Anne Raustøl, Oslo

1 | Formal Information

Anne Raustøl, PhD in philosophy, Associate professor in professional ethics at Centre for Diakonia and professional practice, VID Specialized University Oslo.

 2 | Our project aims to reflect on values in school, pastoral care and other care contexts. What academic perspective do I bring to the project with regard to this focus?

My academic background is in philosophy and in health studies, with a particular emphasis on development of the capacity for moral judgement and discretion in nursing education and professional education. I am also a registered nurse. My main approach is philosophical, exploring and discussing issues such as moral epistemology, moral sensitivity, the role of emotions in moral judgement, the relationship between emotion and cognition – particularly related to professional practice. My most recent paper is a discussion of how compassion is (and can be) understood in nursing ethics. This interest also leads into exploring the concept of empathy, which has received increased attention in professional education, and which also have interesting philosophical connotations found in philosophical phenomenology.

Right now I am developing a project on ‘moral vision’ as an alternative to care ethics and traditional bioethics in caring professions, moving from moral principles to moral epistemology, and relating this to professional education.

I also do empirical studies of value-embedded practices with qualitative and interpretative approaches. The different research projects have in common an underlying question of what we consider to be required or desired of “good professionals” in caring professions, and how education can contribute to this.

I am the lead of a research group on learning in professional education and practice.

 3 | What content-related results and personal returns do I expect / hope for from the project?

I hope this project will provide a network for researchers that share the interest in value questions in social practices, coming from different disciplines and contexts. I hope to contribute in a team on a concrete project, but also to build networks and connections both individually and for institutions and research groups. I think a good place to start is for a smaller team to write a paper together, and then build from there.

I have suggestions for how we can do empirical, qualitative studies in the contexts we are interested, exploring values and value questions in social practices.