A Different Perspective and Voice
As someone working with Heinz’s case and other similar cases, Carol Gilligan began to consider a different model of moral reasoning. Piaget might be right in giving priority to relationships over rules – but does this mean that relationships are unrelated to morality and ethics? Erikson might be correct that women tend to fuse identity with intimacy—but isn’t intimacy interwoven with higher levels of morality and ethics? Carol Gilligan offered a model that took the situation and broader circumstances into account when considering ethical and unethical actions.
We can only make a judgement regarding Heinz decision to steal the drug by knowing more about the world in which Heinz and the pharmacist dwelled. Reality exists in this immediate moment when Heinz decided what to do. We have to reside inside Heinz’ heart and soul if we are to somehow determine if he did the right thing. We also need to reside the heart and soul of the pharmacist to fully appreciate his own ethical or unethical behavior. A view from far away—in a Harvard research lab—is not of much use nor is it an ethically-valid way in which to make a decision regarding the ethics of both Heinz and the pharmacist.
Carol Gilligan wrote a book regarding this alternative way to think about moral reasoning. Called In a Different Voice (Gilligan, 1982), this short, highly influential book addressed far more than Heinz’s decision to steal the drugs. Expanding on her reflections regarding contextual reasoning, Gilligan proposed a quite different developmental sequence for women (and some men). She suggests that intimacy and identity are interwoven in the lives of many people. One does not precede the other. Rather intimacy and identity are merged in the enactment of interdependence and an ethic of mutual care.
According to Gilligan, the primary task for young women is to learn how to relate to other people and foster interdependency. Young women learn how to form and describe complex interpersonal relationships because they were exposed during childhood primarily to mothering figures. Both the mother and female child have been traditionally identified first and foremost as females. In this regard, they are “alike.” It is this intense socialization that leads many women in the study to inquiry about the relationship between Heinz and the pharmacist rather that make judgments from a distant, abstract level.
Three Stages
The entire three stage process, according to Gilligan (1982) moves developmentally towards maturity. All aspects of self are involved: cognitive, affective moral and spiritual.
Stage One: At the first stage, we find self-interested and selfish behavior. This stage relates to Kohlberg’s egocentrism. “I am the center of the universe, and accordingly.”
Stage Two: At the second stage we engage in relationships that expresses care. As in the case of Lawrence Kohlberg’ model, the interests of self are related to the interests of other people within our group, tribe or community. There is an “our and they” or “insiders and outsiders” experience. Some psychologists have explored a “theory of mind” that relates specifically to our ability to see the world through the eyes of other people. Stage Two requires that we can engage this capacity.
