Ethics of Care - Historical Background

Historical Background

One of the founders of the ethics of care was American ethicist and psychologist Carol Gilligan. Gilligan was a student of developmental psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg and developed her moral theory in contrast to her mentor's theory of stages of moral development. She disputed his concept of human maturity which measures, and assesses progress along the following stages:

Gilligan advanced the view that this model must be wrong. Measuring progress by it resulted in boys being found to be more morally mature than girls, and this held for adult men and women as well, although when education is controlled for there are no gender differences. This was not an objective scale of moral development, Gilligan argued, but other researchers have found the scale to be psycho-metrically sound. It displayed a particularly masculine perspective on morality, founded on justice and abstract duties or obligations. She also stated that Kohlberg's founding study consisted of largely male participants.

Gilligan offered a difference feminist perspective: men and women have tendencies to view morality in different terms, with women tending to emphasize empathy and compassion over the notions of morality that are privileged by Kohlberg's scale. The "different voice," however, is not characterized by gender. Rather, it is associated with women by means of an empirical observation. Subsequent research, confirms that the difference in the use of the care ethic or the justice orientation is not based on gender differences.