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Carol Gilligan, "Woman's Place in Man's Life Cycle"
Stephanie K. Dalquist
-What can be said of men who have relationships more typical for females?
How would such development occur within Kohlberg's narrow model?
-Can changes in play affect personality formation (ie tomboys)? Could
this be stimulated through more uniform activity? Should we be pushing
this to empower girls? Wouldn't it, by society's norms, push their masculinazation?
Walter Dan Stiehl
-Would Lever's study of child play conducted in 1976 still reveal a similar
style of male and female play if conducted today? Would the debate seen
in male play now enter female play more due to the fact that women are
now encouraged much more to become lawyers, doctors, and other highly
educated fields based upon debate?
David Spitz
-The value-ridden definition of "moral" is obviously crucial here, but,
to complicate matters further, it seems Psychology as a discipline uses
the term in a peculiar way. What does "moral" denote in the context of
"moral development"? Must it be a conscious choice?
Mike Ananny
-This is somewhat open-ended but, what should be the goal such a discourse
about gender relations within a moral context? If we consider Kohlberg's
4 moral orientations, it seems to me that all except the first are productive
ways of understanding gender relations within our society. I.e. we should
not be restricted to considering gender roles within the "normative" order
or rule-centred orientation. But we should consider gender roles for their
"utility" (e.g. if, according to Gilligan, men tend to excel at competitiveness
and women tend to excel at relationship-building perhaps there is utilitarian
value to this differentiation), for their "justice/fairness" (e.g. although
there may be utility associated with encouraging biases, is it fair to
the individual?) and for their creation of the "ideal-self" (e.g. if someone
has a vision of the self that includes male and female aspects, should
it be encouraged even if it is not utilitarian and not fair to the society's
goals?). It seems that gender issues are a good case study for applying
Kohlberg's framework.
Adam Smith
-The article describes single sex games but how do they compare to those
involving both sexes?
Brandy Evans
-I wonder if modern women who achieve the "male" versions of success (CEOs
of companies, etc) did so by following the masculine versions of morality
and competition, or by keeping the feminine versions but learning to use
them to their advantage in the workplace.
Max Bajracharya
- Where does the consequence of the difference in issues of dependency
and values arise? Is it something inherent to society or created? Either
way, how does it affect behavior and development of children in general?
Girim Sung
-The author asserts that Kohlberg assumes a male model in his six stages
of judgement. In today's courts, how do they reconcile both the female
and male interpretations of morality--or do they too assume the male model
to be the norm?
Jennifer Chung
-So, do girls (especially now, when "strong femail" seems to be trendy)
deal with both addressing masculinity and femininity at the same time,
or do they develop one first and the other later? How much of this is
genetics, how much of this is siblings, how much of this is upbringing,
and how much of this is circumstance/chance?
Hilarie Claire Tomaziewicz
-Speaking generally, what would be some tools we could provide young women
so that they come to really know themselves NOT as they are known through
their relationships to others, but rather as independent?
-Do you think the moral development of an individual is related to/influenced
by her gender ?
Adrienne DeWolfe
-I found her discussion of the study of children's games very interesting
as I have observed my students deal with conflict in play many times over
the years and wondered about equipping them more for dealing with conflict
(girls and boys). Janet Lever's study found that boys' games lasted longer
because when disputes arose they were able to "resolve" them more effectively
than girls and thus continue the games. While girls tended to end the
game and subordinate the continuation of the game to the continuation
of relationships, it is interesting that this is not seen as "resolving"
the conflict. Couldn't both approaches be seen as a kind of resolution,
and doesn't the girls' version have some advantages?
Daniel Huecker
-(Kohlberg and Gilligan) While gender is the theme, isn't the difference
also methodological? Kohlberg is more hierarchical, "get to the truth"
and in the process presented his material from the traditional male dominant
view point. And Gilligan's is a feminist approach of multiple perspectives
accepting a variety of approaches with less emphasis on "one way better
or more mature than others" since this negates much of the way others
think (often, females and marginalized groups).
Lawrence Kohlberg, "Moral Stages and Moralization:
The Cognitive-Developmental Approach"
Stephanie K. Dalquist
-Can Kohlberg be cross-culturally applied?
-Can it even be related to women (re Gilligan, Chodorow)
-If he noticed it's largely inapplicable to women, as Gilligan claims,
why didn't he not this or make another model or alter this one? Women
deserve *at least* a footnote!
Walter Dan Stiehl
-How does this type of subjective study work? Can someone later develop
the 8 stages of justice development by analyzing the stories or sentences
and seeing that if you look at the data in a different way you can see
2 new stages? It just seems to me, I guess from my engineering training,
that a study without quantitative data is just too open for interpretation.
David Spitz
-In Kohlberg (and in turn Gilligan) I find the project of universalizing
morality perplexing, especially when they point to the Greeks as exemplary
social agents. Given that controversies over, say, morality as a right
and morality as a responsibility can be traced throughout man's (sic)
debates over democracy and religion, to what extent are Kohlberg AND Gilligan's
discussion shaped by cultural assumptions?
Mike Ananny
-Perhaps I will only ever reach the 5th stage of morality but ... I am
somewhat concerned that Kohlberg sees the most "advanced" level of moral
judgement as the one at which universal ethical principles are recognized.
Is this not advocating moral relativism specific to one's own culture?
I.e. the person who achieves stage 6 seems to be extrapolating their own
(albeit independent and well-considered) version of their culture's morality
to be a universal morality? How does Kohlberg import culture into his
morality? Perhaps he is only defining "universality" as within a culture.
-Somewhat related to this point, Kohlberg's scenarios seem somewhat culturally
biased (e.g. stealing jeans and breaking into a drug store are Western
scenes). I'm reminded of some of Piaget's early experiments where he used
Western artefacts to assess the universality of understanding relationships
among entities and wonder whether Kohlberg is making the same kind of
methodological assumptions. In short, if the moral judgement scenarios
have culturally specific stimuli how can universality really be assessed?
Adam Smith
-How do these moral stages differ according to gender? Does the play and
or games of children affect the progression of the stages?
Brandy Evans
-When I looked at his 4 sub-stages (Normative, utilitarian, justice, and
ideal-self), of which he says the first two make up type a and the second
two type b, I thought the last one (ideal-self) seemed pretty egocentric
to be the highest substage of moral development. A person who isn't honest
isn't worth much? So in deciding whether or not to steal, it is preferable
to consider what it does to your value over how it affects the person
you're stealing from (which is what the utilitarian and justice stages
focus on)? That just seems very *im*mature to me.
Max Bajracharya
-Moral judgement in this sense seems to be driven purely by society and
logical reasoning. But how does this account for instinctual behavior
and links to other animals? Is morality only something that can exist
in a social structure? If it is, does every society have it? How does
individual instinctual behavior effect it?
Girim Sung
-Isn't grouping morality into preconventional, conventional, and post-conventional
stages eqaute morality with conformity?
Jennifer Chung
-When adolescents rebel, is it because of some misguided notion of Level
II-esque conventional thinking -- The Man is morally wrong, we have to
fight The Man -- or is it rebellion for the sake of rebellion?
Hilarie Claire Tomaziewicz
-In Kohlberg's example of Heinz and his sick wife, it would be interesting
if the roles of the husband and wife were reversed: the husband was dying
and the wife was in the position to steal or not. Would the subjects have
less concern about "right to life" and conscience if the man were dying
and the wife's morals were the ones in question? How related (do you think)
is an individual's social experience to her moral development? Is cognitive
development more or less an influence than social experience?
Adrienne DeWolfe
-I'm still astounded by Gilligan's quote of Kohlberg's study group, 84
boys over 20 years, and the fact that women and those outside of the study
are seen to rarely reach his higher stages. How could this be accepted
by the social science community? Has there been a more inclusive study
done since Kohlberg?
Char DeCroos
-Have any studies been done on an optimal environment to teach all the
6 stages of moral environment? Can a stage ever be skipped?
Kohlberg, "The Six Stages of Justice Judgement"
Stephanie K. Dalquist
-Can Kohlberg's moral and norm develoopment explain varying reactions
to television? (ie is it less scary to see a fictionalized retribution
once it's understood why it occurs)
Walter Dan Stiehl
-What is the purpose for defining these stages? Is it to make better laws?
Or is it purely for psychological or philosophical debate?
Mike Ananny
-Was Kohlberg's methodology for assessing morality different for adults
and children? Although the moral stage theory and its reliance on logical
reasoning (as described in chapter 2) is compelling, I wonder whether
children are, in fact, able to understand or express morally complex behaviour
but simply lack the ability to verbalize it in Kohlberg's scenarios. To
what extent are language expression abilities coupled to moral judgement
abilities?
Max Bajracharya
-Are the stages explained cross-cultural? Do they apply to any culture
even one which have different notions of what might be right and wrong?
Does it apply to societies which have much different means of raising
children? How do the stages differ?
Girim Sung
- How do these stages favor a male norm? He even places individualistic
morality at a lower stage than interpersonal morality.
Jennifer Chung
-Is it possible to teach stages to those who seem not to be picking it
up naturally? Does this already happen through stories/legends like Robin
Hood?
Char DeCroos
-What is meant by "girls are more differentiated than boys, and more continuous
with the external world?" Damn freudian unclarity?
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