The core values of modern nursing in the light of Dilthey and Scheler

Abstract

This study aimed to identify the values of modern nursing in the writings of Florence Nightingale entitled Notes on Nursing: What it Is, and What it Is Not, and justify them through some of the assumptions of Max Scheler’s axiology. For this, we used Wilhelm Dilthey’s hermeneutics as an instrument to unveil the Nightingale axiological field. From the effort undertaken in the search for the interpretation of the text, four core values of modern nursing were revealed from the researchers’ consciousness, namely: solidarity; the value of truth; morality; and utility. These values form an amalgam and give nursing care sense and meaning. We concluded that these values make nursing what it is, legitimizing it as a social practice, and justifying the professional act. Thus, it is necessary for whoever undertakes this career to move themselves to the apprehension of values that form the axiological field, correcting or confirming the value of a scale itself, in order to form what it is to be a nurse.