What is moral disquiet and how does the experience of moral disquiet appear in professional human practices? Facing responsibility in nursing, teaching, and caring

Abstract

What does moral disquiet mean to professional human practices? The phenomenon of moral disquiet comes to awareness in concrete lived human experiences and might be described with the help of examples from practice. The article explores lived moral disquiet in nursing, teaching and caring practices. It highlights moral disquiet from direct descriptions in which the phenomenon arises as an event in students’ lifeworlds including professional human relationships in societal institutions like a hospital, nursing home and kindergarten. We suggest that moral disquiet, expressed as the human sensitivity toward others, does not depend on success or failure of outcome, but is a quality of belief and hope in the lives of others that offers possible moments of humanness.