What can nursing ethics scholarship from the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s teach us about ethical knowing in nursing today? A new collection from the Society for Nursing Ethics International (SONEI) gives us an opportunity to revisit this question.
The newly developed SONEI website is featuring a series of blog posts focused on classic articles published in Advances in Nursing Science from 1979 to 1991. The series began on July 28 with an Introduction to the ANS Ethics Collection. The first article was featured on the SONEI blog on August 18: Barbara Carper’s 1979 article, “The Ethics of Caring.” Subsequent posts will appear approximately every three weeks through February 2027.
Ethical Knowing in Nursing
These articles offer an important window into the development of ethical knowing in nursing (see Chinn, Canty & Mkandawire-Valhmu, 2026).
The approaches reflected in these works are not the methods of empirics. Rather, they draw on philosophic approaches that clarify and explore the nature of ethical knowing. They raise questions not simply about what is, but about what ought to be: What is just? What is responsible? What moral commitments shape nursing practice? How do nurses understand and enact ethical relationships with those for whom they care?
These are certainly not the only articles addressing nursing ethics published during this period. Taken together, however, they provide a rich and enduring resource for reaching a more fulsome understanding of the nature of nursing ethics and the development of ethical knowing within our discipline.
Explore the Collection
An especially valuable feature of this project is that the articles in the collection are available for free download from the SONEI website!
Here are the articles included in the collection:
- Carper, B. (1979). The ethics of caring. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 1(3), 11–19. https://journals.lww.com/advancesinnursingscience/citation/1979/04000/the_ethics_of_caring.4.aspx
- Yarling, R. R., & McElmurry, B. J. (1983). Rethinking the nurse’s role in “do not resuscitate” orders: A clinical policy proposal in nursing ethics. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 5(4), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1097/00012272-198307000-00004
- Yarling, R. R., & McElmurry, B. J. (1986). The moral foundation of nursing. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 8(2), 63–73. https://doi.org/10.1097/00012272-198601000-00010
- Bishop, A., & Scudder, J. (1987). Nursing ethics in an age of controversy. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 9, 34–43. https://doi.org/10.1097/00012272-198704000-00011
- Cooper, M. C. (1988). Covenantal relationships: Grounding for the nursing ethic. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 10(4), 48–59. https://doi.org/10.1097/00012272-198807000-00008
- Packard, J. S., & Ferrara, M. (1988). In search of the moral foundation of nursing. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 10(4), 60–71. https://doi.org/10.1097/00012272-198807000-00009
- Twomey, J. (1989). Analysis of the claim to distinct nursing ethics: Normative and nonnormative approaches. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 11(3), 25–32. https://doi.org/10.1097/00012272-198904000-00007
- Fry, S. T. (1989). Toward a theory of nursing ethics. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 11(4), 9–22. https://doi.org/10.1097/00012272-198907000-00005
- Parker, R. S. (1990). Nurses’ stories: The search for a relational ethic of care. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 13(1), 31–40. https://doi.org/10.1097/00012272-199009000-00005
- Newman, M. A., Sime, A. M., & Corcoran-Perry, S. A. (1991). The focus of the discipline of nursing. ANS. Advances in Nursing Science, 14(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1097/00012272-199109000-00002
Looking Back—and Forward
Revisiting these works is more than an exercise in nursing history. They offer an opportunity to consider questions that remain vital to nursing today: What constitutes ethical knowing in our discipline? What moral commitments are embedded in nursing practice? And how might the ideas developed by earlier nursing scholars inform the ethical challenges nurses encounter now and in the future?
The SONEI series will conclude with a blog post providing an overview of the collection and considering what these works might inspire for the ongoing development of ethical knowing in nursing.
In the meantime, I invite you to explore the collection, follow the SONEI blog series, and—most importantly—engage with the ideas these nursing scholars placed before us decades ago. Their questions remain very much alive. Perhaps revisiting them can help us imagine where ethical knowing in nursing needs to go next.