Mark M.

Gatus, LPT
Marck Zaldy O. Camba, LPT

Prepared by:
Mark M. Gatus & Marck Zaldy O. Camba
Faculty Members, BU Philosophy Department
 Introduction

What Is This Lesson About?

In recent decades, a different ethical perspective known as ethics of care has

emerged. This kind of ethics is subsumed under virtue ethics since it does not focus on
the analysis of the rightness or wrongness of certain actions but on the development of
certain moral attributes. Although it subscribes to Aristotle’s emphasis on character
building and development of human virtues, it criticizes Aristotelian ethics for being
biased in favor of the male-oriented virtues such as justice, courage, self-control, and
autonomy.

The ethics of care was brought by the writings of women psychologists and
philosophers, which gave expression to the moral experiences of women. Though this
kind of ethics is associated with feminist philosophy, it is argued by some thinkers that
ethics of care is not gender-specific and should not be confined to women’s thinking since
both sexes, may have an inclination to this ethical perspective. But it has to be noted that
the ethics of care emanated from the reaction of women thinkers to the traditional and
mainstream ethical theories that they considered male-oriented and male-dominated.

Feminist thinkers criticize traditional moral philosophy saying that it portrays

masculine image. Thus, the challenge to moral philosophy is to provide a framework or
guideline on how these individuals ought to treat one another, and how they can co-exist
together harmoniously without a bias the any gender particularly to women. The
criticisms of these feminists thinkers lead them to formulate the now know theory called,
“ethics of care”.

Learning Objective

After completing the lesson, you will be able to:

• Explain the basic elements of care ethics

• Develop sensitivity on fair and equal treatment among all genders and persons-
with-special needs.

Prepared by:
Mark M. Gatus & Marck Zaldy O. Camba
Faculty Members, BU Philosophy Department
 Activities

Let’s try this!

Direction: Answer the question below.

1. What is the relevance of ethics of care to feminism?

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2. What comes into mind when you encounter the word care? What does “caring”
implies?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Ethics of Care
(The discussion is taken from the book of F.J. Evangelista and N. Mabaquiao Jr titled “Ethics: Theories
and Applications.)

Let’s Read!

A DIFFERENT VOICE
When Gilligan began her research into moral development, she had no particular
interest in gender issues. As research assistant to the great theorist of the psychology of
moral development, Lawrence Kohlberg, Gilligan was studying the moral reasoning.
Consequently, Gilligan become one of Kohlberg’s most outspoken critics. Her criticisms
of Kohlberg’s theory were published in her 1982 book, In a different Voice: Psychological
Theory and Women’s Development. In this book, she expressed her belief that morality must
not be looked merely in term of rules and justice. Although justice is a very important
component of morality, it is not the ultimate criterion of moral rightness. Within this
perspective, moral dilemmas are questions of conflicting right that are resolved by
identifying which is right has the highest priority in general. Morality, in short, is viewed
as a set of rules about rights where the aim of autonomous moral reasoning is to
determine how to balance rights fairly or justly. Example I the “Heinz’s Dilemma” by
Kohlberg, where this illustrates the kind of reasoning used within the justice perspective.

Prepared by:
Mark M. Gatus & Marck Zaldy O. Camba
Faculty Members, BU Philosophy Department
 Gilligan charges that Kohlberg’s theory of moral development I gender-biased a it
is based so narrowly on research which studied only white, upper-class men and boy.
She further argues that Kohlberg’s theory does not represent women’s moral perspective.
She said that male and female differ in their basic life orientation, particularly in
conceptions of morality. Moreover, Gilligan believes that males typically have a justice
or right orientation because of their individualistic and separate conception of self—their
detached objectivity and their proclivity for abstract and impartial principles. This, she
holds that males view morality as involving issues of conflicting rights.
On the other hand, Gilligan believes that females typically have a care
orientation because of their perception of the self as connected to and interdependent
with others, their sensitivity not to endanger or hurt, their concern for well-being and
care of self and others, and their desire to build and cultivate harmonious relationship.
Thus, she holds that females view morality as involving issues of conflicting
responsibilities.
Gilligan theorizes that sex differences in moral reasoning stem from the ways in
which boys and girls are raised. She suggests that boys learn to be more independent,
assertive, and achievement-oriented—experiences that encourage them to consider moral
dilemmas as inevitable conflicts between two or more parties that laws and other social
conventions are designed to resolve. By contrast, girls are taught to be nurturing,
empathetic, and concerned about the needs of others—in short, to define their sense of
“goodness” in terms of relationships with other people. These experiences should
encourage females to think of moral dilemmas as conflicts between one’s own selfishness
and the needs or desires of others.
Furthermore, Gilligan argues that Kohlberg’s theory is incomplete; there is a need
to restore the missing text of women’s development, and to include the perspectives of
both sexes. She presented this thru an illustration of gender difference in moral
orientation in her interviews with two children, both are 11 years old, with pseudonyms
of Jake and Amy. Both Jake and Amy were presented with the Heinz’s dilemma.
As a result, Jake is clear from the outset that Heinz should steal the drug. He
discerns the logical priority of life and uses that logic to justify his choice. Jake describes
the dilemma as a “sort of math problem with human”, a problem which needs solving by
logically working out the priorities that should be given to certain rules.
In contrast, Amy’s response to the dilemma conveys a very different impression.
Gilligan argued that Amy sees the actors in the dilemma as “arrayed not as opponents in
a contest of rights, but as members of a network of relationship on whose continuation
they all depend.
Gilligan suggests that the differences of approach between men and women raise
common or typical problems which are different for each. Women tend to be orientated
towards a conception of responsibility to others and the primacy of relationship with
others in their lives, that they can have real problems in developing a conception of their
own rights, needs, or responsibilities towards themselves. The problem, therefore, as
Gilligan sees it, is how to resolve the dilemma of retaining a clear sense of one’s own
identity and interests and needs, while at the same time seeing these as necessarily
embedded in relationships with others.

ALTERNATIVE THEORY OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT

Gilligan studied the moral development of females by asking pregnant women to
discuss an important dilemma that they were then currently facing—should they

Prepared by:
Mark M. Gatus & Marck Zaldy O. Camba
Faculty Members, BU Philosophy Department
 continue their pregnancies or have abortions? After analyzing the responses of her
29csubjects, Gilligan (1977, 490-508) proposed that women’s moral judgment progress
through a sequence of three levels (and two transitions between levels), where each level
represents a more complex understanding of the relationship between one’s own
perspective and the rights and concerns of others. These moral levels and transitions are
as follows.

LEVEL ONE: INDIVIDUAL SURVIVAL ORIENTATION

At this first level, a woman’s thinking about abortion centers on her own needs
and desires. The issue is individual survival, and the needs of others are largely ignored.
For example, an 18-yr old, when asked what she thought when she found herself
pregnant, replied: “I really didn’t think anything except that I didn’t want it… I wasn’t
ready for it, and next year will be my last year and I want to go to school”.
First Transition: From the Selfishness to Responsibility
According to Gilligan, there is a transitional period between Levels One and Two
reasoning where women first recognize that there may be a clash between their own
desires and the responsible course of action—a conflict between “doing something for
oneself” and “doing the right thing”.
For example, one young woman stated “what I want to do is to have the baby…but
what I feel I should do is to have an abortion right now…sometimes, what is necessarily
comes before what you want, because [what you want] might not always lead to the right
thing.
LEVEL TWO: GOODNESS AS SELF-SACRIFICE
At this level, women have adopted many traditional feminine values and have
come to evaluate themselves in terms of their interpersonal relationships. Now, the
orientation is to do the right thing to others and avoid hurting them if possible—even if
one’s decision represents a personal sacrifice. Clearly, the issue of hurting others is of
primary concern when women reason about abortion. When there is no decision that she
can make that seems in the best interests of everyone, a female finds it difficult to choose
the right course of action.
For example, when a woman who feels protective toward her unborn fetus, and
yet knows that her partner wishes her to abort it, is clearly in a no-win situation. When
forced to choose between two things she loves, the woman feels that she must make a
large personal sacrifice, regardless of whether she serves the needs of her partner by
undergoing an abortion, or of her fetus by continuing the pregnancy.
Second Transition: From Goodness to Truth
Between level two and three comes a transitional period in which women begin to
question the logic of moral self-sacrifice. Once, again, the issue of selfishness versus
responsibility comes to the forefront, but this time the woman also considers the
“rightness” of hurting oneself as well as the issue of hurting others. She strives to be
responsible to others and thus “good” but also to be responsible to herself and thus
truthful or honest.
LEVEL THREE: THE MORALITY OF NONVIOLENCE
At this third level, women who have largely rejected the notion of moral self-
sacrifice as immoral in its power to hurt the self. The principle of nonviolence—an
injunction against hurting—becomes the basic premise underlying all moral judgment.

Prepared by:
Mark M. Gatus & Marck Zaldy O. Camba
Faculty Members, BU Philosophy Department
 For example, this morality of nonviolence is apparent in the justification that a 25-
year-old gave for having the abortion: “I would not be doing myself or the child a favor
by having this child…I don’t need to pay off my imaginary debts to the world and use it
for that purpose”. Note that the concern here is to hurt neither oneself nor the baby.
In her theory of female moral development, Gilligan demonstrated the centrality
of the concepts of responsibility and care in women’s construction of the moral domain.
In dealing with moral dilemmas, women think more about the caring thing to do rather
than the thing the rules allowed. Women developed in a way that focused on connections
among people (rather than separation or noninterference) and with an ethics of care for
those people (rather than an ethics of justice).

For additional readings and references, refer to the following:

Chapter 7: Feminism and Feminist Ethics by Kathryn Mackay in Matthews, G.

(2020). Introduction to Philosophy: Ethics.

Available online: https://press.rebus.community/intro-to-phil-ethics/ Care

Ethics by Maureen Sander-Staudt. Available online: https://iep.utm.edu/care-
eth/

Here are some guide questions for your readings:

1.What are the basic elements of ethics of care?
2. Why is it that care ethics is often construed as a feminine ethic?
3. Using care ethics as a moral framework, how would you address the moral
issues regarding the equality of all genders and persons with special needs?

Moreover, to further supplement your understanding about the topic, you can
watch the following video lectures:

1. Alternative Paradigms: Care Ethics and Feminine Ethics. Available online:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iaCpAFypq8&feature=emb_logo
2. Feminist Ethics of Care. Available online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCNmf2E34-M

Prepared by:
Mark M. Gatus & Marck Zaldy O. Camba
Faculty Members, BU Philosophy Department
 Learning Output no. 8

INSTRUCTIONS

1. After reading the module, discuss significant ideas you have learned among the
member of the group.
2. Reflect and compose an essay paper to the questions written below;

How can ethics of care resolve moral conflicts? Is ethics of care only applicable
for women? Or Using care ethics as a moral framework, how would you address
the moral issues regarding the equality of all genders and persons with special
needs? How does ethics of care differ from other ethical theories like of Kant’s
and Aristotle’s?

3. Collaborate and brainstorm among your group members the situation given and
compose a 400 to 1000 words essay. If you have conflicting opinions and
disagreements, make sure that you will discuss them and decide who has a sound
or better opinion before writing the essay paper.
4. In writing, use Tahoma, Arial, or Times New Roman font style and use font size
12. Write your reflection paper on a short bond paper with a margin of 1 inch on
each side, single spacing.
5. Do not forget to write the members of the group. Write the name of the members
in alphabetical order. Take note that members of the group whose name is not
written will not earn any points from the score of the group.
6. After, turn-in your essay paper in our google classroom on or before the set
deadline of submission.

References

Mabaquiao, N., Jr., & Evangelista, F. (2020). Ethics: Theories and

Applications. Manila: Anvil Publishing.

Prepared by:
Mark M. Gatus & Marck Zaldy O. Camba
Faculty Members, BU Philosophy Department