Nursing Ethics, 1880s to the Present

*** Awarded first place in the 2024 AJN Book of the Year Award in History and Public Policy ***

This important text draws on decades of research, arguing that modern nursing germinated and grew an ethics from its own native soil, which is rich, fulsome, and philosophically informed, grounded in the tradition and practice of nursing.

It is an ethics with a positive agenda for the good nurse, a good society, a healthy people, and human flourishing. This native nursing ethics was forgotten, creating space for a foreign bioethics’ colonization of nursing in the second half of the twentieth century. Drawing from a wide range of sources from the USA, the UK, Canada, and Ireland, the book addresses the early and enduring ethical concerns, values, and ideals of nursing as a profession that engages in direct clinical practice and in developing policy. Fowler calls for reclaiming and renewing nursing’s ethical tradition.

This systematic and comprehensive book is an essential contribution for students and scholars of nursing ethics.