Moral Reasoning as Perception: A Reading of Carol Gilligan

Richard Kyte

doi:10.2979/hyp.1996.11.3.97

Beyond Caring: The De-Moralization of Gender

Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume ◽

10.1080/00455091.1987.10715931 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 13 ◽

pp. 87-110 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Marilyn Friedman

Keyword(s):

Moral Reasoning ◽

Moral Philosophy ◽

Moral Language ◽

Carol Gilligan

Carol Gilligan heard a ‘distinct moral language’ in the voices of women who were subjects in her studies of moral reasoning. Though herself a developmental psychologist, Gilligan has put her mark on contemporary feminist moral philosophy by daring to claim the competence of this voice and the worth of its message. Her book, In a Different Voice, which one theorist has aptly described as a best-seller, explored the concern with care and relationships which Gilligan discerned in the moral reasoning of women and contrasted it with the orientation toward justice and rights which she found to typify the moral reasoning of men.

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Moral Reasoning as Perception: A Reading of Carol Gilligan

Hypatia ◽

10.1111/j.1527-2001.1996.tb01017.x ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

pp. 97-113 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Richard Kyte

Keyword(s):

Moral Reasoning ◽

Moral Experience ◽

Clear Understanding ◽

Iris Murdoch ◽

Carol Gilligan ◽

Simone Weil

Gilligan's understanding of moral reasoning as a kind of perception has its roots in the conception of moral experience espoused by Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch. A clear understanding of that conception, however, reveals grave difficulties with Gilligan's descriptions of the care perspective and justice perspective. In particular, we can see that the two perspectives are not mutually exclusive once we recognize that attention does not require attachment and that impartiality does not require detachment.

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Specyfika etyk kobiecych w ujęciu Carol Gilligan

Przegląd Politologiczny ◽

10.14746/pp.2011.16.2.3 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 29-36

Author(s):

Bartosz HORDECKI

Keyword(s):

Public Sphere ◽

Moral Development ◽

Moral Reasoning ◽

Point Of View ◽

Research Tool ◽

Male Dominance ◽

The Public ◽

Carol Gilligan ◽

The Public Sphere ◽

Ethics Of Caring

The paper discusses the ethical views of Carol Gilligan that emerged to dispute the theory of six stages of moral development developed by Lawrence Kohlberg. In his opinion, women tend to reach the higher stages of his scale less frequently than men do. According to C. Gilligan this does not evidence the moral supremacy of men over women, but the faulty de- sign of the research tool. In her opinion, the Kohlbergian conception was based on an ethics of justice that took into account an exclusively male point of view. Women, whose voice is not heard in the public sphere, adopt a different type of ethics, namely the ethics of caring. C. Gilligan believes that it is necessary to promote this specific type of female ethics in order to overcome male dominance which is harmful both for women and men. Introducing a fe- male ethics will make it possible to refute the ‘double lie’ underlying patriarchal civilization. The lie involves (1) the assumption that male ethics are universal; and (2) female concealment of their own models of moral reasoning.

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Moral reasoning is the process of asking moral questions and answering them

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x18002534 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 42 ◽

Author(s):

Mark Alfano

Keyword(s):

Moral Reasoning ◽

Dependent Process ◽

Asking Questions ◽

Path Dependent ◽

Path Dependent Process ◽

Moral Questions

Abstract Reasoning is the iterative, path-dependent process of asking questions and answering them. Moral reasoning is a species of such reasoning, so it is a matter of asking and answering moral questions, which requires both creativity and curiosity. As such, interventions and practices that help people ask more and better moral questions promise to improve moral reasoning.

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