Assignment task:
After a careful reading of the first four Provisions of the "ANA Code of Ethics with Interpretative Statements" please try to think of the Colors and Hues (the ethical methods and principles) that ground and form the ANA Code. How have the authors of the Code applied their ethical reasoning to examine the profession of nursing and come up with a Code of Standards (provisions) that govern the exercise of the nursing practice and profession?
When you have answered the above questions, please think of an example of how one of the provisions discussed has impacted you as a nursing student and affected how you think about nursing practice and the profession.
The "hues and colors" is a reference to the "painting metaphor" that my colleague, Dr. Ragasa has developed for this class. He identifies each of the major modern ethical methods with a primary color - utilitarianism = yellow; deontology = red; and virtue ethics = blue. Each of these methods can be applied to the real world in trying to make good moral decisions. However, they each have their own limitations in such applications, as discussed over the past few weeks. Mixing the colors often helps us get a more "realistic" or "fuller" or "richer" representation of the complexity of real human life, thus the "preparation of the palette" where the artist (ethicist!) mixes the primary colors to achieve combinations that produce the "Starry Sky" of Van Gough, and other paintings.