Relational ethics

Question 1

What is relational ethics?

Answer 1

• • Ethical understanding if formed in relationship with others
  • Relational ethics arises from individual relationships and helps us reflect on how we relate within institutional settings
  • Relational ethics is the foundation of nurses’ moral understanding
  • Relational space is the location of moral action
  • Ethics is considered with every patient
  • Attention to quality of the relationships
  • Affects all levels of health care practice: bedside, HC team, management, organization

Question 2

Developing relationships are..

Answer 2

both a skill and moral obligation

Question 3

What are the four relational themes?

Answer 3

• Environment
• Embodiment
• Mutual respect
• Engagement

Question 4

What is meant by environment?

Answer 4

• Each nurse is a living system that changes through daily action.
• Power structures and political dynamics of the system can affect care and relationship.
• Understanding self as part of the greater system and our responsibilities to the individual, family, coworkers, management, and political system.

Question 5

What is meant by embodiment?

Answer 5

• Recognition that the mind/body split is artificial; healing cannot occur unless both are given equal consideration.

Question 6

What is meant by mutual respect?

Answer 6

• The relationship benefits both; harms neither.

Question 7

What is meant by engagement?

Answer 7

• Connecting in an open, responsive, trusting manner.

Question 8

Dialogueq

Answer 8

• The other may not just have a right, but may actually be right, may understand something better than we do” (Bergman, 2013).
• Dialogue is a method for patient and health provider to develop understanding together.

Question 9

Six Characteristics of a Dialogic Encounter:

Answer 9

1. Open – not goal oriented.
2. Mutual respect to develop and trust a respectful partnership.
3. Forthright dialogue with view of the other.
4. Embodiment leads to the expression of emotion – authenticity.
5. Mutual recognition – engage with individual other.
6. Authentic dialogue within the moment – being present with and for someone.

Question 10

Non-coercion

Answer 10

• Not forcing someone into an action that limits choice and freedom

Question 11

Moral Relativism

Answer 11

• Any and all ideas have equal moral weight.

* Nurses’ idea of right or moral action arises from practice and professional standards.

Question 12

Moral Agency

Answer 12

• The capacity or power of a nurse to direct his or her motives and actions to some ethical end; essentially, doing what is good and right.

Question 13

Moral Imagination

Answer 13

• The ability to imaginatively discern various possibilities for acting in a given situation and to envision the potential help and harm that are likely to result from a given action.
• Moral imagination enables our ability to see, and to be receptive to those cues through which the perceptions of others are made known to us.

Question 14

Moral Courage

Answer 14

• aking action for moral reasons despite the risk of adverse consequences.
• Taking action when one has doubts or fears about the consequences to self-position, or personal or professional consequences, requires courage and thoughtful deliberation and careful thought.
1. Resuscitation decisions for dying clients with unclear, confusing, or no-code orders.
2. Patients and families who want more aggressive treatment.
3. Colleagues who discuss clients inappropriately.

Question 15

What does it mean to be ethically grounded in relationships?

Answer 15

• Involves responsiveness to others
• Interdisciplinary understanding of the moral space
• Involves more than a focus on one’s moral agency
• A matter of asking questions that require openness, deliberation, self-questioning, uncertainty, and contemplation