The Non‐Professional Virtues of the Hospice Volunteer

Volunteers have long played a significant role in hospice care. Much of the care volunteers provide consists of weekly hour‐long in‐home visits. Home‐visiting hospice volunteers are not professionals, nor are they strangers or intimates. Hospice volunteers will not typically face moral dilemmas, nor be called upon to make dramatic decisions. Nonetheless, hospice volunteering can exemplify a neglected area of in‐between ethics – a subset of what Brownlee has called the ‘ethics of interacting’ – that can redound to the wellbeing of all concerned. This article explores the in‐between ethics of hospice volunteering and the opportunities it affords to cultivate virtues of attention and gratitude.