CLINICAL ETHICS AND NURSING - YES TO CARING, BUT NO TO A FEMALE ETHICS OF CARE

According to a contemporary school of thought there is a specific fema le approach to ethics which is based not on abstract ''male'' ethical principles or rules, but on ''care''. Nurses have taken a keen interes t in these female approaches to ethics. Drawing on the views expounded by Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings, nurses claim that a female ''ethi cs of care'' better captures their moral experiences than a traditiona l male ''ethics of justice''. This paper argues that ''care'' is best understood in a dispositional sense, that is, as sensitivity and respo nsiveness to the particularities of a situation and the needs of ''con crete'' others. While ''care'', in this sense, is necessary for ethics , it is not sufficient. Ethics needs ''justice'' as well as ''care''. If women and nurses excessively devalue principles and norms, they wil l be left without the theoretical tools to condemn some actions or pra ctices, and to defend others. They will, like generations of nurses be fore them, be condemned to silence.