Ethics of Care of Carol Gilligan

Carol Gilligan challenged Lawrence Kohlberg’s stage theory of moral development. Gilligan argued that his model was male biased, and failed to include the perspectives of women, and downgraded women to the status of deviants from the norm.  She proposed a stage theory of moral development for women similar to Kohlberg’s moral development theory. The female approach to morality is that people have responsibilities towards others. So morality is an imperative to care for others.

It has three major divisions: Pre-conventional, conventional, and post conventional. The transitions between the stages are fuelled by changes in the sense of self rather than in changes in cognitive capability.

Pre-conventional level

Every child falls in this level because person only cares for them in order to ensure survival .In the transition phase the person’s attitude is considered selfish, and the person sees the connection between themselves and others. ”One learns to care for oneself.”

Conventional Level

Responsibility is goodness and more care is shown for other people. It passes a situation which carries on to ignoring needs of self. According to Gilligan, this is shown in the role of mother & wife. In this transitional phase, tensions between responsibility of caring for others and caring for self are faced. ”One internalizes norms about caring for others and tends to neglect oneself”

Post conventional level

Acceptance of the principle of care for self and others is shown in this stage and some people never reach this level. One becomes critical of the conventions one adopted in the conventional stage and learns to balance caring for self with caring for others. This is a progression from selfish, to social, to principled morality. “One internalizes norms about caring for others and tends to neglect oneself.”