A Different Voice: Gilligan's Take on Morality, Explained

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A Different Voice: Gilligan's Take on Morality

Educational Psychology · Chapter 5: Identity, Language, Morality, and the Whole ChildSection 5.6 · lesson 43 of 1008 min · free with a free account

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In this lesson

Care and justice as complementary orientations, and a pedagogy built on care.

  • Explain Gilligan's critique of Kohlberg's sample and hierarchy
  • Describe the three levels of care-based moral reasoning
  • Compare justice and care orientations across five dimensions
  • Integrate both orientations in responding to an incident

Transcript

Everything said in the video, section by section (1,074 words). Read along, or search it.

Identity, Language, Morality, and the Whole Child

A Different Voice: Gilligan's Take on Morality

Kohlberg's theory ranks moral reasoning from stage one to stage six. Which means it also ranks people. Carol Gilligan asked a hard question about that ranking. Whose reasoning was it built from? This section covers her answer, and the ethics of care. We will look at the two orientations she named. Justice, and care. Then at Noddings, who built a pedagogy of care out of it. And at why the modern position treats the two as complementary. The practical payoff is a teacher who can use both.

The Challenge

In a Different Voice, 1982

Carol Gilligan was a developmental psychologist. She was also a former student of Kohlberg. In nineteen eighty-two she published In a Different Voice. It fundamentally challenged the assumptions of moral development research. Her observation was about method, and it was straightforward. Kohlberg's theory rested almost entirely on research with male participants. And the stages he described reflected a particular moral voice. Especially the elevation of abstract justice principles at the top. Now consider what follows from that in a stage theory. If women reason differently, they score lower. Gilligan's argument was that they were not underdeveloped. They were operating from a different but equally valid orientation.

Two Orientations

Justice and Care

She described two orientations. A justice orientation prioritizes justice, rights, and abstract principles. A care orientation emphasizes care and relationships. And context-sensitive responsibility. It is important to read her qualification carefully here. Gilligan noted that these orientations are not biologically determined. And that both men and women can use both. Her claim was about a bias in the research. And about the hierarchy that bias produced. It was not a claim that women and men think differently by nature. That distinction gets lost when the theory is summarized quickly. And losing it turns a critique of method into a stereotype.

Her Model

Three Levels of Care Reasoning

Gilligan proposed three levels in her own care-based model. The first is an initial focus on the self. Survival. The second is a transition to care for others. Goodness. The third is a balanced care ethic. One that values both the self and others. Look carefully at where that endpoint sits. The mature stage is not maximum self-sacrifice. It is balance. On this model, a care ethic that erases the self is not the highest stage. It is the middle one. Which is a genuinely interesting claim about caring professions. Including teaching.

Ethics Of Care

Different Questions, Not Different Answers

The ethics of care puts relationships at the center of decisions. Human relationships, and responsiveness to need. Rather than applying universal principles impartially, care-oriented reasoning asks a different set of questions. Who will be hurt by this decision? What are my responsibilities to the people involved? How can I avoid harm while maintaining relationships? Those questions do not have general answers. This orientation is relational and context-specific. Rather than abstract and universal. It treats moral problems as embedded in webs of particular relationships. Not as abstract puzzles to be solved by applying a rule.

For Teachers

The Same Teacher, Two Responses

For educators this distinction is not theoretical at all. Consider one teacher facing one incident. A justice orientation leads her to apply the rule uniformly. Regardless of the circumstance, because that is what fairness requires. A care orientation leads the same teacher elsewhere. To consider the student's context, relationships and needs first. Nel Noddings extended Gilligan's ideas into a pedagogy of care. Her argument goes further than most. The teacher-student relationship is itself a moral relationship. And within it, genuine attentiveness and responsiveness are obligations. That is a stronger claim than saying kindness is desirable. It makes attentiveness a duty of the role.

Compared

Five Dimensions Side by Side

Compare the two orientations across five dimensions. The moral question. What is fair, versus how can I avoid harm. The decision basis. Universal rules and rights, versus context, relationships and need. The view of conflict. Apply principles impartially, versus preserve relationships and well-being. Moral growth. Toward greater abstraction, versus toward balanced care of self and others. And each has a limitation. Justice may ignore context and relationships. Care may struggle with large-scale justice. Those two limitations are not the same size in every situation.

Key Idea

Complementary, Not Competing

Here is the modern position, and it is the key idea. Justice and care are not competing moral systems. They are complementary orientations. Most people use both, in different situations. And the most morally sophisticated reasoning integrates them. Attending to relationships and context. While also upholding principles of fairness and human rights. That gives educators a two-sided goal. Cultivate both orientations, in students and in yourself. And the reason is structural rather than diplomatic. Each orientation's limitation is the other one's strength. So holding only one guarantees a predictable blind spot.

In Practice

Two Responses to Bullying

Watch both orientations applied to a single incident. A teacher learns that a student has been bullying a classmate. A justice response focuses on rule enforcement, and on consequences. That response is not wrong. It is incomplete. A care-oriented response asks three additional questions. What needs are unmet in the student who is bullying? How can the relationship between the two students be repaired? And what support does the targeted student need? By integrating both orientations, the teacher does two jobs. She addresses the ethical violation. And she addresses the relational harm. Neither of those, on its own, finishes the situation.

The Limitation

Each Orientation Fails Somewhere

It is worth being honest about how each orientation fails. Justice alone may ignore context and relationships. Uniform rule application can produce outcomes that are technically fair. And obviously wrong to everyone in the room. Care alone may struggle with large-scale justice. Responsiveness to the people in front of you is powerful. It does not scale to people you cannot see. And it can quietly favor the students you happen to know best. Which is why integration is not a diplomatic compromise. It is not a way of avoiding an argument between two camps. Each orientation genuinely covers the other's blind spot. Using one alone is a choice about which errors you will make.

The Legacy

Room for More Than One Voice

Gilligan's larger legacy is about pluralism in moral development. Her work challenged a specific assumption. That a single moral framework represents universal human development. And it opened space for recognizing diverse moral voices. Across gender. Across culture. Across life experience. In education, that translates into a design principle. Build environments where multiple ways of reasoning ethically are valued. Explored, and applied to real situations. Rather than ranking students by a single hierarchical standard. And notice how easy that ranking is to slip into. A stage theory invites it, by its structure. You can use one without noticing you have started sorting people.

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FAQ

Questions students ask us

About A Different Voice: Gilligan's Take on Morality

What was Carol Gilligan's critique of Kohlberg?
Carol Gilligan, a former student of Kohlberg, argued in her 1982 book In a Different Voice that his theory rested mostly on research with male participants and placed abstract justice at the top of the hierarchy. As a result, people reasoning from care and relationships could score lower. Gilligan argued they were not less developed but using a different, equally valid orientation, and she stressed that these orientations are not biologically determined.
What is the difference between the justice orientation and the care orientation?
The justice orientation asks what is fair and resolves moral problems by applying universal rules and rights impartially, while the care orientation asks how to avoid harm and focuses on context, relationships and responsiveness to need. Each has a limitation: justice may ignore context and relationships, and care may struggle with large-scale justice. Both men and women can use both orientations, and most people draw on each in different situations.
What are Gilligan's three levels of the ethics of care?
Gilligan's care-based model has three levels: an initial focus on the self and survival, a transition to caring for others, often framed as goodness, and a mature, balanced care ethic that values both the self and others. Notably, the endpoint is balance rather than maximum self-sacrifice, so a care ethic that erases the self sits in the middle of the model, not at the top.
How can teachers combine justice and care when responding to bullying?
Teachers can combine them by enforcing rules and consequences while also attending to relationships and needs. A justice response to bullying addresses the rule violation, while a care response asks what needs are unmet in the student who bullied, how the relationship can be repaired, and what support the targeted student needs. Nel Noddings extended Gilligan's work into a pedagogy of care, treating attentiveness to students as a moral obligation of teaching.

About the Educational Psychology course

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Educational Psychology (Psychology 120) carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
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