Are nursing codes of practice ethical?

This article provides a theoretical critique from a particular 'ideal type' ethical perspective of professional codes in general and the United Kingdo m Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (UKCC) Code of professional conduct (reprinted on pp. 77-78) in particular. Having outlined a specific 'ideal type' of what ethically informed and awar e practice may be, the article examines the extent to which professional co des may be likely to elicit and engender such practice. Because of their te rminological inexactitudes and confusions, their arbitrary values and princ iples, their lack of helpful ethical guidance, and their exclusion of ordin ary moral experience, a number of contemporary professional codes in health and social care can be arraigned as ethically inadequate. The UKCC Code of professional conduct embodies many of these flaws, and others besides. Som e of its weaknesses in this respect are anatomized before some tentative su ggestions are offered for the reform of codes and the engendering of greate r ethical awareness among professionals in the light of greater public ethi cal concerns and values.