Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

ules. We are now adult in our ethical deliberations because we seek
a more general understanding of the nature of morality itself, not
individual commands.
the social structure in which they are embedded. Rules serve
a larger function of helping us create a society that is well
think about ethics at this level, we are thinking about how to
set up an entire system of rules in comparison to other systems.
The systemic viewpoint is more abstract, and this is the mark
of a more mature mind.
cultural context and assume a universal standpoint. True
human wisdom is achieved when we engage in completely
abstract reasoning about universal principles that generate the
action-level rules. The pinnacle of human moral thought is the
most theoretical.
Kohlberg contended that women tended to remain stuck at the
conventional level, not making the move to the conceptual way
of thinking, primarily because they tend to worry about nurturing
those around them.
This claim did not sit well with Kohlberg’s research assistant,
the psychologist Carol Gilligan, who had noticed a blind spot
concerning gender throughout all of psychology. In trying to
discover truths about the human mind, psychologists studied only
men and boys. Gilligan, however, argued that there might be two
quite different ways of being in the world, one that stresses the
experiences of traditionally male gender roles in Western society
and one that focuses on the experiences of traditionally female
gender roles in Western society. Both focus on a central virtue, but
these virtues are quite different.
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