Ethics of Care
Carol Gilligan (2023) provides us with an even more detailed description of what a chalice looks like and how it impacts the relationships between people. First, as we look at a chalice or any container, it holds all things—good and bad. The chalice is without judgement. Carol Gilligan makes this important point that we can’t live our life without doing harm. There is no one, overriding set of principles that enable us to live a life without compromise or without the sorting of priorities. Carol Gilligan (2023, p. 52) puts it this way:
“Since moral dilemmas arise in situations where hurt is inescapable, there is no ‘right or ‘good’ solution. Rather than seeking justification, the moral imperative becomes “an injunction to care, a responsibility to discern and alleviate the ‘real and recognizable trouble” of this world.'”
Having recently published an essay with my colleague, Suzi Pomerantz, about the challenge of living a life without doing harm (Bergquist and Pomerantz, 2020), I was particularly taken by this statement regarding the critical roles to be played by discernment and a resulting attempt to alleviate trouble. Given what we have learned from Abraham Lincoln and those working at the Santa Fe Institute (Page, 2011), this act of discernment might best be done in an environment that encourages diversity; furthermore, alleviation is best done in a collaborative manner since it is hard to fight alone when confronting the “troubles” elicited by VUCA-Plus conditions. We need a “little help from our friends” (even when our “friends” are actually our rivals and those who see our VUCA-Plus world from a very different vantage point.
Trust
There is another important characteristic of a chalice. If it is of any value, a chalice does not leak. It’s contents remain within the confines of the chalice’s strong walls. Similarly, when anxiety is running amuck in a group, the chalice of leadership contains the anxiety and doesn’t allow it to leak out. While the chalice of leadership has no physical walls, it does require the capacity for psychological containment. This in turn requires trust. In the past, I have been joined by two colleagues in the identification of three types of trust (Bergquist, Betwee and Meuhl, 1995): competence, intentions, perspective) I believe that all three are required when building a strong interpersonal and group chalice.
We have to trust that people with whom we interact to address issues are competent. Abraham Lincoln might not have agreed with his rivals, but he did respect their competence. I often use the example of an exercise called the “trust fall” to illustrate the importance of competence. Imagine that your dear aging mother was standing at the base of a platform from which you are asked to fall backwards.
You know that your mother is deeply devoted to your welfare, but you doubt that she can impede your fall. Both you and your caring mother would undoubtedly be hurt. Part of what Carol Gilligan is advocating relates directly to the matter of competence. She proposes that an ethic of care includes an articulate understanding of the complex circumstances surrounding any major moral judgement. It is not enough to be caring (devoted mother); one must also be discerning.
Then there is the matter of intention. Consider a situation in you have insulted participants in a trust fall exercise prior to standing on the platform. The people you have insulted are fully capable of catching when you fall. However, you can hear them mutter to one another about >getting even with you.” You decide not to fall backwards given than you don’t trust the intentions of these other participants. You are not sure that they are most interested in your welfare. The exercise might end with you hitting the ground and everyone around you chuckling.
