3. CARE AS DEVELOPMENT
3.1. Carol Gilligan’s pioneering study
The abortion study demonstrates the centrality of the concepts of responsibility and care in women’s constructions of moral domain, the close tie in women’s thinking between conceptions of the self and morality, and ultimately the need for expanded developmental theory that includes, rather than rules out from consideration, the differences in feminine voice. Such an inclusion seems essential, not only for explaining the development of women but also for understanding in both sexes the characteristics and precursors of an adult moral conception.
(Gilligan, 1982, p. 105)
Many reviews of Gilligan’s work summarize her claims as follows (1) there are two different moral voices (2) that are gender-related and (3) Kohlberg’s theory is biased against women (e.g., Jaffee &
Hyde, 2000; Walker, 1991). As reviewed in the preceding chapters, the first one seems to be confirmed, the second one is ambiguous, whereas the third one is disconfirmed. The fourth one, which I discovered, is that the ethic of care follows a developmental path, is absent in most reviews, even if many counter-critics (Kohlberg & al., 1983; Rest, 1986; Sichel, 1985) demand further evidence for a parallel developmental path of care.
It might be that the polemic style of Gilligan’s writing, tying development to neopsychoanalytical account, and her silence about specific developmental determinants has obscured this part of her work. Gilligan’s major point was that a different developmental path would have emerged if women had been included in Kohlberg’s original study, and she remains cautious to
make any explicit statements concerning the character of development.
Crucially, participants in Gilligan’s longitudinal study were women who were undergoing a severe crisis. These women were referred to the study through pregnancy counseling services and abortion clinics, as some counselors saw participating in the study as an effective means of crisis-intervention. Consequently, the data came from women who had plausibly a greater conflict than usual over the decision. Gilligan considered this type of crisis as illuminating from the moral aspect, because “when a woman considers whether to continue or abort a pregnancy, she contemplates a decision that affects both self and others and engages directly the critical issue of hurting. Since the choice is ultimately hers and therefore one for which she is responsible, it raises precisely those questions of judgment that have been most problematic to women.” (p. 71.) She uses the magnification of crisis to reveal the process of developmental transition and to delineate “patterns of change” over a one-year period covering the time of a potential pregnancy. In her analysis, she outlines the levels of care reasoning. Based on them, Eva Skoe (1993) later constructed a developmental measure, the Ethic of Care Interview (see Appendix A).
Based on the interview excerpts, it appears that these women struggled with moral crisis, using such deontic words as should, ought, right, but good, better, and bad as well.19 The character of individual crisis differed, giving rise to distinct developmental levels. There are adolescent girls at the first level, concerned selfishly with their own survival; not solely in financial and practical terms, but in terms of psychological survival, how to manage by themselves without emotional support. (As an example of this helplessness, one girl explained that she became pregnant, because nobody was willing to help her). The transition from selfishness towards responsibility means being socially included, because morality relies on adopted societal values, shared norms and expectations. At the second level, “the conventional feminine voice emerges with clear clarity, defining the self and proclaiming
19See Nunner-Winkler (1984) for another interpretation. She argues that the conflicts described are conflicts of ego interests and questions of good life, rather than moral conflicts.
its worth on the basis of the ability to care and protect others” (p.
79). Because a decision entails the sacrifice of somebody’s needs, women are confronted with the seemingly impossible task of choosing the victim. Those who turn to a less self-sacrifice solution by reconstructing a moral conflict in an entirely new way, eventually progress towards a more mature conception of care, recognizing and asserting their own needs again. When the discovered “inner” voice replaces “outer” ones as the arbiter of morality of truth, it frees the woman from the coercion of others, but leaves her with responsibility for judgment and choice. At the third level, a new balance is gained through truth and honesty about relationships, in the realization that self and other are still interdependent and that life can only be sustained by care in relationships (Gilligan, 1982.)
In Gilligan’s writing, the character of developmental change remains open. She refers to Piaget’s and Erikson’s concepts of the crisis that actually represent different, cognitive structuralist and ego psychological approaches. In general, she relates moral development to Eriksonian ego development. Thus, she also draws on his conception of the bipolarity of crisis, creating through a heightened vulnerability “a dangerous opportunity for growth”, resulting in positive or negative changes (p. 108). Consequently, the crisis also contains the potential for nihilism and despair. Even if this implies a possibility of regression in care development, Gilligan is unclear about this. This raises the question, whether women complete their development and remain at the perspective of highest level or whether major life crises create the potential for a new confrontation with all three perspectives? (Sichel, 1985).
Some women were well off, whereas some others’ lives have taken a deteriorating course and they felt worse, paralleled by changes in their moral judgment. These women seem to be aware of their regression that Gilligan calls moral nihilism, having different versions. The one version of nihilism is related to women, who, by abortion, try to cut off their feelings and not to care any more. While pregnant and wanting to live in the expanding family, they encounter in their husbands and lovers refusal and rejection. This makes them to ask themselves “Why care?” in a world where the strong ones end relationships. When abandoned by others, their common response is to abandon themselves, sometimes in a way regressing into the minimal level
of physical and psychological survival, barely being able to take care of self in terms of daily activities. In another version of nihilism, women’s morality centers on care, but in the absence of care from others, they are unable to care for a child or themselves (Gilligan, 1982, pp. 124-126.)
According to Gilligan’s interpretation, the nihilistic position signifies a retreat from care to a concern with survival. It still remains unclear how lasting this position might be, because “in attempting to survive without care these women return in the end to the truth about relationships” (p. 126). This, in fact, indicates the second transition and progress. But whether this nihilism potentially becomes a stabilized position beyond the actual crisis, perhaps across life span, is an interesting question, which remains unanswered. Later on, Gilligan (1990) concluded on the basis of her study of 12-15-year-old girls that the developmental sequence seemed to represent different responses to crisis in adolescence;
girls are tempted or encouraged to solve problems of connection (characteristics for Western culture) by excluding themselves or excluding others. To summarize, developmental changes are obviously prompted by crisis experiences, and thus one can expect the proposed progress to be fragmentary rather than smoothly linear.
In the light of close reading (e.g., Chapter 5), it appears that interpretations of Gilligan’s ethic of care have excessively been equated with the conventional feminine care at the second level.
Gilligan was fully aware how pervasively this level is influenced by the surrounding culture when she was describing women’s pains to leave the position of self-sacrifice that is widely regarded as a female virtue in the society.20 Still, many of her feminist critics seem to be blind to this point, when arguing that Gilligan’s approach valorizes self-sacrificing female ethic, which is placed outside the spheres of public and power, into the spheres of family and private life (Kroeger-Mappes, 1993; Sichel, 1985; Tronto, 1993). Indeed, Gilligan does emphasize that in order to challenge self-sacrifice, embedded in the traditional feminine gender roles;
20Gilligan argues (1987) that the equation of care with self-sacrifice fails to represent the activity and agency of care.
women have to grasp their rights and to adopt more assertive tactics.21
Paradoxically, Gilligan sees that a shift from conventional care towards more mature modes of care, which is expressed in adult responsibility for one’s own decisions and taking control of one’s own life requires the ethic of justice. The premise of ethic of justice is that self and other are equal, and consequently, the interest of self can be considered legitimate. When assertion no longer seems morally dangerous, the concept of relationships changes from “a bond of continuing dependence to a dynamic of interdependence” (p. 149). As a result, the concept of care expands from the paralyzing injunction not to hurt others to an injunction to act responsively toward self and others and thus sustain connection. Care and justice interplay and complement each other in mature moral thought.
Gilligan is still unclear about the way care and justice complete each other in mature moral thought. For women, the absolute of care, defined as not hurting others, becomes complicated through recognizing the need of personal integrity.
This recognition invokes equality embodied in the concept of rights, leading women to transform the definition of care. On the other hand, for men the absolutes of truth and fairness are initially defined by the concepts of equality and reciprocity, but they are gradually confronted through such experiences that demonstrate
21Related to this issue, Sandra Bem (1974) established the concept of androgynous gender role that encompasses both feminine and masculine characteristics. This replaced a traditional way of thinking of gender role as a bipolar dimension. Androgynous individuals were found to be more flexible, and have better self-esteem than especially feminine individuals (Bem, 1975; Bem & Lenney, 1976). Gender role research of that time fits with the picture Gilligan draws, even if she does not articulate the concept of androgyny. More recent research has established that masculine and androgynous gender roles have positively related to identity development, and in order to achieve a self-chosen identity, women must accept either an androgynous or a cross-sex typed style (Matteson, 1993). It is also worth noting that the idea of moral autonomy being inherent in the highest level of care (Clement, 1996) is not shared by all care theorists (e.g., Noddings, 1984), as they see moral autonomy leading to compromise relationships. According to Clement’s interpretation of Gilligan, moral autonomy however means that relationships are not maintained at all costs.
that self and other are not similar. What is striking is that Gilligan’s interviewees did not seem to find satisfying solutions for their moral conflicts, mostly between loyalty in family relationships and “being true to oneself”. Although both care and justice perspectives underlie their moral thought, these perspectives remained in tension. Gilligan did not analyze what level concepts of justice are required to complement the ethic of care (Sichel, 1985), even if the judgments presented in the interview excerpts imply the definite stages: emerging subjective moral standards to Stage 3/4 reasoning, considerations of personal integrity and honesty to Stage 4 reasoning, and of relativized equality to Stage 4/5 reasoning (for the definition of justice stages, see Table 2, p. 70). Interestingly, Gilligan and Belenky (1980) reported elsewhere that women demonstrated higher justice reasoning on their abortion decision dilemma than on Kohlbergian hypothetical dilemmas.
Obviously based on her interview data, Gilligan does not end up with the clear conclusion that care and justice are integrated in sophisticated moral thought, even if she has been interpreted to take a position that they ought to be integrated (e.g., Flanagan, 1991). Betty Sichel (1985) remarked that the rights of the self take precedence only when such rights are universalizable. In turn, understanding of rights as universalizable necessitates advanced justice reasoning at the postconventional level, and Gilligan noted that none of female participants demonstrated this level in their reasoning (p. 101). Consequently, her narrow data base gives rise to two contradicting interpretations: (1) care is separate from justice, but equally adequate as justice (the separate-but-equal-doctrine) and (2) care and justice are inadequate without the other and should be integrated (the integration-doctrine) (Flanagan, 1991).
Despite her restricted data, in terms of variation in justice stages, Gilligan continued to advance the separate-but-equal-doctrine in her later writings (1987, 1988), and finally appears to have taken a stand that care and justice remain in a dialectical tension (see Jaffee & Hyde, 2000). She describes this tension as a metaphor of gestalt-shift. At the moment you see a vase, you cannot see two faces, and vice versa; similarly, when you see saliencies of persons and interconnections, you cannot see issues of fairness, rights and obligation. Yet even after seeing it in both
ways, one way remains often more compelling (Gilligan, 1987; for criticism, see Flanagan & Jackson, 1987).22 Because there is virtually no study to date exploring the interconnection between care and justice levels, especially in real-life contexts, it is not known how tension vs. integration between moral voices is influenced by the adequacy of justice concepts that individuals use. Kohlberg et al. (1983) were convinced that at the highest level of justice reasoning, care and justice tend to integrate, when justice reasoning is complemented by the notion of care. On the other hand, recent research suggests that the content of moral conflicts may regulate interplay between them, because different types of moral conflicts invoke different amounts of care and justice considerations (Wark & Krebs, 2000).