Ethics Commentary Part VI: Feminism, Care, and Virtue

Chapter 11: Feminism and the Ethics of Care

This chapter starts out with talking about whether or not men and women think differently about ethics. Many people have answered this in different ways, but I think the best way to look at it is that society makes "male" and "female" constructs, such that most "male" people think one way, and "females" the other way. Individually, though, every person thinks differently from others. Gender is not a good way to make that divide, because it usually means we don't look at all of the other factors that make people believe things. That being said, I will admit that there are some trends worth discussing.

First, Rachels shows us Kohlberg's Stages of Development, and how he asked children of different ages to solve what is known as Heinz's Dilemma. Heinz's wife is fatally ill, and the only thing that can save her is a drug that is extremely expensive. Heinz cannot afford it, and the pharmacist will not accept any other arrangement. Should Heinz steal the drug, in order to save his wife? Kohlberg developed his six stages of moral development off of the answers he received. They are:

"[O]beying authority and avoiding punishment (stage 1);
satisfying one's own desires and letting others do the same, through fair exchanges (stage 2);
cultivating one's relationships and performing the duties of one's social roles (stage 3);
obeying the law and maintaining the welfare of the group (stage 4);
upholding the basic rights and values of one's society (stage 5);
abiding by abstract, universal moral principles (stage 6)."

Personally, I think this is a ridiculous way to divide things--not only because they are not mutually exclusive, but because Kohlberg presumes that any stage is better than the preceding one. For instance, an absolutist might like these stages because they lead to universal moral principles, but by Subjectivist standards, that would be a silly thing to strive for, since morals are seen as subjective. Also, "the basic rights and values of one's society" might not be good things to uphold (though Cultural Relativists might like that stage).

Rachels picks two subjects of Kohlberg's study, Jake and Amy (both 11) to illustrate something about the difference between men and women. Jake, when asked about the Heinz Dilemma, says that he should definitely steal the drug, because his wife's life is worth more than money. It is a moral injustice that he isn't able to get her the medicine she needs, so stealing it is justified. Amy, on the other hand, is hesitant, and tries to think up other ways of getting the drug. She suggests borrowing the money, getting the loan, or just talking it out, rather than stealing. After all, if Heinz does steal it, and gets caught, he will go to jail, and be unable to get the medicine if she becomes sick again.

Kohlberg sees Amy as being at a lower stage of moral development, with Jake being at a later stage, since he works from impersonal principles while Amy is more concerned with personal relationships (though I think, since the stages aren't mutually exclusive, it could be argued that Amy is in a later stage, but that the moral principles she applied just aren't ones Kohlberg acknowledges). In 1982, Carol Gilligan objected to Kohlberg in her book, In a Different Voice, saying that while they think differently, Amy's way of thinking is not inferior. Rachels summarizes that "Jake's response will be judged 'at a higher level' only if one assumes, as Kohlberg does, that an ethic of principle is superior to an ethic of intimacy and caring. But why should we assume that?" Amy takes into consideration a lot of the circumstances that could make the Dilemma problematic, such as Heinz going to jail, but Jake completely ignores that.

Then Rachels goes into whether or not men and women think differently. It is true that a male-dominated world brought about such logical fallacies as Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development, but this is more of a cultural construct than a biological difference. Rachels shows this, and I applaud him for it. The thing he overlooks, because most people don't know about it, is that men and women, biologically, are not very different. All humans start out the same, and the only thing that really changes them is testosterone. The amount of it, how their body reacts to it, etc. This is what decides whether the sexual organ develops into a penis with testes, or remains a vagina with ovaries. The X and Y chromosomes might try to control this, but it is not a done deal, and this accounts for all the variations of human sexuality we see in the world: "heterosexuals," "homosexuals," "bisexuals," and the like (as well as the more obvious biological variations). Humans, however, are basically all the same, but with different paths of biological development, based mainly on the presence of that one substance.

So I would say that, if we want to use a biological argument, we should say that, generally, more testosterone leads to more aggression, which leads to a justice-oriented predilection. Less testosterone, on the other hand, leads to less aggression, and fosters a more caring-oriented predilection. "Men/women" and "masculine/feminine" are merely social constructs to easily categorize people. The real distinction is between people with more or less testosterone. And even then, more factors can be said to intrude, such as other genetic predilections, upbringing/family background, life experiences, and social context. As such, I would say that the gender differences we perceive, which are really just testosterone differences, only serve as an indicator for what someone's ethics are likely to be. There is no inherent quality of men and women (since they are social constructs anyway) that makes them lean one way or the other, but there is one in people in general. This is hard to determine, however, and so the social constructs can be useful. But there are far too many variables to simply assign all the responsibility of moral derivation to gender alone.

(For example, I'm pretty sure I have a normal level of testosterone for a "guy," but I am also an introvert. While many guys might think in a more justice-oriented way, my reluctance to engage in confrontation makes me less aggressive, and more likely to consider other possibilities for solving conflicts. When told about a problem, I still think logically about it first, finding an immediate solution, but I also take time to reflect on consequences, and the ways these decisions will affect others--mostly because I'm already in my head a lot, thinking about the ways other people's decisions affect me. Add to that my social awkwardness and separation (peers seeing me as "smart" and not being comfortable around me), the fact that my upbringing was mostly around my mom and sister, and the fact that I want to be a writer and thus know a lot about character development and plotting out how events will affect others... Eventually, a lot of these factors bring me to the point where I have to accept that I have something of a predilection towards "feminine" moral ethics of care. That doesn't make me any less a "man," but it makes me question the idea of separating genders in that fashion. We all have bits of masculine and feminine qualities, so really it just makes me human.)

Rachels uses the rest of his chapter to talk about ethics of care, and how they might be applied. What I will say about this is that our male-dominated culture can gain a lot by deferring to so-called "female" qualities every once in a while. For instance, I think more significance needs to be placed on therapeutic practices for solving social issues. Rather than making more laws to curtail trends in criminal activity, perhaps more support for people to get psychological help would better solve the problem, and increase the quality of living. I firmly believe that everyone in the world can benefit from therapy, because everyone has problems, all the time. Instead of the cliche, male/justice/logic position that you should only fix what's broken, perhaps it would be better to sustain things before they can get broken in the first place. People should be constantly trying to get better, rather than waiting until they make a mistake.

Chapter 12: The Ethics of Virtue

Rachels starts by introducing how Aristotle and other ancient thinkers saw ethics in relation to character. The question for them was, "What traits of character make someone a good person?" These traits became known as virtues. But then Christianity came along, and said that obeying God made someone a good person. Then, as the Enlightenment came around, this was replaced by a search for morals from reason. But some people have seen this last effort as a failure, and want to return to ethics of virtue.

As Rachels says, "A theory of virtue should have several components: a statement of what a virtue is, a list of the virtues, and account of what these virtues consist in, and an explanation of why these qualities are good for a person to have." Personally, I don't think that last one can be answered without recourse to another moral theory (such as Social Contract Theory), but that gets mentioned later, so I'll wait to talk about that. Rachels goes through each component.

Virtue, according to Aristotle, is a "trait of character manifested in habitual action," and specifically a good trait--one which would make others prefer to be around a person who has it. Rachels points out that we seek out people for different things, and so, depending on what we are looking for (his examples are an auto mechanic and a teacher), we look for different qualities. But beyond that, there are qualities we judge people by as people. So Rachels's restatement of Aristotle is that a moral virtue is "a trait of character, manifested in habitual action, that it is good for anyone to have."

So what are these virtues? Rachels gives a small list of some suggestions, like benevolence, civility, courage, fairness, honesty, tolerance, etc. Then he jumps right into what these virtues consist of. He says, "According to Aristotle, virtues are midpoints between extremes." First, he talks about courage: "a mean between the extremes of cowardice and foolhardiness--it is cowardly to run away from all danger, yet it is foolhardy to risk too much." Likewise, generosity falls between being stingy and being "extravagant," giving everything. Of course Rachels brings up generosity so that he can talk about Utilitarianism again, and how it sees generosity as something to further the total happiness of humanity. And then a section on honesty, which is always a troublesome virtue for absolutists.

In the courage section, Rachels gives a controversial example to show some debate on the subject: September 11, 2001. Bill Maher implied that the hijackers were courageous, and he lost his show because of it. Peter Geach said that "Courage in an unworthy cause is no virtue; still less is courage in an evil cause." However, Rachels puts forth a middle position: they were courageous in their "steadfastness in facing danger," but at the same time they took part in vice (killing innocent people). I would argue that one could make the case that they weren't courageous, but rather went to the extreme of foolhardiness. They had nothing to gain from this act, and their motivation for doing it was based on a very faulty interpretation of the Qur'an. They weren't facing an immediate danger--they sought it out. One could argue, perhaps, that their skewed view of what their religion taught brought them to see America as an immediate danger, and I guess that really just asks the question of whether courage is still courage if the motivation behind it is based on false information. Perhaps we could say that a prerequisite to courage is knowing beforehand that there is no other option to facing a danger? Or that the action that requires courage is the best option? In this case, their act would be foolhardy, since it disregards the Qur'an's call for peaceful resolution, and chooses an option that is highly destructive and ineffective.

Next, why are virtues important? Aristotle basically said that they're important because those who have them fare better in life. Obviously I have a problem with this, since that doesn't really give a reason beyond that of Ethical Egoism or Social Contract Theory. Then Rachels goes on to talk about whether or not virtues are the same for everyone. Should all people try to be like this? He gives a Nietzsche quote, which I will put in here because I love it:

"[H]ow naive it is altogether to say: 'Man ought to be such-and-such!' Reality shows us an enchanting wealth of types, the abundance of a lavish play and change of forms--and some wretched loafer of a moralist comments: 'No! Man ought to be different.' He even knows what man should be like, this wretched bigot and prig: he paints himself on the wall and comments, 'Ecce homo!' ['Behold the man!']"

Even though Rachels says this has its merits, he turns around and says that Aristotle's view that "certain virtues will be needed by all people in all times" was probably right. While these virtues might help people, though, that doesn't change the fact that Virtue Theory tries to do exactly what Nietzsche is criticizing. Rachels even goes so far as to say that an advantage of Virtue Theory is that it is based on character and not action--thus, instead of doing things out of a feeling of action-based duty, you do it because you have the virtues that go along with that action. His example (put forth by Michael Stocker) is of a man who visits a sick friend, but eventually lets him know that he only did it because he felt obligated to do so. The gesture seems cold now, because the friend knows he didn't do it because he wanted to, but because he thought it was a necessary chore. I think, though, that Virtue Theory could lead to the same problem. How can you practice such a moral theory without assessing all of your actions for whether or not they express a certain virtue? Such as, in this example, loyalty to friends.

In the end of the chapter, Rachels deals with the problem of incompleteness: the fact that Virtue Theory isn't very good at actually being a full theory. It doesn't explain very well why virtues are good, as I've already pointed out. It also doesn't tell us how to apply certain virtues, or which ones are more important than others. Rachels gives the example of getting a haircut. If you know your friend's haircut is bad, and they ask you what you think, what should you do? Should you be honest, and hurt their feelings? Or should you be kind, and dishonest? Which one takes precedence? To use a more drastic example, what about the terrorists on 9/11 I referred to earlier? They acted courageously in the face of death, but at the same time they were killing innocent people. If we take this to be a courageous act (which I'm not convinced we should), then does the virtue outweigh the vice, or does the vice outweigh the virtue? The theory doesn't give us a reason to decide one way or the other.

Rachels simply leaves off this chapter by saying that maybe this theory should simply be a part of other theories. And I have to say...duh. It already is. If you look at the definition of virtue, it is clear that every theory that talks about doing good runs on a similar value system for actions. So this chapter feels really pointless. All I really got out of it was the debate about what makes something courageous, and that's not even a big deal. I think Nietzsche was right, and that picking out a way for all people to be is definitely arrogant, and there is no real reason to pick certain virtues as essential.