UCLA

Nathaniel’s theory of moral reckoning describes how nurses experience and respond to moral distress. While prior critiques have highlighted its strengths, they have not fully engaged its limitations or potential for further development. This article applies an intersectional framework, centering racism and gender while recognizing other axes of identity remain underexplored, and uses Fawcett and DeSanto-Madeya’s (2013) criteria for semantic, structural, and philosophical analysis. Strengths include empirical grounding and attention to power dynamics. However, assumptions of a universal “state of ease” and isolated morally distressing events restrict applicability. Reformulation incorporating these insights may enhance the theory’s conceptual clarity and practical utility.