Pillar 8: Morality


Morality, as a pillar of professionalism, and as a part of ethics, needs to be reinforced with students.
 
Ethics goes beyond usual day-to-day moral decision-making. Ethics is so much more than end-of-life controversial issues. Rather, ethics that arise from the daily work of nurses and the use of ethical knowledge in practice is far more important because it fuels a nurse to action—action that may lead to good or bad not only for the patient, but for the profession of nursing as well. Some such ethical decisions may include medication errors, creating a culture of safety that is bully-free for the patient, administering respectful care while maintaining professional boundaries, and protecting patients from potential threats to safety. 

Ethical knowledge development addresses who we are as ethical and moral beings, with the ability to believe in what is good and right (Chinn & Kramer, 2008). Social change, as a result of reflection, is the outcome of emancipatory knowing. Chinn and Kramer (2008) defined emancipatory knowing as:
"the capacity not only to notice injustices in a social order, but also to critically examine why injustices seem not to be noticed or remain invisible, and to identify social and structural changes that are required to right social and institutional wrongs". (p. 78) 

Therefore, emancipatory knowing requires more than just reflective thinking or praxis. Rather, beyond reflection, it requires an ability to view what is unfair or unjust, how it came to be, and how what is taken as knowledge contributes to larger social problems. Emancipatory knowing is a way to address deep-seated underlying problems as opposed to simply addressing superficial issues (Chinn & Kramer, 2008). To this end, one of the goals of my study was to shed light on the experiences of graduates of an accelerated nursing program through their narratives demonstrating their utilization of ethics. Chinn and Kramer (2008) acknowledged this utilization of ethics on the part of the nurse by saying, “Ethics arises from the work that nurses do and is about everyday uses of morality and ethical knowledge as expressed in ethical comportment in typical practice settings” (p. 120). 

What do other educators think of morality as a part of ethics?  How should we, as educators, teach this to our students?  As always, I would love to hear the thoughts of other faculty and educators.   

Reference
 
Chinn, P. L., & Kramer, M. K. (2008). Integrated theory and knowledge development in nursing (7th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby.

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