Definition of Ethics (in relation to Morals)

Ethics is a field of human inquiry that examines the bases of human goals and the foundations of "right" and "wrong" human actions that further or hinder these goals.

Ethics is an examined and carefully considered structure that includes both practice and theory.

Morals usually refer to practices; ethics refers to the overarching rationale that may support such practices.

Morals refer to actions, ethics to the reasoning behind these actions.

An ethical statement would discuss benefits, harms, individuals' rights to choose, fairness, or needs of the child.

Ethical questions include (or imply) the words "ought" or "should".

Ethical questions involve deciding responsibilities for the welfare of others or for the human community; or resolving conflicts among loyalties to different persons or groups, among responsibilities associated with one's role or among principles.

Source:

• http://www.geneletter.org/0796/ethicsprimer.html

The development of the concept "ethics"

Plato suggests the good life is one of intelligence, consisting not only of the satisfaction of desire and exercising of power over others, but also the pursuit of the spiritual good. Plato concluded that most people have little capacity for moral wisdom due to ignorance (Myth of the Cave). Wrongdoers are seen as either ignorant or wicked.

Aristotle holds that the good for which all humans aspire is happiness, which is the activity of the soul. Virtues are the means by which one achieves happiness as an end. Virtues are seen in the light of Horace's Golden Mean (an idyllic balance of too much and too little). Virtue has the quality of hitting the mean that is relative to each individual.

Aquinas puts forth the notion of eternal law as the road map for ethics. Eternal law is God's device to govern the whole community of the universe towards the common good. Humans have the freedom of choice to act in or out of accordance with the eternal law; actions for which humans are held morally accountable.

Locke believed that everybody must be moved by a desire for his or her own happiness or pleasure. God has laid down some moral rules; those who follow them go to heaven, those do not risk the fires of hell. Therefore, the virtuous is a prudent pleasure seeker.

Hume maintains that moral values are relative to our natural human feelings and the urgent needs real situations. Our action should be guided by our feeling good about ourselves while promoting social well being.

Mill advocates that moral values are relative to likely social consequences; we must act in such a way as to help bring about the greatest good for the greatest number of people, contributing to social utility.

Downie and Telfer argue that morality requires that we maintain an attitude of respect for all persons and act accordingly; this basic requirement involves significant implications regarding both public and private morality.

Sources:

• Jordan, J. N. (1987). Western philosophy from antiquity to the middle ages. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.
• Russell, B. (1945). A history of western philosophy. New York: Simon & Schuster
• http://www.gonzaga.edu/doctoral/ld750u99.html

Definition of Feminism

Feminism is a social movement affecting nearly all aspects of society (i.e. politics, economics, education, history, art, philosophy, etc.) wherein gender equality is partnered with the valorization being female. Feminism struggles against the popular opinion that associates feminist with "male bashing." It is important to acknowledge that feminism assume a wide variety of forms (i.e. Marxist feminism, multi-cultural feminism, militant feminism, etc.). As a social movement, feminism is dynamic and is constantly changing and developing.

To remove feminism from its historical context is to risk a myopic perspective of the movement as a social phenomenon. The language, message and method of the feminist movement have evolved over time reflecting the continual change in contemporary thinking, values and reality. Looking at a particular stage in the evolution of feminism demands an understanding of how things where at that time. Below are listed a grossly abridged collection of epiphanies in the history of the feminism.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B Anthony, in 1840, sought women's legal rights, employment options and educational opportunities. This movement had origins in anti-slavery campaigns. Stanton presented the Declaration of Sentiments at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Stanton and Anthony formed the National Women's Suffrage Association.

Virginia Woolf, in 1929, wrote A Room of One's Own, which argues for women's financial independence. Woolf pressed for employment and domestic parity with men.

Simone de Beauvoir, in 1949, wrote the Second Sex that argues that society sets up the male as a positive and the female as the negative, or the "second sex." She shows how major schools of philosophic thought are plagued with the assumption that women do not have primary role in society; rather they have an "other" role.

Shulamith Firestone, in 1970, wrote The Dialect of Sex that helped define Second Wave Feminism. Firestone pointed feminism toward the issue of reproductive rights in her call for women's control over reproduction and her body.

Susan Brownmiller, in 1975, wrote Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. Brownmiller asserts that a) rape afflicts all women because of the threat of its occurrence; b) rape is not considered a typical crime, it is socially and legally blurred as a masculine right; and, c) rape stems not from an individual loss of control, but from a male-constructed mindset of aggression and patriarchy.

Carol Gilligan, in 1982, wrote In A Different Voice that demonstrated that Freud's idea that men have a better developed sense of morality than women was nonsense. Gilligan goes on to show that women have a different conception of morality: A morality of responsibility where men have a morality of rights. Women's morality involves emphasis (stressing the value of), consequence (calculating the effects on others), and context (assessing social circumstances).

Sources

• Humm, M (Ed). (1992). Modern Feminisms. New York: Columbia University Press.
• Schneir, M. (Ed). (1994). Feminism: The essential historical writings. New York: Vintage Books.
• http://moon.pepperdine.edu/gsep/class/ethics/gilligan/gilligan.html
• http://www.afirstlook.com/docs/Gilligan.html
• http://www-as.phy.ohiou.edu/FORUM/burnier.html

Explanation of Feminist Ethics

Turning to the work of Carol Gilligan, how can we best weave Gilligan's findings into a concept of ethics? Gilligan's study are based on two observational studies:

• Study One: 25 college students
• Study Two: 29 women considering abortion

Consider some of Gilligan's findings:

• Women use a care orientation.
• Men use a justice orientation.
• The care focus is exclusively female.
• The care focus addresses ideas of detachment and abandonment, and its ideal is attention and response to need.
• The justice focus addresses ideas of inequality and oppression, and its ideals are reciprocity and equal respect.
• Kohlberg's test was seen as problematic because of its basis on the justice orientation of moral judgment.

Alternative Stage Sequence:

• Level One: Complete concern for self.
• <Transitional Phase: From self to care and concern for others.>
• Level Two: Primary interest in the care of others (to gain their acceptance).
• <Transitional Phase: awareness of self relative to developing relationships with others: responsibility toward their care and needs.>
• Level Three: Nonviolence and universal caring
• "Articulates an ethic of responsibility that focuses on the actual consequences of choice . . . the criterion of adequacy or moral principles changes from objective truth to ‘best fit’, and can only be established within the context of the dilemma itself."

• Moral reasoning is delimited by ". . . two moral perspectives that organize thinking in different ways."
• Men: define morality in terms of justice.
• Women: less in terms of rights and more in terms of standards of responsibility and care.
• Males = typically a justice/rights orientation
• Females = care response orientation
• Orientations arise form rational experiences of inequality and attachment
• Girls attached to and identify with mothers
• Boys attached to mothers and identify with fathers
• Response orientation is of a higher order than justice rights orientation.
• Because Kohlberg’s theory is hierarchical with justice/rights the basis--women would necessarily show a less reasoned perspective on his scales.
• First studies of Kohlberg only conducted with men
• The two perspectives are not opposite ends of a continuum, "...with justice uncaring and caring unjust...", but rather, "...a different method of organizing the basic elements of moral judgment: self, others, and the relationship between them." (Gilligan, 1987, p.22)
• "One moral perspective dominates psychological thinking and is embedded in the most widely used measures for measuring maturity of moral reasoning." (Gilligan, 1987, p.22)

"Unfortunately, the only data that have been presented as yet to support this proposed stage sequence have been anecdotal...None of the usual types of evidence for a stage sequence (i.e. longitudinal, cross-sectional, or experimental) has been reported...Nor has she provided an explanation as to why makes and females may develop different orientations to moral judgment." Walker’s Response (1984, p.679)

"One has to wonder why in two decades of research by hundreds of Kohlbergians this new stage was not noticed before...One has to fear the existence of the Rosenthal effect--fear, that is, that the experimenter’s preferences may have carried the data rather than the other way around." Flanagan’s Response (1982, p. 511)

"Rather than arguing over the extent to which sex bias is inherent in Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, it might be more appropriate to ask why the myth that males are more advanced in moral reasoning than females persists in light of such little evidence." (Walker, 1984, p. 688)

Research Problems:

• Non-random sample selection
• Rosenthal Effect: Researcher's biases tend to sway the results to be what the researcher wants to find.
• Hawthorne Effect: Subjects may try harder simply because they are in the control group.
• Determination of stage theory through subjective interviewing techniques.
• Non-replication of findings
• Small sample sizes
• Generalizations from Case study, interview approach
• Only evaluated women...
• Her later writings do not support earlier work (1987 on).
• Has led to a blind following by supporters...

The Ideological basis for the moral theory.

Kohlberg - western moral philosophy/liberal social science

Gilligan - contemporary feminism

The original sample upon which the theories’ constructs were derived.

Kohlberg = male samples

Gilligan = female samples

Source: http://www.ets.uidaho.edu/center_for_ethics/gilligan/

Integrating a feminist perspective into policy

Camilla Stivers notes, "feminist theory offer(s) new theories of power, virtue, of the

nature of organization, and of leadership and professionalism. . . . Yet few if any of these ideas have made their way into conversations in public administration."

Drawing on postmodern propositions, attempts, according to Deborah Rhode, "less to deny or embrace difference than to alter the terms on which it traditionally has been conceptualized."

Postmodern feminist scholars give preference to accounts that are partial, sensitive to context, analytically diverse, and comparative rather than universal in scope.

Recognize gender as an important analytic category with the potential for enhancing and transforming our understanding of social and political reality.

The interpretive turn is useful for public administration because it enables scholars to examine systematically the actions, meanings, symbols, and language used by administrators (female and male) in the construction of administrative and organization al realities.

As Lisa Disch notes, a feminist critical theory of politics has only recently emerged, and it "shifts the study of gender from individual roles and identities to the study of the interplay between gender relations and the institutional contexts within which they take shape."

Interactive leadership: Elements of this alternative style are still emerging, but they include adopting a leadership style which encourages active participation, sharing power and information, enhancing other's self-worth, and creating genuine excitement about people's work in the organization.

Feminist theory and values have been used as a means to critique public organizations and key concepts in public administration.

Questions

• Are there no female ethicists in the history of ethical theory worth studying?
• What is the nature of the terminological relationship between "female" and "male?"
• Is the relationship antonymous, synonymous or both?
• When labeling an ethic with a gender, why not consider androgyny (the third sex)?
• Is "androgyny" (third sex, neutral sex) similar or dissimilar to "male" and "female?"
• What is missing from this annotated review of feminist ethics? (answer= A lot!)