Women's rights and judgment

July 23, 2012-Women’s rights and women’s judgment

Gilligan takes a look in this chapter and the social issues that framed women’s right’s movement and ultimately women’s social issues. She ponders the affects that Seneca Falls, and social reforms such as; social purity movement and temperance and the 60’s with free love and ultimately birth control had on the development of women’s rights and judgments.

Obviously she felt that education for women was the key to their development. She felt that there was a puzzling aspect to why women didn’t support other women in the equal rights movement and finally in the women’s movement as a whole.

She felt that ultimately women struggled with the idea of selfishness and the moral debate of self- sacrifice that women felt they were obligated to do. Gilligan (1998) felt that when women recognized the  “…rightness of her decision but also realizing its painful consequences, she can see no way to maintain her integrity while adhering to an ethic of care in relationships. Seeking to avoid conflict and compromise in choice by ‘just doing what is right for you’, she is in fact left with a feeling of compromise about herself.” (p. 135).Once again the main theme of relationship and care for it as primary is evident. Women struggle with the need to balance selflessness and responsibility. Quite often she feels the need to justify her decisions and actions. When this dilemma becomes too strong she is often left paralyzed and unable to make any decision. She actually fees torn between the need to be true to herself and the feeling that she will inadvertently hurt someone else.

Gilligan believes that when a woman can finally discover that there is not any one true right or wrong, but different variances of both, she will truly be able to become a better functioning individual. She feels that once women understand that by being true to themselves they become a better individual will they learn to view themselves as morally right and just.

Visions of maturity-Conclusion

July 24, 2012-Visions of maturity

Separation and attachment

In Gilligan’s last chapter she tries to digest the various theories of development that she looked at and then neatly wrap up her text.

She agrees that attachment and separation , “…anchor the cycle of human life, describing the biology of human reproduction and the psychology of human development.” (Gilligan, 1998, pg. 151). However; she admits that women are viewed differently because of their ways of modeling these processes.

She claims that it is a myth that male model of adult development is the right model. Instead, she says that it is just a different model. She looks once again at the works of Vaillant (1977) and Levison (1978) and remarks that because they studied males in their research, they built their theories on the male model being the correct model.

Erikson (1969) studied both Luther and Ghandi, two great male role models. He realized that, “…both men are compromised in their capacity for intimacy and live at great personal distance from others.” (Gilligan, 1998, p. 155). Because they were great men, this ideology of the sacrifice of relationships for greatness becomes the male model. In other words, to be truly great, one must stand alone.

When women (and there have been great women in society as well) make a choice between relationships (attachment) and greatness, they choose relationships every time. Very quickly they are viewed as compromised, weak or somehow less. Society views them as “… mired in relationships. “ (Gilligan, 1998, p. 156).

Finally, Gilligan informs the reader about her intent: to make clear not what is considered as missing in women’s development, but to make clear what is there. Gillgian (1998) believes that:

Thus women not only reach mid-life with psychological history different from men’s and face at that time a different social reality having different possibilities for love and for work, but they also make a different sense of experience, based on their knowledge of human relationships. Since the reality of connection is experienced by women rather than as freely contracted, they arrive at an understanding of life that reflects the limits of autonomy and control. As a result, women’s development delineates the path not only to a less violent life but also to a maturity realized through interdependence and taking care. (p.172)

As a result, she feels that the language that both sexes speak should be noted as a different one. The key word here is different, women’s voice is different based on her need to develop, keep and nurture relationships.

In conclusion, Gilligan (1998) states:

As we have listened for centuries to the voices of men and the theories of development that their experience informs, so we have come more recently to notice not only the silence of women but the difficulty in hearing what they say when they speak. Yet in the different voice of women lies the truth of an ethic of care, the tie between relationship and responsibility, and the origins of aggression in the failure of connection. The failure to see the different reality of women’s lives and to hear the differences in their voices stems in part from the assumption that there is a single mode of social experience and interpretation. By positing instead two different modes, we arrive at a more complex rendition of human experience which sees the truth of separation and attachment in the lives of women and men and recognizes how these truths are carried by different modes of language and thought. (p. 173-4).

For her, the communication between men and women is not as important as the way the sexes communicate and Gilligan makes it clear in her text that just because there is a difference in the ways of communication, women are not morally bereft or psychologically malformed just because they speak in a different voice.

Women's rights and Justice

Carol Gilligan

b. 1936

BibliographyDiscuss

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Harvard University's first professor of gender studies, psychologist Carol Gilligan is the author of In a Different Voice, a landmark study showing how the inclusion of women changes the traditional paradigm of human psychology.

Institution: Online repository

by Andra Medea

Carol Gilligan has broken new ground in psychology, challenging mainstream psychologists with her theory that accepted benchmarks of moral and personal developments were drawn to a male bias and do not apply to women. Gilligan proposed that women have different moral criteria and follow a different path in maturation. A psychologist who taught at Harvard and Cambridge, Gilligan brought a feminist perspective to challenge Freud and new life to the statement “The personal is political.”

Carol Gilligan was born on November 28, 1936, in New York City, the daughter of William E. Friedman and Mabel (Caminez) Friedman. Her father was a lawyer and her mother a teacher. Self-described as a Jewish child of the Holocaust era, she grew up with firm moral and political convictions. As a child she studied language and music. At Swarthmore, she studied literature and graduated with highest honors in 1958.

She went to Radcliffe for her master’s in clinical psychology, graduating with distinction in 1960. She got her Ph.D. from Harvard in 1964. Then, disillusioned with mainstream psychology, she left the field.

The 1960s were alive with new ideas and challenges to the establishment, and Gilligan caught the spirit. Having married James Frederick Gilligan—a medical student at Case Western Reserve—she also had the first of her three children. That did not keep her home, however. She became involved with the arts, joining a modern dance troupe. She also became active in the civil rights movement. She was part of a sort of international women’s community on campus, in dialogue with one another and keeping an eye on each other’s children.

In 1965 and 1966, Gilligan taught psychology at the University of Chicago, where she joined the other junior faculty in protesting the war in Vietnam by refusing to turn in grades that could jeopardize a student’s draft status. At the time, Gilligan wondered why members of the junior faculty were leading the protest, while the securely tenured professors—who would have risked little or nothing—held back.

Gilligan returned to teach at Harvard in 1968, working with Erik Erikson and Lawrence Kohlberg, two of the leading theorists in mainstream psychology. She observed that Erikson’s theory of identity reflected his own life, and Kohlberg’s ideas about moral dilemmas echoed his own experience. But she found that neither truly spoke to women’s identity and experience.

Gilligan noticed that approximately fifteen of the twenty-five women who signed up for Kohlberg’s class on moral development dropped it, even though it took considerable effort to get into the class. Only about five out of fifty men left. Gilligan found that women in the class proposed difficult questions of human suffering that could not be adequately addressed by moral theories of abstract rights. It was absurd to disregard these women as morally defective, yet they did not seem to fit the mold. Was there, then, a different perspective that women held in common?

Gilligan tracked down the women who left the class and interviewed them for their moral perspective. In 1975, she began writing to clarify these ideas for herself. Her first paper in this area was “In a Different Voice—Women’s Conceptions of Self and Morality.” She showed it to some students, who took it to the Harvard Educational Review. After some debate, the Review agreed to publish it.

As Gilligan pursued her idea that women held a different moral voice, she found herself moving further and further away from her colleagues. Her first book, which triggered nationwide debate, was In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development, published in 1982. It argued that the standards of maturity and moral development that were generally used in psychological testing did not hold true for women. Gilligan held that women’s development was set within the context of caring and relationships, rather than in compliance with an abstract set of rights or rules. At a time when men and women across the nation were reexamining gender assumptions, Gilligan became a powerful voice.

Gilligan made a number of other contributions to the field of women’s moral and identity development. In 1989, she coedited Mapping the Moral Domain: A Contribution of Women’s Thinking to Psychological Theory with Janie Victoria Ward, Jill McLean Taylor, and Betty Bardige. In 1991, she published Making Connections: The Relational World of Adolescent Girls at Emma Willard School, coauthored with Nona P. Lyons and Trudy J. Hammer; Meeting at the Crossroads: Women’s Psychology and Girls’ Development; and Women, Girls and Psychotherapy: Reframing Resistance, coauthored with Annie Rogers and Deborah Tolman. The Birth of Pleasure was published in 2002.

With the work came recognition. Gilligan became a full professor at Harvard in 1986. She was named Woman of the Year by Ms. magazine in 1984 and won the Grawemayer Award in Education in 1992. She held the Laurie Chair in Women’s Studies at Rutgers University in 1986–1987 and was Pitt Professor at the University of Cambridge in 1992–1993. Gilligan was named faculty fellow at the Bunting Institute in 1982–1983 and was a senior research fellow at the Spencer Foundation from 1989 to 1993. In 1997 she was appointed to Harvard University’s first position in gender studies. From 1999–2002 she was a visiting professor at the NYU School of Law. She accepted the offer of a position from NYU in 2001. That same year, she oversaw the establishment of the Harvard Center on Gender and Education, which was launched with a major contribution from Jane Fonda, who said that Gilligan’s research had been the inspiration for her gift. A portion of the donation was earmarked for the creation of an endowed faculty chair to be named for Gilligan upon her departure from Harvard. She began an interdisciplinary appointment to the NYU Schools of Education and Law in 2002 and serves as honorary chair of the Harvard Center’s advisory committee. While some of her documentation and conclusions remain controversial, it is indisputable that Gilligan changed the nature of debate in psychology. No longer was it casually acceptable to do studies excluding women and then draw conclusions about human behavior. Indeed, Gilligan altered the mainstream.

Bibliography

Farnsworth, Lori, and Carol Gilligan. “A New Voice for Psychology.” Feminist Foremothers (1995); “Special Report: The Time 25.” Time (June 17, 1996); Tavris, Carol. The Mismeasure of Woman (1992).

FEMINIST ETHICS:
AN ALTERNATE VOICE

Feminism is a social and intellectual movement that, since its inception, has impacted nearly all aspects of social life including but not limited to politics, economics, education, history, art, and philosophy.  Critical to feminism is the issue of gender equality and the dignity accorded to being a woman.  What these notions mean, however, have evolved and changed as feminism has assumed a variety of forms since its early inception.

 A feminist ethics...

As feminism applies to ethics, most ethical speculation in the Western world until the 1980s voiced primarily what males had been propounding.  The rise of the Women’s Liberation Movement in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s, however, signaled a sea change in ethical discourse as females voiced serious and scholarly challenges to those aspects of traditional Western ethics that feminists viewed as depreciating or devaluing the experience of women while also neglecting the historical contributions women have made to ethical discourse.

It is a challenging endeavor to identify precisely what makes an approach to ethics “feminist.”  At a surface level, this body of speculation would certainly be women-centered and focused primarily upon women’s ethical experiences, as Gilligan (1992) noted.  More substantively, however, feminist approaches would be distinctive—and they are—by inquiring into power—issues of domination and subordination in a social structure—before inquiring into what constitutes the good as this may be expressed in virtues like justice and care, as ethical speculation in the Western world did until the 1980s.  These distinctions sometimes make feminist ethics appear to be political in the sense that the agenda proffered by feminist ethicists is committed, first and foremost, to eliminating women’s subordination—and, in some instances, that of any other oppressed persons—in all of its manifestations.  Feminist ethics, then, seeks to subvert rather than to reinforce any systematic subordination of women and other human beings.

In general, feminist ethics is the attempt: 1) to highlight the differences between how males and females experience and interpret their respective situations in life (e.g., biologically, socially, culturally); 2) to provide strategies for human agents to deal with the dilemmas arising in the private as well as in public spheres; and, 3) to deconstruct any ethic and ethical conduct that bolsters any systematic subordination of women and other human beings.  In short, feminist approaches to ethics have the goal of creating gender-equal rather than gender-neutral ethics, that is, an ethical theory which generates non-sexist ethical principles, policies, and practices for both females and males (Card, 1991).

 A very brief history of feminist ethics...

Although feminist ethics grew in popularity in the 1980s, its emergence in scholarly circles was not simply a consequence of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.  Debates about the allegedly gendered nature of ethics can be traced back at least to the 18th century.

Mary Wollstonecraft, for example, reflected deeply about what makes a character good and a personality socially acceptable.  Like ethicists before her, Wollstonecraft prized the ability to reason more highly than feelings which, she believed, distinguished human beings—not simply males—from brute animals.  In A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Wollstonecraft (1988) concluded that, if women are to be regarded as ethical creatures, they should also display the psychological traits usually associated with virtuous men.

The 19th century utilitarian philosopher, John Stuart Mill, concurred that gender should define neither virtue nor intellectual prowess.  Arguing that society had set up a double standard which not only assessed ethics and ethical conduct differently for women and men but also specified and imposed upon women a set of virtues and intellectual powers which served only to re-enforce society’s patriarchal structure, Mill argued that female “virtue” was not something unique to females but, instead, something society imposed upon women.  In The Subjection of Women, Mill (1970) argued that to praise women on account of their virtue was to dictate that a woman’s worth is to be discovered in living for and sacrificing for others, to give and not to receive in return, to submit, yield, and obey, as well as to be long-suffering.  Like Wollstonecraft, Mill believed one set of virtues must apply equally to both women and men.  The set of virtues advocated by Mill, however, contained the psychological traits commonly associated with men.

While it may be asserted that Mill was an early forerunner or proponent of what later would be called "feminist ethics," it would later be argued that this was not the case.  Why?  Because Mill was male.  By virtue of this fact, he could more articulate a feminist ethic than any other male in that males possess no experience of or ability to interpret a female's experience from a female's perspective.

Given this critique, one early forerunner of feminist ethics might be Catherine Beecher who rooted her reflections in a “separate but equal” theory of virtue which insisted that male and female virtues are different.  She viewed the home and the woman’s central role in it as absolutely essential not only for the well being of society but also the construction of a better society.  Together with her sister, Harriet, Catherine described the discipline of “domestic science” in The American Woman’s Home (1971) which required a different yet equally demanding kind of intelligence and skill as well as kind of virtue than that required in the public sphere of politics, commerce, and finance.

Building upon this notion, most feminist ethicists during the 20th century considered ethics to be gendered.  Rejecting the assumptions that autonomy develops and strengthens the sense of self and that rationality mirrors reality best, feminist ethicists generally embraced two different assumptions.  The first is that relationships—“connectedness” with others—develop and strengthen the sense of self.  The second assumption is that the more particular, concrete, partial, and emotional knowledge is, the more likely it is to represent reality as it truly is.

In Feminist Ethics, Alison Jaggar (1992) perhaps best summarizes the feminist position in ethical speculation as it developed during the 20th century, asserting that traditional Western ethics failed women in five inter-related ways.  First, this body of ethical speculation has demonstrated little concern for women’s as opposed to men’s interests and rights.  Second, traditional Western ethics dismissed as ethically uninteresting the problems arising in the “private world,” the realm in which women cook, clean, and care for the young, the aged, and the sick.  Third, this body of thought implies (at a minimum) that, on the average, women are not as ethically developed as men.  Fourth, traditional Western ethics prizes culturally masculine traits (e.g., independence and autonomy, mind and rationality, culture and transcendence, war and death) and exhibits little regard for culturally feminine traits (e.g., interdependence and community, body and emotion, nature and immanence, peace and life).  Fifth, this body of ethical speculation favors culturally masculine approaches to ethical reasoning which emphasize rules, universality, and impartiality over culturally feminine ways of ethical reasoning which emphasize relationships, particularity, and partiality.  The culprit?  Jaggar points the finger of blame directly at traditional Western ethics.

Some feminist ethical theories...

Arguably the most influential feminist ethicist, Carol Gilligan, has stressed that traditional Western ethical theory is deficient to the degree that it lacks, ignores, trivializes, or demeans those traits of personality and virtues of character culturally associated with women.  In a book in which she reports her study of how 80 men and women reacted to various hypothetical situations, In a Different Voice (1982), Gilligan discovered that women more often focus upon “care” while men focus upon “justice.”

The “care orientation” focuses upon emotional relationships of attachment and networks of concrete relationships, connections, loyalties, and circles of concern whereas the “justice orientation” focuses upon equality, impartiality, universality, rules, and rights.  While agents operating from the care orientation view human beings as so interdependent as to blur the boundaries demarcating them from one another, agents operating from the justice orientation are obsessed with the individual’s autonomy and inclined to think of human beings in the most abstract way possible.  Gilligan does not insist, however, that the care orientation is superior to the justice orientation.

Yet, Gilligan did assert that women are different than men and the “ears” of traditional Western ethicists have been attuned to male rather than female ethical “voices.”  American society, she argued, muffles boys’ and men's sensitivity and encourages them to be less than caring and fully nurturing human beings.  In contrast to this generation’s women who speak the ethical language of justice and rights nearly as fluently as the ethical language of care and relationship, Gilligan argued that this generation’s boys and men are largely unable to articulate their ethical concerns in anything other than the moral language of justice and rights.

Reflecting five years later upon her research, Gilligan summarized what she believed are its lasting impacts.  She wrote that her research

…shift[s] the focus of attention from ways people reason about hypothetical dilemmas to ways people construct [ethical] conflicts and choice in their lives…and [makes] it possible to see what experiences people define in [ethical] terms, and to explore the relationship between the understanding of [ethical] problems and the reasoning strategies used and the actions taken in attempting to solve them. (1988, p. 21)

For her part, Nell Noddings (1984) has argued for the development of a feminine relational ethics of “caring.”  Caring is not about simply feeling favorably disposed toward people with whom one has no concrete connection.  In Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, Noddings asserted that authentic care requires actual encounters with specific individuals—the “one-caring” and the one “cared-for”—something that cannot be accomplished through an agent’s good intentions alone.  Women have an innate and immensely powerful sentiment of care as is evidenced in their unflinching care for their infants (p. 247), Noddings insisted, and the feelings of ethical obligation women experience emanate from this innate sentiment.  Children also act from a natural form of caring that moves them to assist others simply because they want to.  But, as children mature, society distorts what children want to do, making it harder for them to care.  And, when they do care, “the deliberateness of ethical caring” supplements the spontaneity of natural caring.  The latter is better than the former and, according to Noddings, the condition of its possibility.

The critics...

Like all ethical theories, feminist ethics has its share of critics.  Perhaps this is an indication of the importance this body of speculation has assumed in recent decades.

Some critics—especially non-feminist critics—focus upon the relationship between justice and care, considered as two, gender-neutral ethical perspectives.  These critics assert that even if care is an ethical virtue and not simply a pleasing psychological trait human beings can cultivate, care is a less essential ethical virtue than is the virtue of justice.  Furthermore, when justice and care conflict, impartiality must trump partiality.  Why?  Because no one’s fundamental rights and basic needs are neither more nor less important than are any other else’s fundamental rights and basic needs.

To clarify this criticism, consider the following argument.

It logically stands to reason that in genuine cases of need agents would be better off if they were to act out of general ethical principles (e.g., to provide assistance to the poor) than out of feelings of care.  Why?  Because, in reality, principles are more reliable and less ephemeral than feelings are.  Many people in the South felt positively about the institution of slavery during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.  Ethically speaking, was it truly a "good" thing simply because people felt that way about it?

In addition, because feminist ethics focus upon power and how power is used to oppress women in particular, non-feminist critics assert that these approaches are “female-biased.”  These critics insist that ethics cannot proceed from a particular standpoint as Rawls has argued (1999, 2000)—for example, from the standpoint of women—and be regarded as ethics.  For centuries, traditional Western ethics has proceeded from the assumption that its values and principles must apply to all persons equally.  From this perspective, it is a misguided venture—and, an injustice—to construct an ethical program that deliberately targets a specific group of people and, in turn, to generalize that program to include all people for all times and in all places.  Yet, isn't that exactly the assumption feminist ethics is constructed upon, namely, to talk about women's experiences as a monolith?

Other critics—especially feminist critics—focus upon the fact that women are associated culturally with care and men are associated culturally with justice.  If women care “better” than men, it may be epistemically, ethically, and politically imprudent to associate women with the virtue of care.  Linking women and caring promotes the view that because women care, they should care no matter the cost to themselves.  In a patriarchal society, care would be dangerous to women, part of the problem rather than its resolution (Mullet, 1988).

Claudia Card (1991) has also explored some of the problems associated with the relational and caring orientation of feminist ethics.  She asked: Which of my relationships with others underwrite my ethical duties toward them?  After all, isn’t it fact that people with whom an agent has an emotional relationship comprise only a tiny fraction of the people in the world?  Shouldn’t one’s ethical obligations extend beyond that tiny fraction (pp. 257-258)?  Card also worried that a caring relationship can become abusive to one or both parties (p. 259).

Lastly, empirical research first conducted by Blasi (1980), and later substantiated by Rest (1986) as well as Stewart and Sprinthall (1994), which utilized psychometric instruments designed to test Kohlberg's (1984) theory, indicated no bias against women.  In fact, women appear to perform similarly—and oftentimes better—than males when responding on the instrument.  Women utilize principled thinking to support ethical conduct, undercutting the feminist argument that "care" supersedes "justice" in women's ethical decision making.

In summary...

Feminist ethics is a body of philosophical speculation that, from diverse perspectives, purports to validate women’s different ethical experiences and to identify the weaknesses and strengths of the values and virtues culture traditionally has labeled “feminine.”  There are, for example, liberal, Marxist, radical, socialist, multicultural, global, and ecological feminists who have offered various explanations and sometimes conflicting solutions to the problems posed by the differences between the sexes and as these are purported to resolve the value conflicts embedded in contemporary ethical dilemmas.  In addition, there are existentialist, psychoanalytic, cultural, and postmodern feminists who seek the destruction of all systems, structures, institutions, and practices that create or maintain invidious power differentials between men and women.  And that is to say nothing about lesbian ethics which emphasize how ethical value emerges from what Hoagland (1989) has called “energy field capable of resting oppression” where lesbians model for others the kind of human beings who refuse to participate in anything other than egalitarian relationships.

Feminist ethics suggest several paths women can walk, each of which is alleged to lead toward the singular goal of an all women-centered ethics, namely, the elimination of gender inequality and the liberation of women (and perhaps all other human beings) from any subjugation to a lesser form of human dignity.  In general, all feminist ethics require an agent to listen first to others’ divergent points of view and, then, to develop an ethical theory and practice which will, despite the shortcomings of each, help as many women as possible move toward the goal of gender equality with men.

Lacking an appropriate theological base, the feminist critique of previous ethical theories is not as strong as it could be.  For example, the Christian theology of the Trinity provides one such base.  As Ratzinger (1990) has noted, St. Augustine's discussion concerning the Trinity is rooted in something that feminist ethics is very interested in, namely, an understanding about human beings and their relations to one another.  Ratzinger argues:

...the three persons that exist in God are in their nature relations.  They are, therefore, not substances that stand next to each other, but they are real existing relations, and nothing besides.  I believe this idea of the late patristic period is very important.  In God, person means relation.  Relation, being related, is not something superadded to the person, but it is the person itself.  In its nature, the person exists only as relation.  Put more concretely, the first person does not generate in the sense that the act of generating a Son is added to the already complete person, but the person is the deed of generating, of giving itself, of streaming itself forth.  The person is identical with this act of self-donation.  One could thus define the first person as self-donation in fruitful knowledge and love....  (p. 439)

Absent this appropriate theological basis, feminist ethics succumbs to the trap into which the Enlightenment project is ensnared, that is, a sterile and rugged individualism that ultimately ends in alienation.  Understanding the human person as a relational being, one who is by nature intrinsically related to other human persons and discovers oneself in relation to other persons, provides the most appropriate foundation for a feminist ethics that offers the hope and promise of overcoming sterile individualism—the "autonomous person"—that ends in alienation.

References

Beecher, C. E., & Stowe, H. B.  (1971)  The American woman’s home: Principles of domestic science.  New York: Aeno Press and The New York Times.

Blasi, A.  (1980).  Bridging moral cognition and moral action.  Psychological Bulletin, 88(1), 1-45.

Card, C. (Ed.).  (1991).  Feminist ethics.    Topeka, KA: University Press of Kansas.

Gilligan, C.  (1982).  In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Gilligan, C. (Ed.).  (1988).  Mapping the moral domain: A contribution of women's thinking to psychological theory and education.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Hoagland, S. L.  (1988).  Lesbian ethics.  Palo Alto, CA: Institute of Lesbian Studies.

Jaggar.  A. M.  (1992).  Feminist ethics.  In L. Becker & C. Becker (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Ethics (pp. 363-364).  New York: Garland Press.

Kohlberg, L.  (1984).  Essays on moral development (Vol. II).  New York: Harper & Row.

Mill, J. S.  (1970).  The subjection of women.  In A. S. Rossi (Ed.), Essays on sex equality (pp. 125-156).  Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Mullet, S.  (1988).  Shifting perspectives: A new approach to ethics.  In L. Code, S. Mullet, & C. Overall (Eds.), Feminist perspectives: Philosophical essays on method and morals.  Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Noddings, N.  (1992).  The challenge to care in schools: An alternative approach to education.  New York: Teachers College Press.

Ratzinger, J.  (1990, Fall).  Retrieving the tradition: Concerning the notion of person in theology.  Communio (17), 439-447.

Rawls, J.  (2001).  Justice as fairness: A restatement.  Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

Rawls, J.  (1999).  A theory of justice (rev. ed.).  Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

Rest. J.  (1986).  Moral development.  New York: Praeger.

Steward, D. W., & Sprinthall, N. A.  (1994).  Moral development in public administration.  In T. L. Cooper (Ed.), Handbook of Administrative Ethics (pp. 2325-349).  New York: Marcel Kekker.

Wollstonecraft, M.  (1988).  A vindication of the rights of women (M. Brody, Ed.).  London, UK: Penguin.

Women in crisis and transition

July 18-Crisis and Transition

Gilligan continues with her interviews of women in a study who had abortions. She discusses in detail how women who have under gone what they consider a crisis (pregnancy) revel how they have been changed by it. Even though their stories vary, one thing seems to be obvious: none of them under took the decision frivolously. The overall conclusion by Gilligan is that woman worried about how the pregnancy would affect their relationships.

Many women experienced a type of crisis when they questioned why it was important to care. This crisis occurred because when learn to put relationships as primary from a very early point in their development. Gilligan (1998) observed that, “ {c}onstruing their caring as a weakness and identifying the man’s position with strength, they conclude that the strong need not be moral and that only weak care about relationships. In this construction abortion becomes, for the woman, a test of her strength.” (p. 124). To clarify, the male position as viewed by the women in this study is that the men view the abortion as something necessary and a resolution to what is considered as the problem.

Basically Gilligan is attempting to say that the women’s position is not one of weakness, it is simply different from the male perspective, but society views it as different from what I considered the norm, and so if it is different, it must be wrong.

Women and morality

July 16, 2012-Concepts of self and morality.

            When asked to define morality, Gilligan shows that women once again provided answers that were consistent with their desire to promote relationships and to defy hurting others. Women often stated that they wished to resolve conflicts where no one was hurt. Repeatedly she noticed that women took stands on controversial issues that seemed to re-enforce their desire to avoid causing pain to anyone. What realistically happens is that women are so concerned about the by-product of their stand on issues, that they tend to take weak stands or no stand at all.

Gilligan (1998) stated that, “{t}he essence of moral decision is the exercise of choice and the willingness to accept responsibility for that choice. To the extent that women perceive themselves as having no choice, they correspondingly excuse themselves from the responsibility that decision entails. Childlike in the vulnerability of their dependence and consequent fear of abandonment, they claim to wish only to please , but in return for their goodness they expect to be loved and cared for.” (p. 67). So once again, it appears that relationships are primary.

Gilligan spends much of this chapter writing about an abortion study. She seems to think that the ability for women to have abortions actually moves them out of the  realm of  being shrinking violets and more into arena of being less passive and more intellectual with their decisions.

Gilligan muses that when a woman contemplates ending a pregnancy she is forced to examine her notion of morality and come to terms with the balance of her needs versus the needs of others. Beyond even this moral issue is the ethical issue of hurting. In effect she has to consider not only the life she will be hurting, her life, the expectations of others and even societies view of right and wrong.

Gilligan notes that women’s voice in regards to major moral dilemmas contains the essence of the very words that are involved in the decision. For instance, to abort a life, the woman considers that fact that selfishness and responsibility is bantered about by members of society both male and female. “The inflicting of hurt is considered selfish and immoral in its reflection of unconcern, while the expression of care is seen as the fulfillment of moral responsibility.” (Gilligan 1998, p. 73). Once again, women become so bogged down in the rhetoric, they have difficulty actually making a decision.

Women use specific language when they consider making a moral decision. They use words such as; “should, ought, better, right, good and bad,” (Gilligan 1998, p. 75). Gilligan spends much of this chapter in the text writing about the results of the interviews that she did with women who participated in this abortion study. What is striking is how often the idea of relationship and care is repeated.

How is the male language different? For this study she did not ask males to participate, so one doesn’t have an alternative sex to compare the two different ways of speaking. She does mention though that, “[f}or men, the moral imperative appears rather as an injunction to respect the rights of others and thus to protect from interference the rights to life and self-fulfillment.” (Gilligan, 1998, p. 100). It is obvious that this language is much broader and more expansive than women’s perspective with seems to be much more introspective.

Gilligan debunks Kohlberg's theory

July 13, 2012

Gilligan takes several jabs at Kohlberg’s theory of child development. To understand her points, one must understand Kohlberg’s.

Stages

Kohlberg's six stages can be more generally grouped into three levels of two stages each: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional.^[7][8][9] Following Piaget's constructivist requirements for a stage model, as described in his theory of cognitive development, it is extremely rare to regress in stages—to lose the use of higher stage abilities.^[14][15] Stages cannot be skipped; each provides a new and necessary perspective, more comprehensive and differentiated than its predecessors but integrated with them.^[14][15]

Level 1 (Pre-Conventional)

1. Obedience and punishment orientation

(How can I avoid punishment?)

2. Self-interest orientation

(What's in it for me?)

(Paying for a benefit)

Level 2 (Conventional)

3. Interpersonal accord and conformity

(Social norms)

(The good boy/good girl attitude)

4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation

(Law and order morality)

Level 3 (Post-Conventional)

5. Social contract orientation

6. Universal ethical principles

(Principled conscience)

The understanding gained in each stage is retained in later stages, but may be regarded by those in later stages as simplistic, lacking in sufficient attention to detail.

[edit] Pre-conventional

The pre-conventional level of moral reasoning is especially common in children, although adults can also exhibit this level of reasoning. Reasoners at this level judge the morality of an action by its direct consequences. The pre-conventional level consists of the first and second stages of moral development, and is solely concerned with the self in an egocentric manner. A child with preconventional morality has not yet adopted or internalized society's conventions regarding what is right or wrong, but instead focuses largely on external consequences that certain actions may bring.^[7][8][9]

In Stage one (obedience and punishment driven), individuals focus on the direct consequences of their actions on themselves. For example, an action is perceived as morally wrong because the perpetrator is punished. "The last time I did that I got spanked so I will not do it again." The worse the punishment for the act is, the more "bad" the act is perceived to be.^[16] This can give rise to an inference that even innocent victims are guilty in proportion to their suffering. It is "egocentric", lacking recognition that others' points of view are different from one's own.^[17] There is "deference to superior power or prestige".^[17]

Stage two (self-interest driven) espouses the "what's in it for me" position, in which right behavior is defined by whatever is in the individual's best interest. Stage two reasoning shows a limited interest in the needs of others, but only to a point where it might further the individual's own interests. As a result, concern for others is not based on loyalty or intrinsic respect, but rather a "You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours." mentality.^[2] The lack of a societal perspective in the pre-conventional level is quite different from the social contract (stage five), as all actions have the purpose of serving the individual's own needs or interests. For the stage two theorist, the world's perspective is often seen as morally relative.

[edit] Conventional

The conventional level of moral reasoning is typical of adolescents and adults. Those who reason in a conventional way judge the morality of actions by comparing them to society's views and expectations. The conventional level consists of the third and fourth stages of moral development. Conventional morality is characterized by an acceptance of society's conventions concerning right and wrong. At this level an individual obeys rules and follows society's norms even when there are no consequences for obedience or disobedience. Adherence to rules and conventions is somewhat rigid, however, and a rule's appropriateness or fairness is seldom questioned.^[7][8][9]

In Stage three (interpersonal accord and conformity driven), the self enters society by filling social roles. Individuals are receptive to approval or disapproval from others as it reflects society's accordance with the perceived role. They try to be a "good boy" or "good girl" to live up to these expectations,^[2] having learned that there is inherent value in doing so. Stage three reasoning may judge the morality of an action by evaluating its consequences in terms of a person's relationships, which now begin to include things like respect, gratitude and the "golden rule". "I want to be liked and thought well of; apparently, not being naughty makes people like me." Desire to maintain rules and authority exists only to further support these social roles. The intentions of actors play a more significant role in reasoning at this stage; "they mean well ...".^[2]

In Stage four (authority and social order obedience driven), it is important to obey laws, dictums and social conventions because of their importance in maintaining a functioning society. Moral reasoning in stage four is thus beyond the need for individual approval exhibited in stage three. A central ideal or ideals often prescribe what is right and wrong, such as in the case of fundamentalism. If one person violates a law, perhaps everyone would—thus there is an obligation and a duty to uphold laws and rules. When someone does violate a law, it is morally wrong; culpability is thus a significant factor in this stage as it separates the bad domains from the good ones. Most active members of society remain at stage four, where morality is still predominantly dictated by an outside force.^[2]

[edit] Post-Conventional

The post-conventional level, also known as the principled level, is marked by a growing realization that individuals are separate entities from society, and that the individual’s own perspective may take precedence over society’s view; individuals may disobey rules inconsistent with their own principles. Post-conventional moralists live by their own ethical principles—principles that typically include such basic human rights as life, liberty, and justice. People who exhibit post-conventional morality view rules as useful but changeable mechanisms—ideally rules can maintain the general social order and protect human rights. Rules are not absolute dictates that must be obeyed without question. Because post-conventional individuals elevate their own moral evaluation of a situation over social conventions, their behavior, especially at stage six, can be confused with that of those at the pre-conventional level.

Some theorists have speculated that many people may never reach this level of abstract moral reasoning.^[7][8][9]

In Stage five (social contract driven), the world is viewed as holding different opinions, rights and values. Such perspectives should be mutually respected as unique to each person or community. Laws are regarded as social contracts rather than rigid edicts. Those that do not promote the general welfare should be changed when necessary to meet “the greatest good for the greatest number of people”.^[8] This is achieved through majority decision, and inevitable compromise. Democratic government is ostensibly based on stage five reasoning.

In Stage six (universal ethical principles driven), moral reasoning is based on abstract reasoning using universal ethical principles. Laws are valid only insofar as they are grounded in justice, and a commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust laws. Legal rights are unnecessary, as social contracts are not essential for deontic moral action. Decisions are not reached hypothetically in a conditional way but rather categorically in an absolute way, as in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.^[18] This involves an individual imagining what they would do in another’s shoes, if they believed what that other person imagines to be true.^[19] The resulting consensus is the action taken. In this way action is never a means but always an end in itself; the individual acts because it is right, and not because it is instrumental, expected, legal, or previously agreed upon. Although Kohlberg insisted that stage six exists, he found it difficult to identify individuals who consistently operated at that level.^[15]

[edit] Further stages

In Kohlberg's empirical studies of individuals throughout their life Kohlberg observed that some had apparently undergone moral stage regression. This could be resolved either by allowing for moral regression or by extending the theory. Kohlberg chose the latter, postulating the existence of sub-stages in which the emerging stage has not yet been fully integrated into the personality.^[8] In particular Kohlberg noted a stage 4½ or 4+, a transition from stage four to stage five, that shared characteristics of both.^[8] In this stage the individual is disaffected with the arbitrary nature of law and order reasoning; culpability is frequently turned from being defined by society to viewing society itself as culpable. This stage is often mistaken for the moral relativism of stage two, as the individual views those interests of society that conflict with their own as being relatively and morally wrong.^[8] Kohlberg noted that this was often observed in students entering college.^[8][15]

Kohlberg suggested that there may be a seventh stage—Transcendental Morality, or Morality of Cosmic Orientation—which linked religion with moral reasoning.^[20] Kohlberg's difficulties in obtaining empirical evidence for even a sixth stage,^[15] however, led him to emphasize the speculative nature of his seventh stage.^[5]

Criticisms

One criticism of Kohlberg's theory is that it emphasizes justice to the exclusion of other values, and so may not adequately address the arguments of those who value other moral aspects of actions. Carol Gilligan has argued that Kohlberg's theory is overly androcentric.^[10] Kohlberg's theory was initially developed based on empirical research using only male participants; Gilligan argued that it did not adequately describe the concerns of women. Although research has generally found no significant pattern of differences in moral development between sexes,^[14][15] Gilligan's theory of moral development does not focus on the value of justice. She developed an alternative theory of moral reasoning based on the ethics of caring.^[10] Critics such as Christina Hoff Sommers, however, argued that Gilligan's research is ill-founded, and that no evidence exists to support her conclusion.^[21]

Kohlberg's stages are not culturally neutral, as demonstrated by its application to a number of different cultures.^[1] Although they progress through the stages in the same order, individuals in different cultures seem to do so at different rates.^[22] Kohlberg has responded by saying that although different cultures do indeed inculcate different beliefs, his stages correspond to underlying modes of reasoning, rather than to those beliefs.^[1][23]

Other psychologists have questioned the assumption that moral action is primarily a result of formal reasoning. Social intuitionists such as Jonathan Haidt, for example, argue that individuals often make moral judgments without weighing concerns such as fairness, law, human rights, or abstract ethical values. Thus the arguments analyzed by Kohlberg and other rationalist psychologists could be considered post hoc rationalizations of intuitive decisions; moral reasoning may be less relevant to moral action than Kohlberg's theory suggests.^[24]

July 13, 2012-Morality and Voice

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development

Stages of Moral Development

By Kendra Cherry, About.com Guide

"The Heinz Dilemma"

Kohlberg based his theory upon research and interviews with groups of young children. A series of moral dilemmas were presented to these participants and they were also interviewed to determine the reasoning behind their judgments of each scenario.

The following is one example of the dilemmas Kohlberg presented"

Heinz Steals the Drug
"In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug.

The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug-for his wife. Should the husband have done that?" (Kohlberg, 1963).

Gilligan Responds

Kohlberg was not interested so much in the answer to the question of whether Heinz was wrong or right, but in the reasoning for each participant's decision. The responses were then classified into various stages of reasoning in his theory of moral development.

Gilligan spends a good deal of time attempting to debunk Kohlberg’s theory. She views the different ways that men and women make moral decisions and feels disappointed that Freud, Piaget, and Kohlberg view women as having delinquent morals.

Gilligan (1998) differs and claims that, “{t}his different construction of the moral problem by women may be seen as the critical reason for failure to develop within the constructions of Kohlberg’s system. Regarding all constructions of responsibility as evidence of a conventional moral understanding, Kohlberg defines the highest stages of moral development as deriving from a reflective understanding of human rights. That morality of rights differs from the morality of responsibility in its emphasis on separation rather than connection, in its consideration of the individual rather than the relationship as, primary…” (p. 19).

Gilligan states that the reason women are viewed as morally bankrupt is because the research that was used was skewed towards males. The male response was considered the only response. Once one views a woman’s position from the perspective that relationships are primary in their lives it becomes obvious that they are just a morally stable as men.