title: A model for conceptualizing the moral dynamic in health care.
abstract: Ethics involves an organized, reasoned approach to gathering and processing data in order to arrive at decisions about what to do, what to value, and/or what virtues to cultivate. A model is proposed for conceptualizing this complex dynamic, which incorporates elements of both rule-and-principle ethics and the ethic of care. The model suggested here has two levels. The first level identifies the components that comprise philosophical reasoning; the second contextualizes and operationalizes the model in relation to the processor's philosophical stance on the nature of knowing. Three philosophical stances are identified and described: science-dominant, person-dominant, and science-person equilibrium. Physicians tend to process patients from first perspectives, nurses from second. Hence, health team collaboration in moral problem solving is critically important.
authors.affiliation: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 27514-7460, USA.
authors.forename: S F
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Pierce
mesh_terms: D026688:Bioethical Issues; D028663:Ethical Theory; D004993:Ethics, Nursing; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D008128:Logic; D016294:Models, Nursing; D035863:Moral Development; D009014:Morals; D024802:Nurse's Role; D009732:Nursing Care; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D010687:Philosophy, Nursing; D012945:Social Values; D028722:Virtues