In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development

Building on the earlier work of Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg (See: Key Figures) began working on a theory of moral development as a graduate student in the 1950s, continuing to revise and add to it throughout his life. Kohlberg argued that moral reasoning has six developmental stages, with these broken into three phases: preconventional, conventional, and postconventional, with two stages in each phase. These developmental stages are primarily concerned with justice, and thus privilege a legalistic rights/justice orientation. Kohlberg argued that it is rare to regress in stages and that no stage can be skipped. Kohlberg provided his research subjects—who were usually male—with fictional moral dilemmas, such as the Heinz dilemma (See: Index of Terms). He analyzed the respondents’ justifications for actions taken in response to the dilemma to determine their moral developmental stage.

In critiquing Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, Gilligan more broadly critiques the deontological approach that Kohlberg assumes as essential to moral development. Developed by Immanuel Kant, deontological ethics argues that there are universal principles that all moral agents should adhere to, regardless of context. The rights and justice-orientation that Kohlberg assumes in his staging of subjects’ moral development can be placed within this deontological framework.

In analyzing girls’ responses to Kohlberg’s moral dilemmas alongside women’s reasoning regarding whether or not to get an abortion, Gilligan finds that girls and women do not generally think deontologically about moral dilemmas but, instead, think relationally through an ethic of care that is contextual. This alternative to Kohlberg’s assumed rational, justice-driven approach privileges emotional and relational ties, which have traditionally been devalued because they have been assumed to be obstructions to moral thinking.

In defining a feminist care ethic, Gilligan introduces what has previously been seen as opposed to moral philosophy as moral philosophy. Gilligan insists, too, that this feminist ethic of care is one shared by both men and women, though women more often adopt an ethic of care as their foundational approach to moral dilemmas. Gilligan also insists that an ethic of care exists in generative tension with other moral philosophies, working in coordination with them. This “dialogue” between rational moral thinking and relational moral thinking is the paradox of human morality, Gilligan insists—a paradox that both men and women experience in their moral decision making.

This ethic of care has been associated with the “feminine” as overly emotional and resistant to reason. The ethic of care, however, in its focus on caring for the other, must in fact be tempered by the universal principle of rights, Gilligan argues, so that women do not discount themselves in their moral decision-making. Rather than insisting that the feminist care ethic is superior to other ethics, Gilligan brings it in relation to other moral philosophies, adopting a feminist care ethic in this very theorization of moral systems existing in relation to one another.