Download Ethics of Justice vs. Ethics of Care

Answer this question?
From your experience
in living life, is there
any truthfulness to
John Gray’s thesis
Men are from Mars,
Women from Venus?
1
Consider…
Are their significant differences in how you and your
spouse perceive opportunities and problems?
Are their significant emotional and intimacy needs that
distinguish you from your spouse?
Are their different modes of behavior between you and
your spouse? For example, are men really “wild at
heart?”: do they really need adventure, the opportunity
to save a damsel in distress, and be a hero to someone?
2
Ethics of Justice vs. Ethics of Care
An look into Carol
Gilligan’s,
In a Different Voice:
Psychological Theory
and Women’s
Development
(Cambridge: Harvard
University Press,
1982, 1993),
Chapter 2.
3
Images of Relationships: Chapter 2
Harvard Professor Carol Gilligan (1936-) begins Chapter
2 with the following introduction:
“in 1914 with his essay, “on Narcissism,” Freud swallows
his distaste at the thought of a ‘abandoning observation
for barren theoretical controversy’ and extends his map
of the psychological domain. Tracing the development
of the capacity to love, which he equates with maturity
and psychic health, he locates its origins in the contrast
between love for the mother and love for the self. But in
thus dividing the world of love into narcissism [selfabsorption] and ‘object’ relationships, he find that while
men’s development becomes clearer, women’s becomes
increasingly opaque.
4
Images of Relationships: Chapter 2
Professor Gilligan continues:
The problem arises because the contrast between
mother and self yields two different relationships.
Relying on the imagery of men’s lives n charting the
course of human growth, Freud is unable to trace in
women the development of relationships, morality, or a
clear sense of self. This difficulty in fitting the logic of
his theory to women’s experience leads him in the end
to set women apart, marking their relationships, like
their sexual life, as a ‘dark continent’ for psychology.’”
[Freud, “On Narcissism: An Introduction” (1914) XIV:
212] (pg. 24).
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Images of Relationships: Chapter 2
Professor Gilligan interprets Freud as stating:
“To Freud, though living surrounded by women and
otherwise seeing so much and so well, women’s
relationships seemed increasingly mysterious, difficult to
discern, and hard to describe. While this mystery
indicates how theory can blind observation, it also
suggests that development in women is masked by a
particular conception of human relationships. Since the
imagery of relationships shapes the narrative of human
development, the inclusion of women, by changing that
imagery, implies a change in the entire account” (pp. 245).
6
The Shift in Imagery: A Case Study:
Amy and Jake, two eleven year old students.
Amy and Jake were participants in a “rights and
responsibilities study” which was designed to explore
different conceptions of morality and self (pg. 25).
Both students were bright and articulate.
 Amy desires to become a scientist.
 Jake prefers English to math.
 Their moral judgments seem initially to confirm familiar
ideas about the differences between the sexes (i.e., girls
having an edge in terms of moral development during
the early school years which will give way at puberty
with the rise of formal logical thought in boys (pg. 25).
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The Shift in Imagery: A Case Study:
Amy and Jake, two eleven year old students.
In the following moral dilemma we will
see that Jake and Amy see two
different problems:
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The Shift in Imagery: A Case Study:
Amy and Jake, two eleven year old students.
The Moral Dilemma to Resolve:
“A man named Heinz considers whether or not to steal a drug which he
cannot afford to buy in order to save the life of his wife.”
Heinz predicament.
The wife’s disease.
The druggist’s refusal to lower his price
Should Heinz steal the drug? The reason for and against stealing
are then explored through a series of questions that vary and
extend the parameters of the dilemma in a way design to reveal the
underlying structure of moral thought:
9
The Shift in Imagery: A Case Study:
Amy and Jake, two eleven year old students.
Jake sees the moral conflict between values of property
and life. He discerns the logical priority of life, and uses
that logic to justify his choice.
“For one thing, a human life is worth more than money,
and if the druggist only makes 1,000, he is still going to
live, but if Heinz doesn’t steal the drug, his wife is going
to die (Why is life worth more than money?). Because
the druggist can get a thousand dollars later from rich
people with cancer, but Heinz can’t get his wife again
(why not?) Because people are all different and so you
couldn’t get Heinz’s wife again.”
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The Shift in Imagery: A Case Study:
Amy and Jake, two eleven year old students.
Jake was also asked if Heinz should steal the drug if he
doesn’t love his spouse?
“Jake replies that he should, saying that not only is there
a ‘a difference between hating and killing,’ but also if
Heinz where caught, ‘the judge would probably think it
was the right thing to do.’ Asked about the fact that, in
stealing, Heinz would breaking the law, he says that ‘the
laws have mistakes, and you can’t go writing up a law
for everything that you can imagine.’” (pg. 26).
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The Shift in Imagery: A Case Study:
Amy and Jake, two eleven year old students.
Considering the law and recognizing its function in
maintaining social order, the judge, Jake asserts, “should
give Heinz the lightest possible sentence.” Jake
considers the law to be man-made, subject to error and
change (pg. 26).
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Jake’s Ethics of Justice:
Kohlberg Analysis
Stages
5&6
Understanding
of fairness
that rests on
free-standing
logic of equality & reciprocity
Moral Maturity (6 steps):
Stages 3 & 4:
Conception of Fairness
Anchored in the Shared Conventions of
Societal Agreement.
Stages 1 & 2:
Egocentric understanding of fairness based on
Individual Need
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What are Jake’s Assumptions/Methodology?
The Ethics of Justice
Ethics of justice might be described as follows:
1. Locates truth in math which is “the only thing that
is totally logical” pg. 26 (deductive logic); certainty
is found in logic (pg. 45).
- He establishes the problem between life &
property as an equation & proceeds to workout the
solution; it is a contest of rights.
2. Rational conclusion: He assumes anyone following
“reason” would arrive a same conclusion.
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What are Jake’s Assumptions/Methodology?
The Ethics of Justice
Ethics of justice might be described as follows:
3.
Differentiates morality from laws and examines how laws
can be corrected/changed in order to have a principled
conception of justice.
4.
Self is defined via autonomy & personal confidence.
5.
Restraint from certain actions because of the needs of others
(p 38).
6.
Transposes a hierarchy of power into a hierarchy of values
(pg.32).
7.
Places the problem into an impersonal conflict of claims (pg.
32).
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Images of Relationships: Chapter 2
Amy offers a different view regarding Heinz’s
moral dilemma to the question whether the
husband should steal the drug?:
“Well, I don’t think so. I think there might be
other ways besides stealing it, like if he could
borrow the money or make a loan or something,
but he really shouldn’t steal the drug-but his
wife shouldn’t die either” (pg. 28).
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Images of Relationships: Chapter 2
When Amy is asked why she should not steal the drug, her
response is:
“ If he stole the drug, he might save his wife, then, but if he
did, he might have to go to jail, and then his wife might get
sicker again, and he couldn’t get more of the drug, and it might
not be good. So, they should really just talk it out and find
some other way to make the money” (pg. 28).
Asked whether or not Heinz loves his wife she maintained that
he shouldn’t steal or let her die. And even if it was a stranger
dying, Heinz should still try to save her life, but not steal the
drug (pg. 28).
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Images of Relationships: Chapter 2
When asked again why Heinz shouldn’t steal she simply restates her
position, “Because it’s not right”. When asked to explain why, she states,
“if he took it, he might not know how to give it to his wife, and so his wife
might still die.”
She assumes that if the druggist were to see the deathly situation, he would
surely want to help him save her. If they would just talk about it, surely
they could come to an understanding (e.g., The druggist could give it to
them and have the husband pay for the drug later).
Lastly, she sees the problem being a failure of the druggist: “it is not right
for someone to die when their life could be saved” (pg. 29).
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Test Results for Amy:
When the test is considered in view of
Kohlberg’s definition of stages and sequence
of moral development, her moral judgment are
a full stage lower than those of Jake (pg. 30).
Scored as a mixture of stages 2 & 3 (shared
conventions of societal agreement), she is as
follows:
19
Test Results for Amy:
1.
Stunted by a failure of logic;
2.
Inability to think for herself;
3.
Her replies are evasive, unsure, & lacks confidence;
powerlessness.
4.
Does not consider property and law but rather the effect that
theft could have on the relationship between Heinz and wife.
5.
Sees the dilemma as being the druggist’s failure to respond to
wife.
6.
The answer to the moral problem is “communication” rather than
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the systematic application of logic.
Test Results for Amy:
In sum, following the Kohlberg test:
Jake sees a conflict between life and property that be resolved
by logical deduction and categorical thinking.
Amy see a conflict between life and a lack of communication:
the problem that can resolved by honesty and open
communication; she appeals to contextual relationships.
Kohlberg summarizes the test by stating that the children
arrive at answers that fundamentally diverge because Jake
demonstrates moral maturity through the application of logic.
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A Network of Relationships:
Honesty; open communication;
Heinz should fear a potential lack of care/loneliness/separation from his wife.
Heinz’s dying wife
Heinz
Interpersonal
relationships
The Druggist
Druggist needs to
respond to the need
22
What’s Carol Gilligan’s Interpretation?
An Ethics of Care. Rather than being displayed as a
hierarchy of maturity through the application of logic,
females are fundamentally different than males (pg. 31):
We need to ask the question:
What does Amy see that Jake doesn’t?
An ethics of care according to Carol Gilligan.
In other words, like Amy, women have a different perspective; they
are able to achieve the highest level of moral development.
23
Descriptive Elements of An Ethic of Care:
1.
The world is comprised of a web of relationships sustained by
communication (pg. 38).
-Actors in dilemmas are “members of a network of relationships
on whose communication they all depend” (30).
2.
Self is defined through interpersonal connection.
24
Descriptive Elements of An Ethic of Care:
3.
Amy speaks of morality and responsibility as a way of restoring
community.
4.
Focuses on the need for a response.
5.
Wherever it is broken, thus the problem of “loneliness” constitutes
a major moral problem.
6.
One is responsible to care for others, to alleviate their loneliness.
25
A Working Definition of an “Ethic of Care”
A working definition of Ethic of Care:
1. It is at least an ethical perspective that seeks to
preserve and nurture the concrete relations in a
web of relationships, attending and positively
responding to the needs of others.
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Other Observations: Violence:

In a series of studies on how danger is
perceived between the sexes (pg. 42), men see
danger:
1. Often in close personal affiliation than in
achievement and constructing danger
from intimacy:
entrapment/betrayal;
smothering relationship;
humiliated by rejection/deceit.
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Other Observations:
Consider this fictional story:
“Nick saw his life pass before his eyes. He could feel the cold
penetrating even deeper into his body. How long had it been
since he had fallen through the ice-thirty-seconds, a minute?
It wouldn’t take long for him to succumb to the chilling grip of
the mid-February Charles River. What a fool he had been to
accept the challenge of his roommate Sam to cross the frozen
river. He knew all along that Sam hated him. Hated him for
being rich and especially hated him for being engaged to
Mary, Sam’s childhood sweetheart. But Nick never realized
until now that Mary also hated him and really loved Sam. Yet
there they were, the two of them, calmly sitting on a beach in
the riverbend, watching Nick drown. They’d probably soon by
married, and they’d probably finance it with the life insurance
policy for which Mary was the beneficiary” (pg. 40).
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Other Observations:
Women see danger:
1.
2.
3.
Danger of isolation,
A fear in standing out or being set apart by success, left
alone (pg. 42),
A relational failure (pg 43).
Thus, women see violence as a “fracture of human connection”
with the activities of care being those activities that make the
social world safe, avoids isolation, and prevents aggression.
Conclusion by Gilligan: “Men and women may experience
attachment and separation in different ways and that each sex
perceives a danger which the other does not see men in
connection, women in separation (pg. 42).”
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Other Observations:
“When the interconnections of the web are dissolved by
the hierarchical ordering of relationships, when nets are
portrayed as dangerous entrapments impeding flight
rather than protecting against the fall, women come to
question whether what they have seen exists and
whether what they know from their experience is true.
These questions are raised not as abstract philosophical
speculations about the nature of reality and truth but as
personal doubts that invade women’s sense of
themselves, compromising their ability to act on their
own perceptions and thus their willingness to take
responsibility for what they do. This issue becomes
central in women’s development during the adolescent
years, when thought becomes reflective and the problem
of interpretation thus enters the stream of development
itself” (pg. 49).
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Other Observations:
The struggle to be understood;
the struggle for uniqueness in a context of relationships.
In view of this hierarchical relationship of ethics
of justice, both psychologists and women
themselves find it difficulty to account for their
identity and moral belief; they are in crisis:
“A crisis that centers on her struggle to
disentangle her voice from the voices of others
and to find a language that represents her
experience of relationships and her sense of
herself” (pg. 51).
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Images of Relationships: Chapter 2
In her concluding remarks, Professor Gilligan offers the
following statements (pp. 62-3).
“While the truths of psychological theory have blinded
psychologists to the truth of women’s experience, that
experience illuminates a world where psychologists have
found hard to trace, a territory where violence is rare
and relationships appear safe. The reason women’s
experience has been so difficult to decipher or even
discern is that a shift in the imagery of relationships
gives rise to a problem of interpretation. The images of
hierarchy and web, drawn from the texts of men’s and
women’s fantasies and thoughts, convey different ways
of structuring relationships and are associated with
different views of morality and self. But these images
create a problem in understanding because each distorts
32
the other’s representation.
Images of Relationships: Chapter 2
As the top of the hierarchy becomes the edge of the web
and as the center of a network of connection becomes
the middle of a hierarchical progression, each image
marks as dangerous the place which the other defines as
safe. Thus the images of hierarchy and web inform
different modes of assertion and response: the wish to
be alone at the top and the consequent fear that others
will get too close; the wish to be at the center of
connection and the consequent fear of being too far out
on the edge. These disparate fears of being stranded
and being caught give rise to different portrayals of
achievement and affiliation, leading to different modes
of action and different ways of assessing the
consequence of choice.”
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Images of Relationships: Chapter 2
She goes on to say in the last paragraph:
“The reinterpretation of women’s experience in
terms of their own imagery of relationships thus
clarifies the experience and also provides a
nonhierarchical vision of human connection.
Since relationships, when case in the imagery of
hierarchy, appear inherently unstable and
morally problematic, their transposition into the
image of web changes an order of inequality
into a structure of interconnection.
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Images of Relationships: Chapter 2
She continues…
But the power of the images of hierarchy and web, their
evocation of feelings and their recurrence in thought, signifies
the embeddedness of both of these images in the cycle of
human life. The experiences of inequality and interconnection,
inherent in the relation of parent and child, then give rise to the
ethics of justice and care, the ideals of human relationship,-the
vision that self and other will be treated as of equal worth, that
despite difference in power, things will be fair; the vision that
everyone will be responded to and included, that no one will be
left alone or hurt. These disparate visions in their tension
reflect the paradoxical truths of human experience-that we
know ourselves as separate only insofar as we live in
connection with others, and that we experience relationship
only insofar as we differentiate other from self” (pg. 62-3).
35
Is this Distinction Philosophically Sound?

B. Is it philosophically sound? If it is sound as an
alternative approach in ethical theory, a “feminine
approach” (in contrast to utilitarian or deontological
ethics) one might answer with a resounding “no.” If
it is sound in bringing to the forefront how masculine
structures dominated Western thought and culture
(from authority structures to linguistics), oppressing,
discriminating, and nullifying feminine
development/identity in a modernistic worldview,
then same people might argue “yes.”
36
Is this Distinction Philosophically Sound?
4 reasons that may be used to argue that Gilligan’s
view is not “philosophically sound”:
1.
Do boys inherently use formal logical thought, relying
on the conventions of logic with no regard for
interpersonal relationships?
2. If the world is constituted primarily by a network of
relationships, then we would take “justice” into account
that would involve rules, maxims, or principles.
37
Is this Distinction Philosophically Sound?
3.
If ethics of care is interpreted as an
“ethical approach” rather than merely a
[complementary] perspective, advocating
the displacement of normative ethics such
as utilitarianism (for its emphasis on
calculations, horrific injustices, future
consequences, etc) or deontological ethics
(for its focus on rules, rationality, or
absolutes to the neglect of a person’s
welfare, etc), one might argue that this
model is not philosophically sound for the
following 5 reasons:
38
Is this Distinction Philosophically Sound?
A. Care ethics lacks clarity in resolving moral
conflicts.
B. Vast differences on what constitutes “care”
“nurture” or even “relations.” Different people,
cultures, and sub-groups have vast opinions on
what constitutes “care.” (Some people eat their
neighbors for food whereas others love their
neighbors ). Aristotle’s Republic; Spartan Rule,
to Marxism, postmillennialism, etc.
C. Is “care” a feminine morality, a master-value and
all other things are valuable only to the extent
that they can contribute to it?
39
Is this Distinction Philosophically Sound?
D. It fails to gives us significant help in the practicalities on
how we should behave; it is too nebulous (unlike
utilitarianism with its calculations or deontological ethics
with it’s universal and necessary a priori rules).
E.
There is no distinctly feminine morality (cf. Mary
Wollstonecraft in Vindication of the Rights of Woman).
- If there is a feminine morality does that mean that
utilitarianism and deontological ethics is a masculine
morality because it is not as “caring”?
40
Is this distinction philosophically sound?
4.
Jean Grimshaw’s criticisms:
A. There is little agreement among women on what accounts
as “female values.”
B. Dependent on the polarization of “masculine” and
“feminine” which has itself been so closely related to the
“subordination of women.”
C. There is no autonomous realm of female virtues
~ A Companion to Ethics, “The Idea of a Female Ethic” edited by Peter
Singer (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), pg. 498.
41
Is this Distinction Philosophically Sound?
On the other hand, one could argue that
this distinction is ultimately true but the
way it has been handled is confusing and
unclear. If the following is true, then the
ethics of care has not been ignored in
philosophy:
42
Is this Distinction Philosophically Sound?
Philosophically, (1) the ethics of justice is better interpreted as
a theory of individualism and ethics of care as a theory of
community. To be sure, both views have been taught in
philosophy, though one could argue, analogous to the critique
of modernism by critical continental thinkers, that (2)
modernism at is apex (with all its authority structures and
conceptions) ignored discriminated, oppressed, and even
nullified female identity, development, and voice (e.g., Freud)
in contemporary thought and culture.
Lets’ take a closer look at these two issues.
Consider the following quotes:
43
Consider the following:
Community:
Aristotle—In the Ethics we are told that “Man
is born for citizenship,” and in the Politics
we are told, “Man is by nature a political
animal.” More explicitly, Aristotle tells us,
“The state is by nature clearly prior to the
family and to the individual, since the whole
is of necessity prior to the part.”
For Aristotle, then, the individual presupposes community.
The sustenance of community is the moral goal, not the
moral problem.
44
Consider the following:
Community:
Hegel— Patriotism does not simply mean the
willingness to make exceptional sacrifices. Rather, it
is the recognition “that the community is one’s
substantive groundwork and end” (#268).
Here again, in an Aristotelian vein, we see in very plain
language that the community is presupposed by the individual
for Hegel. The moral self cannot define itself in separation
from others, but rather must understand itself as constituted by
its connection with others in the community.
45
Consider the following:
Community:
Marx—Living with others does not constitute for Marx (as it
seemed to do for Jake) a limitation on personal freedom.
Rather, “only in the community is personal freedom
possible” (197).
Here again we see a clear priority being established: the
individual can only be defined through relationship with other
members of community.
46
Need for Contracts:
Individualism:
Hobbes—In the state of nature, men are in the “condition
which is called war, and such a war as is of every man
against every man.
The natural state of man is “solitary.” And it becomes clear
that this picture of humanity, though perhaps softened a bit,
is essentially that of all contract theorists. For the whole
premise behind contract theory is that human beings are
essentially individuals, wildly scrambling to pursue their
own interests.
47
According to Mill:
Individualism:
“The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he
must not make himself a nuisance to other people.” This is
in Mill’s chapter praising individualism as “one of the
elements of well-being.”
This, for Mill, is the pinnacle of moral responsibility: not
being a nuisance. And this is the sentiment expressed by Jake
when he explained that, if he wanted to kill himself, he should
do it with a gun rather than a stick of dynamite, since the
dynamite might kill others, i.e., be a nuisance to them.
48
Individualism according
to Rawls and Nozick
Individualism:
John Rawls and Robert Nozick, for example, although
differing from one another in substantial ways, are
unanimous in their individualism. The community
presupposes the individual and, for both of them, having to
live in community with others constitutes the problem that
philosophy must solve.
49
Individualism according to Rawls and
Nozick:
Individualism:
In fact, the community is seen as nothing but the sum
of individual preferences, therefore necessitating a
morality of restraint. Even what appears to be a
morality of care, for Rawls, is best characterized in
terms of a limitation of the individual’s limitless
pursuit of gain and pleasure. So, although historically
the ethic of care has not been omitted, it has certainly
been overlooked in much modern and contemporary
moral thought.
50
In Summary:
What Gilligan calls an “ethic of care” has not been
ignored in the history of philosophy. Indeed, an “ethic
of care” has been the predominant model for moral
thinking until the last few centuries. Still, one can
understand why it might seem as though the ethic of
care has been omitted. The major thinkers in modern
and even contemporary moral and social-political
philosophy have been largely concerned with what
Gilligan calls an “ethic of justice.” This is in view of the
rise of modernism and its ramifications in thought and
culture, and the two dominant ethical views prior to
1958 (Anscombe’s article): Utilitarianism vs.
Deontological ethics.
51
Oppression of a Female Identity:
To be sure, some say that care ethicists and even more forceful
feminist philosophers do bring a warranted claim that needs to
be considered in contemporary society: wherever gender
oppression exists, critical evaluation and reform is needed. In
fact, they argue that we need to end oppression wherever it
exists, whereby certain types of people are not inherently seen
as inherently valuable, where voices are neglected, rejected,
discriminated, and persecuted.
Do you agree or disagree? Why?
WHAT IS YOUR JUSTIFICATION?
52
Alienation of a female identity in a
Modernistic Worldview:
However, like continental theorists, in contemporary
thought some blame modernism with its emphasis
upon rationality, individualism, and categoricalsystematic thinking whereby females are defined,
categorized related, and interpreted in view of their
“synchronic” relationship to maleness, whether
culturally, linguistically, etc. (hence, even the word
“fe-male” or wo-man”) to the extent that the
psychological theory of and study of women have
been alienated (e.g., Freud).
53
Alienation of a female identity in a
Modernistic Worldview:
Whether there is really is a distinctly
feminine “care ethics” perspective, it is
difficult to deny that females have been
ignored or undervalued, and even
alienated in certain segments of Western
thought and culture (e.g., Taliban;
Marxism).
54
Let’s consider the following?

If women and men are significantly different in how they
perceive and respond to others (relationships, opportunities,
problems, etc), then when it comes moral conflicts, how would
these two groups perceive and interpret moral conflicts? What
is the probability that men and women would come to the
same conclusion (consider Jake and Amy’s case)?





All women jury vs. All men jury?
50% men vs.50% women on a jury?
Moral conflicts at home?
Moral conflicts at work?
Moral conflicts at school?
55
Consider her perspective from a
Biblical worldview:
We are made in the image of God:
1.
Image = content (intellect, will, emotion).
2.
Image = dominion (authority; rule)
3.
Image = interpersonal relationships (in our
image)
4.
Representation (we are his Representatives)
5.
Holistic (all the above; seen like a diamond).
56