GILLIGAN'S LEVELS OF WOMEN'S MORAL DEVELOPMENT

Summary of  Levels and Notes from "Concepts of the Self and of Morality," HER 47(1977): 481-517 reprinted in M. Henberg and K. Paxton George, eds. Readings in the Development of Moral Thought. 2^nd edition. (Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt. 1992) 249-68

LEVEL I. PRE-CONVENTIONAL -EGOCENTRIC:

ORIENTATION TO INDIVIDUAL SURVIVAL (Focus on Self). Concern only with self, needs and survival; morality imposed by society.

FIRST TRANSITION: FROM SELFISHNESS TO RESPONSIBILITY. To be able to care for child, balance child's needs and one’s own needs. Integration of responsibility and care;   responsibility as basis for balance between self and others.

LEVEL II. CONVENTIONAL-SOCIETAL: GOODNESS AS SELF-SACRIFICE.

Move toward social participation - shared norms and expectations - Adopt societal values. Goodness central as survival seen to depend on acceptance by others. Good = caring for others. Self-worth based on ability to care for and protect others and receive security in return. "leads the woman to consider herself responsible for the actions of others, while holding others responsible for the choices she makes " (259). Control and responsibility linked.

SECOND TRANSITION: FROM GOODNESS TO TRUTH  Is it "selfish or responsible, moral or immoral to consider her own needs within the compass of her care and concern" (260). To be responsible one must be honest about what one is doing - realities of intention and consequence. "She strives to encompass the needs of both self and others, to be responsible to others and thus to be ‘good’ but also to be responsible to herself and thus to be ‘honest’ and ‘real’." (261)

LEVEL III. POST-CONVENTIONAL-UNIVERSAL: MORALITY OF NON-VIOLENCE.

Universal principle of non-violence, condemning hurt.  Moral equality between self and others based on non-violence

"Examining the assumptions underlying the conventions of feminine self-abnegation and moral self-sacrifice, she comes to reject these conventions as immoral in their power to hurt." (262)

Self-chosen responsibility to care for self and others.

Thinking remains contextual in order to judge how best to care

"Care then becomes a universal obligation, the self-chosen ethic of a postconventional judgement that reconstructs the dilemma in a way that allows the assumption of responsibility for choice." (262)

Summary of Three Stages: "The development of women’s moral judgement appears to proceed from an initial concern with survival, to a focus on goodness, and finally to a principled understanding of nonviolence as the most adequate guide to the just resolution of moral conflicts." (268)