MODULE 16: Feminism and Ethics of Care

Finals Topic

Do Women and Men Think Differently about Ethics?

• The idea that women and men think differently has traditionally been used to justify discrimination against women

• The conception of men as rational and women as emotional was dismissed as a mere stereotype.

• Nature makes no mental or moral distinction between the sexes.

• And when there seem to be differences, It is only because women have been conditioned by an oppressive system to behave in “feminine” ways.

• These days, however, most feminists believe that women do think differently than men. But they add, women’s ways of thinking are not inferior to men’s

• Female ways of thinking yield insights that have been missed in male-dominated areas.

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development

• STAGE 1: Obeying authority and avoiding punishment

• STAGE 2: Satisfying one’s own desires and letting others do the same, through fair exchanges

• STAGE 3: Cultivating one’s relationships and performing the duties of one’s social roles

• STAGE 4: Obeying the law and maintaining the welfare of the group

• STAGE 5: Upholding the basic rights and values of one’s society

• STAGE 6: Abiding by abstract, universal moral principles

Idea of Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development

• So, if all goes well, we begin life with a self-centered desire to avoid punishment, and we end life with a set of abstract moral principles. Kohlberg, however, believed that only a small minority of adults make it to stage 5

The Heinz’s Dilemma

• Heinz’s wife was near death, and her only hope was a drug that had been discovered by a pharmacist who was now selling it for an outrageously high price

• The drug cost $200 to make, and the pharmacist was selling it for $2000. Heinz could raise only half of that

• The pharmacist said that half wasn’t enough, and when Heinz promised to pay the rest later, the pharmacist still refused

• In desperation, Heinz considered stealing the drug. Would that be wrong?

Carol Gilligan’s Objection

• Carol wrote a book called “In a Different Voice”, in which she objects to what Kohlberg says about Jake and Amy. The 2 children think differently, she says, but Amy’s way of thinking is not inferior

• The “male way of thinking” - the appeal to impersonal principles - abstracts away the details that give each situation its special flavor

• Gilligan suggests that women’s basic moral orientation is one of caring: “taking care” of others in a personal way, not just being concerned for humanity in general.

Male way of thinking

• Ethics of obligation/duty

• Specialize in the larger group

• Is it true that women and men think differently?

Women’s basic moral orientation

• Ethics of care

• Specialize in the narrow sphere of intimate relationships

• Is it true that women and men think differently?

Family and Friends

(Implications for Moral Judgement - Ethics of Care)

• The ideas of equality and impartiality that pervade theories of obligation seem deeply antagonistic to the values of love and friendship

• The ethics of care affirms the priority that we naturally give to our family and friends, and so it seems more plausible than an ethic of principle

People in need that we don’t interact with (i.e, Children with HIV)

(Implications for Moral Judgement - Ethics of Care)

• An ethic of care focuses on small-scale, personal relationships. If there is no such relationship, “caring” cannot take place

• Nel Noddings explains that the caring relation can exist only if the “cared-for” can interact with the “one-caring”. Thus, Noddings conclude that we have no obligation to help “the needy in the far regions of the earth”

Other Animals

(Implications for Moral Judgement - Ethics of Care)

• Do we have obligations to nonhuman animals? Should we, for example, refrain from eating them? An ethic of principle says that how we raise animals for food causes them great suffering, and so we should nourish ourselves without the cruelty

• The “basic notion on which an ethic of caring rests” is the primacy of personal relationships. These relationships, as we have noted, always involve the cared-for interacting with the one-caring.