Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

In a contract-based relationship, you act because you think
it will lead to the best outcome for you; in a care-based
relationship, you act because you think it will lead to the best
outcome for the other person. Further, in a contract, acting
frees you from the relationship, but in a care-based relation,
acting further embeds you in the relationship.
Kohlberg was right, Gilligan contends, that women approach
ethical issues differently from men. But this is not because they are
morally retarded; it is because there is a different virtue, a different
model, guiding their development. In this way, Gilligan constructed
a Kohlberg-like series of steps for moral development in a carebased
fashion (shown below).
The pre-conventional stage is again self-centered. In this stage,
there is no sense of the self as a part of a larger whole. There
is a sense of abandonment and alienation from others. In this
stage, it is natural to act out of pure self-interest.
Unlike Kohlberg’s conventional stage, which is rule-bound,
for Gilligan, the second stage is one in which the self is no
The approach here is purely altruistic and other-oriented. The
energy is always focused on the other person, not the wellbeing
of the person acting. It is playing the martyr.
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