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The Community Of Nursing: Moral Friends, Moral Strangers, Moral Family, Carolyn A. Laabs

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

Unlike bioethicists who contend that there is a morality common to all, H. Tristan Engelhardt (1996) argues that, in a pluralistic secular society, any morality that does exist is loosely connected, lacks substantive moral content, is based on the principle of permission and, thus, is a morality between moral strangers. This, says Engelhardt, stands in contrast to a substance-full morality that exists between moral friends, a morality in which moral content is based on shared beliefs and values and exists in communities that tend to be closely knit and religiously based. Of what value does Engelhardt’s description of ethics as …