Defining nursing ethics apart from medical ethics.

A dean of a major nursing school recently said. ., "We're not interested in medical ethics; there is virtually nothing there that is pertinent to nursing. Nursing has its own issues, problems, and principles, and they're quite different from, and often opposed to, those of medicine." She might well have gone on to point out that nursing also has its established codes of ethics and doesn't need a philosopher (especially one who has taught medical ethics), to tell it what is right and wrong, good and bad-but she kindly refrained from that step. Her comment set me to thinking about the proposition that there is a distinct body of problems, issues and principles for the profession. It seems to me there might be three general arguments to be given in support of this claim, apart from a detailed, nitty-gritty examination of the many facets and dimensions of nursing practice. I shall call these the argument from historical tradition, the functional argument and the political argument.