. The thesis analyses the concepts of impartiality and partiality as found in moral philosophy and then applies these concepts and their implications to the nurse-patient relationship. Some issues of particular interest to the impartiality-partiality issue have been selected to be given close examination in the thesis. These are an analogy between the nurse-patient relationship and friendship, the relation between trust and impartiality, the question about whether moral obligations can arise from physical proximity and immediacy, the relation between professional detachment and impartiality, and partiality and impartiality in care ethics. The thesis argues that the nursing role is an institutional role as well as a professional role and a role involving a close personal cooperation. Some institutional roles require a high level of impartiality, and the nursing role is one such role. Therefore, the nurse ought to show a high level of impartiality as well as being committed to the good of her particular patient. 11