Pierce, Susan Foley2020-03-052020-03-052016-06-141997-11-010969-733010.1177/096973309700400605http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12424/3870109Ethics involves an organized, reasoned approach to gathering and processing data in order to arrive at decisions about what to do, what to value, and/or what virtues to cultivate. A model is proposed for conceptualizing this complex dynamic, which incorporates elements of both rule-and-principle ethics and the ethic of care. The model suggested here has two levels. The first level identifies the components that comprise philosophical reasoning; the second contextualizes and operationalizes the model in relation to the processor’s philosophical stance on the nature of knowing. Three philosophical stances are identified and described: science-dominant, person-dominant, and science-person equilibrium. Physicians tend to process patients from first perspectives, nurses from second. Hence, health team collaboration in moral problem solving is critically important.Magazine/Journalengmodelsmoral dynamicnature of knowingphilosophical reasoningArticle