Morality

Name
Professor
Course
Date
Morality
Question 4
Response
Ethics in a wide area that has sparked a lot of debate amongst various philosophers. Philosophers have gone ahead to break it down into three categories, that is, metaethics, normative ethics and applied ethics for understanding. According to what we learned in our previous class about this topic, there is a slight difference in understanding what ethic entails and what Carol Gilligan understand it. Gilligan’s stand on this topic of ethics is that different emphasis of men and women is what contributes to the different style of moral reasoning. For instance, men emphasis on separation and autonomy and hence stresses justice, fairness, and rights as their basis of logic. On the other hand, women put more emphasis on connections and relationships. As a result, they stress wants needs and interest of particular people as their basis of thinking. In fact, Gilligan claims that most moral development theorists tend to use male norms instead of human norms to measure all moral developments, hence contributing to routinely failure of women. In my view, indeed on several occasions, men are given priority than women especially when it comes to allocation of slots for big jobs. Therefore, I support Gilligan argument that all these problems occur as a result of the style of thinking.
Relatively, Emmanuel Levinasian views ethics as a tool of caring for others. Levinasian believed that care ethics encourages us to understand the moral good and not as a project of creating egoism.

Therefore, the claims of Gilligan line up with that of Levinas in that both are fighting for the human norms to establish a good relationship with all people in regardless of the gender. Hence, I agree with Gilligan’s claim that women see moral qualities differently from the way men do. Arguably, ethics is meant to govern the conduct of a person, and thus it should encompass the concern for other people. In other words, it should create an excellent connection and relationship with all people by meeting their needs. Also, ethics should be viewed as an integration of rights and responsibilities that takes place through an understanding of the psychological logic of the relationship, a case which is being embraced by women. For example, a recent study conducted by Carol show that the moral judgment of a woman is divided into three level, that is pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional which denotes a significant shift in a woman’s moral perspective around a center of moral understanding (Gilligan 490).
Comments
The main ideas discussed by Gilligan is regards to ethics are the different approaches that are found in men and women. Therefore, the first comment is about the male approach. I think male morality imposes a restriction on what one can do and thus has a justice orientation. On the other hand, the female approach to morality is that people have a responsibility towards others. In my opinion, female morality is imperative to care for others. Thus it can be regarded to have a responsibility orientation. Although the works of Gilligan had some sense on it, I think her methodology for raising claims did not build enough of the right issues. For instance in the study conducted by Gilligan (495) concerning abortion came from various ethnic, marital and social classes but none of these different approaches was addressed. I think Gilligan was biased because she did not raise questions about men’s moral attitudes towards abortion.

Work Cited
Gilligan, Carol. “In a different voice: Women’s conceptions of self and of morality.” Caring voices and women’s moral frames: Gilligan’s view. Moral development: A compendium 6 (1994): 481–517.