Carol Gilligan’s Ethics of Care

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We are living in an unsatisfactory world. Climate change, inequalities, poverty, religious conflicts, unemployment and lack of education, are the critical global issues humans are still fighting against. To change those unsatisfactory social conditions, Carol Gilligan firstly proposes “ethics of care” as a moral theory to be substituted for such dominant moral theories as Liberalism and Kantianism which she thinks are “psychologically and politically harmful”. As feminist and psychologist, Gilligan’s distinctive contributions in bringing women’s voice into the human world, not only reframes the conception of humans in psychology but also establishes the ground for a different philosophy, a change in ethics and legal theory.

This paper provides a brief background of the ethics of care in the first section. In the second and third sections, Gilligan’s ethics of care as a moral theory and a foundation for the law are explored. Followed by this is the critique of ethics of care made by Catharine MacKinnon. It concludes by suggesting that the ethics of care could restructure the current moral theories and make our unsatisfactory world less unjust and inequitable.

The Origins of Ethics of Care

Carol Gilligan, the founder of ethics of care, is an American feminist as well as a psychologist. When she worked with Lawrence Kohlberg who is also American psychologist on Stages of Moral Development in a psychologic experiment, Gilligan found that Kohlberg used all-male research samples, and thus men were the measure of humanity, causing women were rarely represented: “It was startling to discover that women were not included in research on psychological development, or when included are marginalized where the male was taken as the norm.”

Therefore, to realize one’s potential as a human, Gilligan conducted her own studies in which women were the subjects of the research. From these studies, she formed the framework of ethics of care and published her most influential work — In a Different Voice.

According to Gilligan, females approach ethical issues differently from males. In a given situation, women would often frame issues in terms of relationship, which is more contextual and narrative. In contrast, the way that men perceive moral issues is grounded upon the notion of abstract justice and rules. Although her empirical observations were associated with women, it is not by gender to characterize the different moral approaches. Rather, males and females’ voices represent two different voices — a patriarchal voice and a relational voice — and thus two distinctive modes of thought. It is evident that some men can have more typically female thoughts while some women may have male attitudes.

The relational voice is built on the relation and begins with connection, focusing on the care perspective so that interpersonal relationships could be protected and maintained. Gilligan argued that bringing relational voices is essential. The existing patriarchal paradigm is limited to deal with actual relationships and people’s needs, and therefore developing a different voice is a key to lead to the paradigm shift.

The Ethics of Care as Moral theory

Connection as fundamental

At the heart of ethics of care is the connection. In Gilligan’s phycological studies, she found that women take a different approach from men to solve problems in a way of engaging in the context. She points out that the ethics of care begins with the connection that is fundamental to human life. The ethics of care not simply emphasise care as an ethic of special obligations and interpersonal relationship, but also derives connection as the basis of morality, since individuals are intersubjective and social beings living in relationships. The ethics of care is seen by some philosophers as a primary virtue that can provide a general account of right and wrong action. But the ethics of care is more than a virtue, focusing on the state of character of individuals. It concerns caring relations between individuals, the connection. Valuing connection in ethics of care may be reflected in Communitarianism which is based on the idea that social identity and personality are largely molded by community relationships, therefore encouraging to support social relationships and connection.

Gilligan’s relational theory may be also linked to Honneth’s recognition theory. Recognition, as understood by Honneth, is essential to self-realisation which is developed from Hegel’s intersubjectivity. As humans are intersubjective beings, they gain their identities as well as sense of justice from the relationships with others. In his three patters of interaction, he mentioned that “successful relationship between ‘mother’ and child” creates a pattern of interaction which reappears in successful affectional bonds to other people in adult life.” Since recognition as required by self-realisation demands connection and people can therefore maintain their relations in moral conflicts by valuing connection, in this sense, the ethics of care could be supported by recognition theory.

Actual relationship

The dominant moral theories advocate people to act according to universal law and abstract principles, such as Kantianism — to use our reason. When seeking a fair solution, the ethics of justice emphasise equality, impartiality and individual rights. In contrast, the ethics of care is skeptical of such reliance on abstract rules.

One of the distinctive contributions of ethics of care is actual relationships. Gilligan noted that the ethics of justice was failed to deal with moral issues in the contexts of family and friendship because it does not recognize actual relationships. Humans live in relationships with one another and they are essentially relational responsive others. Accordingly, moral responsibility is defined in terms of relationships. The idea of individual standing alone and looking up at the sky for eternal principles may cause potential conflicts as every step we take would affect people around us, particularly those who love and care about us.

Therefore, if one has to choose between two courses of actions, one of which would be more pleasant for him than maintaining his relationship, and the other would promote or support continued relationship, as argued by Gilligan, the latter will be preferable.

A conception of person as relational

For a long time, the notion of a person has been based on a fully independent and rational individual. Consider the assumption drawn from Rawls who sees justice as fairness which ought to be the fundamental principle of a social system. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls proposes his well-known thought experiment which he calls the “veil of ignorance”. With the “veil of ignorance”, people have no knowledge of their gender, race, abilities and social class. People in this original position would pursue a course of reasoning which consists of opting for more social goods rather less and prefer to be risk-adverse than reward-prone. As such, Rawls argues that self-interested individuals must be rational and impartial to share fair and good social life.

However, Gilligan rejects such a view of dominant moral theories and restructures the concept of a person. She regards individuals as relational and epistemologically. No one is born to self-sufficient and we all need to be cared for and natured to be prepared for adulthood. In the course of this, we develop relationships with others, built in our personhood where relations constitute our identity. Thus, individuals are relational before they step into the stage of independence and autonomy. Such relationships embedded in our soul will inevitably affect how we think and act and any rational and independent decisions we made thereafter would rely on the network of social relations.

The Ethics of Care as Foundation for Law

From Gilligan’s standpoint, the ethics of care is a new key for psychology, politics and legal theory, shifting the existing paradigm of male supremacy. Since the ethics of care begins with connection as fundamental in human life, the ethics of care could be the foundation for law and society.

Human rights

Held argues the case for alleviating global poverty in terms of human rights with ethics of care. According to Held, the global economic order brings about global poverty which is a violation of the human rights of the poor, as such actual international law should be assured to offer legal solutions and remedies. The ethics of care, as a normative guide, is able to provide adequate connection, empathy, and responsiveness for the legislations.

It may be suggested that the ethics of care can play its role in the issue of prostitution along with human trafficking. Most of the women who sell for sex are trafficked, which fits in the international definition of slavery – the exercise of powers of ownership over a person. Their human rights, thus, have been prejudiced. From the perspective of the ethic of care, human trafficking and prostitution cut off the bound to other people, defining a realm of human activity as the disconnection of the self from relationships and the separation of the public from the private. On this view, it is necessary to rebuild the connection to maintain long-lasting relationships and therefore the protection of human rights could be well established.

Domestic violence

To Gilligan, the ethics of justice are associated with disconnections that are at the root of violence and oppression. This may be supported by Derrida who argues that self-consciousness categories to understand the world is to reduce the other to the same via violence, suggesting a metaphysical or conceptual violence is grounded in the ethics of justice. Conversely, the ethics of care is concerned with a connection that can cure and rebuild relationships so that it can contribute to dealing with violence.

The ethics of care can offer a satisfying solution for domestic violence. Where battered women are struggling in the abusive relationship and reluctant to leave, mandatary arrest or prosecution required by ethics of care may prevent further violence than respect for the autonomy of abused women to cooperate. Moreover, ethics care could be a better guide to reduce domestic violence. Instead of focusing on the punishment of abusers as the liberal theory does, it intends to adjust relationships between the abusers and the victims and makes violence understandable as a failure of care, not just a harm. As such, the violence can be reduced and relationships can be reshaped and maintained by instilling care and concern.

MacKinnon’s Critique of the Ethics of Care

Catharine MacKinnon considers how Gilligan’s approach to morality is not radical, but moral reasoning based on gender difference. She argues that the ethics of care affirms female stereotypes in the patriarchal structure of male supremacy, which is a product of patriarchy. Instead, MacKinnon proposes an alternative approach which she calls the dominance approach. The starting point of her theory is we are under the condition of a patriarchal world and this is also how she moves from gender difference to gender dominance.

MacKinnon uses sex discrimination law as an example. She argues that sex equality pursued by sex discrimination law is a contradiction because equality requires sameness — same as men which means measured by men; whereas sex recognizes difference — different from men, still measured by men as women’s lack of correspondence with men. The line of logic hidden in this law indicates that man has become the measure of all things.

Accordingly, MacKinnon assumes that the question of equality is a question of power. As a Marxist feminist legal scholar, MacKinnon applies the Marxist paradigm by taking out capitalists and adding patriarchy. To Marx, the foundation of the structure of society is the material reality constituted by relations of production between the capitalist class and the works, on which arises a legal and political superstructure, as well as social consciousness. Similarly, MacKinnon argues that the Constitution, hiding the male dominance, is patriarchal, and therefore shapes the superstructure of law and culture. The legal power then reinforces the masculine view to subordinate women. Therefore, she concludes that it is not the gender difference that produces inequality but gender dominance.

The shift to gender dominance approach, as MacKinnon puts it, reflects Gilligan’s difference approach is masculinist in the sense of that it adopts the view of male supremacy. Mackinnon states: “The difference approach tries to map reality; the dominance approach tries to challenge and change it.”

This statement is understandable because Gilligan’s theory is grounded on her phycological research in which the opinions people shown are already developed from the male-dominated world, whereas Mackinnon digs deeper into this reality to explore the causes of opinions. However, the dominance approach attracts criticism from Drucilla Cornell. The significant disagreement by Cornell is that it would be impossible to incorporate the feminist view into the Constitution if the gender difference cannot be identified. This is because we need to know the difference first so as to repair and restructure the system. And she also brings in Derrida’s deconstruction to support the sexual difference.

Conclusion

As a phycologist, Gilligan’s theory is well-grounded on enormous studies, providing us a very different approach from most traditional and dominant moral philosophies which has generally been hyper-rational since the Age of Enlightenment. She made a valid argument that moral development cannot be isolated from others in which the actual needs and emotions cannot be reduced to mere issues of justice, transforming our centuries-long understanding of justice.

This year, the world is experiencing a series of catastrophic fires. Amazon forest fires in August led the deforestation rate reaching the highest level in over a decade. California wildfires in the USA in October caused the loss of over $163 million dollars. Australian bushfires in November swept across the state. But the question is, who is responsible for this? If we simply apply the logic of justice, there may be no one held accountable because no one really cause it. Just as Bolsonaro, a Brazilian senator, argued “no country in the world has the moral right to talk about the Amazon, justice theory, construed as the separation of self from relationships, may be careless and helpless. Instead, Gilligan’s ethics of care may play a significant role in approaching such issues by bringing the connections back to our world.

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