Philosophical Foundations

Philosophical Foundations of Early Nursing Ethics

John Dewey
Beatrice Edgell

Our plan for this section is to provide content and resources on the philosophical foundations of nursing ethics. Early nursing ethics in the US was deeply influenced by the home-grown American philosophy of Pragmatism especially as articulated by Prof. John Dewey at Teachers College Columbia. His book Ethics (1908/1909, with James Tufts) formed the basis of the National League for Nursing Education (NLNE, later NLN) mandatory requirements for ethics curricular content from 1915 to WWII, which included a full course in ethics as well as a mandated ethics thread throughout the curriculum. Pragmatism also influenced Canadian nurse educators. Though the philosophy of Pragmatism was active in the UK, nursing in the UK was deeply influenced by Aristotelian Virtue theory, in part strongly influenced by the work of philosopher and psychologist Beatrice Edgell at the Royal College of Nursing. US nursing was also influenced by virtue theory, though to a less overt degree. Early nursing leaders were also influenced by the prevailing philosophies and theories of basic and graduate education, as well as by sociological theories and philosophies. We hope to add resources on these theoretical influences upon the development of nursing ethics.

Bibliographic Resources: Ethical Theories in Early Nursing Ethics

  • Allmark, Peter and Mavhaczek, Katarzyna. “Realism and Pragmatism in a Mixed Methods Study,” Journal of Advanced Nursing. Vol 74 No 6 (Jun2018), 1301-1309.
  • Aristotle. Nichomachean Ethics. trans. Martin Ostwald. Bobbs-Merrill, 1962.
  • Bernstein, Richard. “The Resurgence of Pragmatism,” Social Research.  (Winter 1992), Vol. 59, No. 4, 813-840.
  • Collins P. H. (2010) Piecing together a genealogical puzzle: Intersectionality and American pragmatism. European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 3(2): 88–113.
  • Doane, Gweneth Hartrick PhD, RN; Varcoe, Colleen PhD, RN. Toward Compassionate Action: Pragmatism and the Inseparability of Theory/Practice. Advances in Nursing Science. 28(1):p 81-90, January 2005.
  • Dolon, Sara, Lorelli Nowell and Graham McCaffery. “Pragmatism as a Philosophical Foundation to Integrate Education, Practice, Research and Policy across the Nursing Profession,” Journal of Advanced Nursing. Vol.78  No l0 (Oct 2022), e118-e129. DOI: 10.1111/jan.15373
  • Eun-Ok Im. “Properties of Situation-Specific Theories and Neo-pragmatism,” Advances in Nursing Science., Vol 44 No 4 (Oct-Dec2021) e114-e126.
  • Grace, Pamela J. “Professional advocacy: widening the scope of accountability.” Nursing Philosophy 2, no. 2 (2001): 151-162.
  • Grace, Pamela. “Contrasting Relativism, Absolutism and Pragmatism for Utility in Healthcare Ethics. Revisiting Drummond’sArticle on Relativism,” Nursing Philosophy, 2025; 26:e70041. https://doi.org/10.1111/nup.70041
  • Hallett, Christine.  “Pragmatism and Project 2000: the relevance of Dewey’s theory of experimentalism to nursing education,” Journal of Advanced Nursing. Vol 26 No 6 (December 1997) 1229-1234. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2648.1997.00423.x
  • Jameton, Andrew. 1984. Nursing Practice: The Ethical Issues. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 
  • Lorelli Nowell. “Pragmatism and integrated knowledge translation: exploring the compatabilities and tensions,” Nursing Open. Vol 2 No 3 (November 2015) 141-148. doi.org/10.1002/nop2.30
  • MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. 3rd edition. University of Notre Dame, 2007.
  • McDermid, Douglas. The Varieties of Pragmatism: Truth, Realism, and Knowledge from James to Rorty. London and New York: Continuum, 2006.
  • Misak, Cheryland Talisse, Robert  B. . “Pragmatism Endures,” Aeon.(18 November 2019). 
  • Naoya Mayumi and Katsumasa Ota. “Implications of Philosophical Pragmatism for Nursing: Comparison of Different Pragmatists,” Nursing Philosophy. Vol 24 No1 (Jan2023), 1-10.
  • Scheffler, Israel. Four Pragmatists: A Critical Introduction to Peirce, James, Mead, and Dewey. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986.
  • Thayer, H.S. Meaning and Action: A Critical History of Pragmatism. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981.
  • West, Cornel. The American Evasion of Philosophy
  • West, Cornell. The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.
  • Willis, Danny G., Grace, Pamela J. , and Roy, Callistay. “A central unifying focus for the discipline: facilitating humanization, meaning, choice, quality of life, and healing in living and dying.” Advances in Nursing Science 31, no. 1 (2008): E28-E40.
  • Wolfs, D., Jantzen, D., Fowler, M., Musto, L. C., & Reimer-Kirkham, S. (2024). “Reframing covenant for nursing: From individual commitments to covenant with society,” Nursing Philosophy, (22 Aug 2024), 25: e12498.https://doi.org/10.1111/nup.12498  (open access).
  • Thoun, Deborah S., Kirk, Megan, Sangster-Gormley, Esther and Young, James O.“Philosophical Theories of Truth and Nursing: Exploring the Tensions,” Nursing Science Quarterly. Vol 32 No 1 (2018), 43-48.

Bibliographic Resources: ANS series on An Ethics of Caring

Bibliographic Resources: “Everyday Ethics,” “Preventive Ethics”

  • Banks, S. (2016). Everyday ethics in professional life: social work as ethics work. Ethics and Social Welfare, 10(1), 35–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2015.1126623
  • Banner, Michael. The Ethics of Everyday Life: Moral Theology, Social Anthropology, and the Imagination of the Human. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. 
  • Cabot, Ella L. Everyday Ethics. H. Holt and Company, 1910. Free download, Google Books.
  • Epstein, Elizabeth. Preventive Ethics in the Intensive Care Unit AACN Advances in Critical Care (2012) 23 (2): 217–224. https://doi.org/10.4037/NCI.0b013e31824b3b9b
  • Lamb, Michael, and Brian A. Williams, eds. 2019. Everyday Ethics: Moral Theology and the Practices of Ordinary Life. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
  • Zizzo, Natalie, Emily Bell, and Eric Racine. “What Is Everyday Ethics? A Review and a Proposal for an Integrative Concept.” The Journal of Clinical Ethics 27, no. 2 (2016): 117–28. https://doi.org/10.1086/JCE2016272117.