[Ethics of nursing practice--ethics of care and ethics of rule?]

Nurses' daily care for patients is imbued with moral questions. Ethics distinguish various movements that intend to solve the problem of how to deal with such questions. This article discusses two variants, namely ethics of rules and ethics of care. Ethics of rules present a rational model of thinking in which universal principles are applied to practical moral problems. According to ethics of care, an attitude of responsibility and involvement and, accordingly, the attention to the complex situation of a patient is considered moral. Both kinds of ethics are attached to a case from the practice of nursing care for oncology patients. The thinking of the nurses concerned is in line with ethics of care. It also involves principles of ethics of rules. These principles, however, only make sense in the complex situation of the patient. By virtue of this quality they are taken into consideration by nurses as one of the details from the context. This makes ethics of care function as a kind of 'breeding ground' for ethics of rules.