Look at one decision through justice and through care
Take one decision you face and ask it twice: what does fairness require, and what do the people involved need from me?
Por que funciona
Gilligan argued that Kohlberg’s framework wrongly prioritizes a morality of rights over a morality of responsibility and intimate relationships with others (as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy reports, citing Gilligan 1982, p. 19). Jaffee and Hyde name the two orientations justice and care. On this page’s reading, asking one decision both ways keeps the first lens from quietly deciding what the problem is.
Como fazer
- Write the decision in one sentence.
- Under justice: what rule, right, or fair procedure applies, and who has a claim on it?
- Under care: which specific people will live with the result, and what does each of them need from you?
- Note where the two answers point in different directions, and decide with that conflict in view.
Evidência
The two orientations are Gilligan’s account (Gilligan, 1982), as reported by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and by Jaffee and Hyde (2000). This exercise applies that distinction to a decision. It has not been tested as an intervention. (mechanistic)
Jaffee and Hyde found only small sex differences in the two orientations, so, on this page’s reading, treat the lenses as ways of reasoning available to anyone, not as identities. The 1982 book body was not read for this page.
Fontes
- Gilligan, C. (1982; 1993 printing). In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Jaffee, S., & Hyde, J. S. (2000). Gender differences in moral orientation: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 126(5), 703–726.
- Norlock, K., & Pascoe, J. (2025). Feminist Ethics. In E. N. Zalta & U. Nodelman (Eds.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2025 Edition).
Erro comum
Running the care question as a check after the justice answer is already fixed. When one lens sets the problem first, the other only decorates the decision.
Pratique isso com IX Coach
Mais práticas para Carol Gilligan’s Ethics of Care, Explained
- Judge the reasons someone gave, not the sex they are
Before reading a colleague’s position as “caring” or “principled” because of who they are, check what they actually argued.
- Check who carries the caring load before calling it care
When a decision is framed as caring for others, ask who ends up doing the caring and what it costs them.
- Name the specific people a decision makes you responsible to
Before settling on a principle, list the particular people you are responsible to and what each one is counting on from you.
- Retell a hard choice as a story of relationships over time
Before stating the rule that settles a hard choice, tell it as a sequence of relationships: who depends on whom, and how that has changed.
- Trace a caring task through noticing, owning, doing and receiving
Follow one act of care through four phases: noticing the need, taking responsibility for it, doing the work, and seeing how it is received.
- Receive the person on their own terms before judging their need
Before deciding what someone needs, take up their situation as they describe it and set aside your own motives for helping.
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