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ARISTOTELIAN VIRTUE ETHIC S

,.

Almost all contemporary ethicists believe that h

aving excellent

psychological traits, or vir tues is important. But the

ethical theories we

have seen so far emphasize that virtues are valuable be

cause they promote

good actions. A growing nu mber of ethicists do not bel

ieve that actions are

the kind of things that bel ong at the center of ethics

. They bclieve that

what is really valuable a re actually the virtuous

character traits.

According to virtue ethici sts, assessing individual a

ctions as right or

wrong is secondary to asse ssing these character traits,

exemplifying the

good ones (virtues), and re fraining from the bad ones

(vices). Virtuous

character traits are not rigid beliefs but dispositions to ac

t in certain ways.

Perhaps the most classical ly grounded ethical theory

, virtue ethics

receives its most famous tre atment in Aristotle's Nicom

achean Ethics. In

this series of chapters, Aris totle defends the idea that v

irtuous behavior is

the path to happiness and th us the proper center of ethic

al thinking

What we mean by "happi ness" in today's world ma

y lead one to

believe that a happy life c annot possibly be all there

is to ethics. But

Aristotle does not use the i dea of happiness to refer to

the fun, carefree

life. Aristotle is saying tha t virtue is the path to wh

at Greeks called

eudaimonia or a life of h uman flourishing includin

g prosperity and

material goods. For Aristotle, a virtue condu

cive to happiness is a habit th at aims at the

mean between two extr emes: an excess and a defici

ency. The courageous

person, for instance, does no t have the habit of running r

ashly into battle,

throwing caution to the win d. But he or she does not s

hrink from battle

either. Courage is thus the mean between the extremes

of rashness and

cowardice. The same can be said for the virtue of temper

ance, which is the

mean between self-indulgen ce and self-deprivation. Th

e following chart

lays out the virtues that Arist otle mentions in the Ethics:

Feeling/Action Fear

Introduction

Doctrine of the Mean:

Vice of Deficiency Virtue Foolhardiness Conciliance Flattery Temperance Meanness Self-regard Vanity Gentleness

Vice of Excess Courage Surliness Pleasure Intemperance Liberality Poor-spiritedness Anger Irascibility

73

Cowardice Friendliness Insensitivity Spending Prodigality Proper Pride Wimpiness? Sociability Boorishness Wittiness Buffoonery

Hc is also careful to distinguish a virt thought. Intellcctual virtues b l

ue of character from a virtuc of

A .

. can e earned fro t h'

nstotle believed this is not h . m eac mg and experience

h. ow we mamly a . . .

.

W lch must be practiced if the ar . cqUlre VIrtues of character,

Furthermore, since virtues are ernbodi:d gom� to be lcarned as habits.

to the kInds of principles or rul . k psychologIcal states as opposed

'11 es InVO ed by litTt .

WI make sense to think of f II ' I I anans and Kant thcn it

h 0 owmg the ex I f '

'

rat er than simply following im artial r I . amp e o

. VIrtuous people

stIll become virtuous by prac�cin � es. If one IS �ot VIrtuous, one can

others. The more one acts virtue f Virtuous behaViOr as displayed b y

doing so, feels pleasure from d . us y, the more one falls into a habit of

. OInn so and 1m I ' h .

so In one's character (and h e

h '

. . p ants t e dIsposition to do

actions): ence, t e easier it is to perform virtuous

HABIT (VIRTUE or VICE)

ACT

PLEASURE

DISPOSITION

74 Chapter One

So a virtuous person will not observe certain rules about being virtuous. Rather the virtuous person is worth emulating in his or her own right because he or she possesses phronesis (prudence or practical wisdom).

Prudence, unlike rules, cannot always be written down. Instead, like the virtues, it must be practiced and lived to be developed. One becomes brave by doing brave actions and avoiding cowardly ones. Here, Aristotle enjoys a common-sense advantage over utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. Kant believed lying was never morally acceptable, but a person with practical wisdom might be comfortable with the idea that lying is required of a virtuous person in certain extreme circumstances, but not in ordinary life. Similarly, utilitarianism emphasizes treating all people as counting equally in difficult choices between helping family members or close friends and strangers. The prudent person might understand at a more intuitive level that there are times when friendship should trump equal treatment and other times when equal treatment should trump friendship. We may not be able to codify phronesis about when we should let friendship guide us in exact terms, but we can get better at making tough decisions by making decisions and amassing life experience.

Virtue ethics can be seen as very well integrated into typical family life, as at least one essay in this volume tries to show. Often one's first moral education comes from the example set by one's family members, not abstract moral rules. While utilitarians and Kantians seem uncomfortable with ethical views arising in some families, virtue ethics captures the idea that our moral lives are continuous with early moral education within a family.

There are, of course, important criticisms of thinking about ethics in terms of virtue as well. It is fairly easy to see how utilitarian and Kantian theories give guidance in extremely novel situations. If virtue ethicists consider phronesis central to ethical deliberation, it is not clear it will be able to give guidanee in settings with which the deliberator has very little experience. Though perhaps no ethical theory can give guidance in all possible situations.

Finally, virtue ethics seems to do a good job of explaining how ethics integrates with individual lives, but some philosophers believe a good ethical theory should give an account of what larger groups should do. Since virtues are states of particular people, it is hard to see how virtue ethics deals with the ethical evaluation of public policies for instance.

In the following excerpt from Nicornachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses how virtue is acquired, and what kinds of stales are virtuous.

FROM NICOMACHE"'AN ETHICS! BY ARISTOTLE TRANSLATED BY W. D. Ross

Book 2.

1

Virtue, then, being of two kinds, intellectual and moral, intellectual virtue in the main owes both its birth and its growth to teaching (for which reason it requires experience and time), while moral virtue comes about as a result of habit, whence also its name (ethike) is one that is formed by a slight variation from the word ethos (habit). From this it is also plain that none of the moral virtues arises in u s by nature; for nothing that exists by nature can form a habit contrary to its nature. For instance the stone which by nature moves downwards cannot be habituated to move upwards, not even if one tries to train it by throwing it up ten thousand times; nor can fire be habituated to move downwards, nor can anything else that by nature behaves in one way be trained to behave in another. Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive them, and are made perfect by hahit.

Again, of all the things that come to us by nature we first acquire the potentiality and later exhibit the activity (this is plain in the case of the senses; for it was not by often seeing or often hearing that we got these senses, but on the contrary we had them before we used them, and did not come to have them by using them); but the virtues w e get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

This is confirmed by what happens in states; for legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one.

Again, it is from the same causes and by the same means that every virtue is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it is

1 Excerpted from http://classics.miLedu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.2.ii.html (translated by W. D. Ross, 1908)

76 Chapter One

irom playing the lyre that both good and bad lyre-players are produced. And the corresponding statement is true of builders and of all the rest; men will be good or bad builders as a result of building well or badly. For If this were not so, there would have been no need of a teacher, but all men would have been born good or bad at their craft. This. then. is the case with the virtues also; by doing the acts that we do in our transactions wi�h other men we become just or unjust, and by doing the acts that we do In the presence of danger, and being habituated to feel fear or confidence, we become brave or cowardly. The same is true of appetItes and feelIngs of anger; some men become temperate and good-tempered, other� self­ indulgent and irascible, by behaving in one way or the other III the appropriate circumstances. Thus, in one word, states

. of character anse o�t

of like activities. This is why the activities we exhibit must be of a certam kind' it is because the states of character correspond to the differences bet':een these. It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference.

2

Since, then, the present inquiry does not aim at theoretical knowledge like the others (for we are inquiring not in order to know what vIrtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our inquiry would have been of no use), we must examine the nature of actions, namely how

. we ought

to do them; for these determine also the nature of the states of .character that are produced, as we have said. Now, that we must �ct �ccordl�g to the right rule is a common principle and must be assumed-it wIll be dIscussed later, i.e. both what the right rule is, and how it is related to the other virtues. But this must be agreed upon beforehand, that the whole account of matters of conduct must be given in outline and not precisely, as we said at the very beginning that the accounts we demand must be in accordance with the subject-matter; matters concerned with conduct and questions of what is good for us have no fixity, any more than matt�rs of health. The general account being of this nature, the account of partIcular cases is yet more lacking in exactness; for they do not fall un�er any art �r precept but the agents themselves must in each case c?nsld�r

. what IS

appropriate to the occasion, as happens also in the art of medICIlle or of navigation.

. But though our present account is of this nature we must gIve what help we can. First, then, let us consider this, that it is the �ature of such things to be destroyed by defect and excess, as we see In the case of

Introduction 77

strength and of health (for to gain light on things imperceptible we must use the evidence of sensible things); both excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength, and similarly drink or food which is above or below a certain amount destroys the health, while that which is proportionate both produces and increases and preserves it. So too is it, then, in the case of temperance and courage and the other virtues. For the man who flies from and fears everything and does not stand his ground against anything becomes a coward, and the man who fears nothing at aU but goes to meet every danger becomes rash; and similarly the man who indulges in every pleasure and abstains from none becomes self-indulgent, while the man who shuns every pleasure, as boors do, becomes in a way insensible; temperance and courage, then, are destroyed by excess and defect, and preserved by the mean.

But not only are the sources and causes of their origination and growth the same as those of their destruction, but also the sphere of their actualization will be the same; for this is also true of the things which are more evident to sense, e.g. of strength; it is produced by taking much food and undergoing much exertion, and it is the strong man that will be most able to do these things. So too is it with the virtues; by abstaining from pleasures we become temperate, and it is when we have become so that we are most able to abstain from them; and similarly too in the case of courage; for by being habituated to despise things that are tenible and to stand our ground against them we become brave. and it is when we have become so that we shall be most able to stand our ground against them.

3

We must take as a sign of states of character the pleasure or pain that ensues on acts; for the man who abstains from bodily pleasures and delights in this very fact is temperate, while the man who is annoyed at it is self-indulgent, and he who stands his ground against things that are terrible and delights in this or at least is not pained is brave, while the man who is pained is a coward. For moral excellence is concerned with pleasures and pains; it is on account of the pleasure that we do bad things, and on account of the pain that we abstain from noble ones. Hence we ought to have been brought up in a particular way from our very youth, as Plato says, so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought; for this is the right education.

Again. if the virtues are concerned with actions and passions. and every passion and every action is accompanied by pleasure and pain, for this reason also virtue will be concerned with pleasures and pains. This is

78 Chapter One

indicated also by the fact that punishmcnt is inflicted by these means; for it is a kind of cure, and it is the nature of cures to be effected by contraries.

Again, as we said but lately, every state of soul has a nature relative to and concerned with the kind of things by which it tends to be made worse or better; but it is by reason of pleasures and pains that men become bad, by pursuing and avoiding these- either the pleasures and pains they ought not or when they ought not or as they ought not, or by going wrong in one of the other similar ways that may be distinguished. Hence men even define the virtues as certain states of impassivity and rest; not wen, however, because they speak absolutely, and do not say 'as one ought' and 'as one ought not' and 'when one ought or ought not', and the other things that may be added. We assume, then, that this kind of excellence tcnds to do what is best with regard to pleasures and pains, and VIce does the contrary.

The following facts also may show us that virtue and vice are concerned with these same things. There being three objects of choice and three of avoidance, the noble, the advantageous, the pleasant, and their contraries, the base, the injurious, the painful, about an of these the good man tends to go right and the bad man to go wrong, and especially about pleasure; for this is common to the animals, and also it accompanies all objects of choice; for even the noble and the advantageous appear pleasant.

Again, it has grown up with us all from our infancy; this is why it is difficult to rub off this passion, engrained as it is in our life. And we measure even our actions, some of us more and others less, by the rule of pleasure and pain. For this reason, then, our whole inquiry must be about these; for to feel delight and pain rightly or wrongly has no small effect on our actions.

Again, it is harder to fight with pleasure than with anger, to use Heraclitus' phrase', but both art and virtue are always concerned with what is harder; for even the good is better when it is harder. Therefore for this reason also the whole concern both of virtue and of political science is with pleasures and pains; for the man who uses these well will be good, he who uses them badly bad.

That virtue, then, is concerned with pleasures and pains, and that by the acts trom which it arises it is both increased and, if they are done differently, destroyed, and that the acts from which it arose are those in which it actualizes itself- let this be taken as said.

Introduction 79

4

The question might be asked,; what we mean by saying that we must become just by doing just acts, and temperate by doing temperate acts; for rf men do Just and temperate acts, they are already just and temperate, exactly as, If they do what is in accordance with the laws of grammar and of mUSIC, they are grammarians and musicians.

. Or is this not true even of the arts? It is possible to do something that is

III accordance WIth the laws of grammar, either by chance or at the suggestion of another. A man will be a grammarian, then, only when he has both done something grammatical and done it grammatically; and this means domg It m accordance with the grammatical knowledge in himself.

Again, the case of the arts and that of the virtues are not similar; for the products of the arts have their goodness in themselves, so that it is enough that they should have a certain character, but if the acts that are in accordance with the virtues have themselves a certain character it does not follow that they are done justly or temperately. The agent also must be in a certain condition when he does them; in the first place he must have knowledge, secondly he must choose the acts, and choose them for their own sakes, and thirdly his action Iflust proceed from a firm and unchangeable character. These are not reckoned in as conditions of the possession of the arts, except the bare knowledge; but as a condition of the poss�s,

sion of the virtues know1edge has little or no weight, while the other condItIOns count not for a little but for everything, i.e. the very conditions whIch result from often doing just and temperate acts.

. Actions, then, are called just and temperate when they are such as the

Just or the temperate man would do; but it is not the man who does these that is just and temperate, but the man who also does them as just and temperate men do them. It is well said, then, that it is by doing just acts that the

, Just ma� IS produced, and by doing temperate acts the temperate

man; WIthout domg these no one would have even a prospect of becoming good.

But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will be�ome good in this way, behaving somewhat lIke patIents who lIsten attentIvely to their doctors but do none of the things they are ordered to do. As the latter will not be

' made well in

body by such a course of treatment, the former will not be made well in soul by such a course of philosophy.

80 Chapter One

5

Next we must consider what virtue is. Since things that are found in the soul are of three kinds- passions, faculties, states of character, virtue must be one of these. By passions I mean appetite, anger, fear, confIdence envy, joy, friendly feeling, hatred, longing, emulation, pity, and in general the feelings that are accompanied by pleasure or pain; by faculties the things in virtue of which we are said to be capable of feeling these, e.g. of becommg angry or being pained or feeling pity; by states of character the things in virtue of which we stand well or badly with reference to the passions, e.g. with reference to anger we stand badly if we feel it violently or too weakly, and well if we feel it moderately; and similarly with reference to the other passions.

Now neither the virtues nor the vices are passions, because we arc not called good or bad on the ground of our passions, but are so called on the ground of our virtues and OUf vices, and because we are neither praised nor blamed for our passions (for the man who feels fcar or anger is not praised, nor is the man who simply feels anger blamed, but the man who feels it in a certain way), but for our virtues and OUf vices we are praised or blamed.

Again, we feel anger and fcar without choice, but the virtues are modes of choice or involve choice. Further, in respect of the passions we are said to be moved, but in respect of the virtues and the vices we are said not to be moved but to be disposed in a particular way.

For these reasons also they are not faculties; for we are neither called good nor bad, nor praised nor blamed, for the simple capacity of feeling the paSSIOns; agam, we have the faculties by nature, but we are not made good or bad by nature; we have spoken of this before. If, then, the virtues are neither passions nor faculties, all that remains is that they should be states of character.

Thus we have stated what virtue is in respect of its genus.

6

We must, however, not only describe virtue as a state of character, but also say what sort of state i� is. We may remark, then, that every virtue or excellence both brings into good condition the thing of which it is the excellence and makes the work of that thing be done well; e.g. the excellence of the eye makes both the eye and its work good; for it is by the excellence of the eye that we see well. Similarly the excellence of the horse makes a horse both good in itself and good at running and at

Introduction 81

carrying its rider and at awaiting the attack of the enemy. Therefore, if this is true in every case, the virtue of man also will be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well.

How this is to happen we have stated already, but it will be made plain also by the following consideration of the specific nature of virtue. In everything that is continuous and divisible it is possible to take more, less, or an equal amount, and that either in terms of the thing itself or relatively to us; and the equal is a n intermediate between excess and defect. By the intermediate in the object I mean that which is equidistant from each of the extremes, which is one and the same for all men; by the intermediate relatively to us that which is neither too much nor too little- and this is not one, nor the same for all. For instance, if ten is many and two is few, six is the intermediate, taken in terms of the object; for it exceeds and is exceeded by an equal amount; this i s intermediate according to arithmetical proportion. But the intermediate relatively to us is not to be taken so; if ten pounds are too much for a particular person to eat and two too little, it does not follow that the trainer will order six pounds; for this also is perhaps too much for the person who is to take it, or too little- too little for Milo, too much for the beginner in athletic exercises. The same is true of running and wrestling. Thus a master of any art avoids excess and defect, but seeks the intermediate and chooses this- the intermediate not in the object but relatively to us.

If it is thus, then, that every art does its work well- by looking to the intermediate and judging its works by this standard (so that we often say of good works of art that it is not possible either to take away or to add anything, implying that excess and defect destroy the goodness of works of art, while the mean preserves it; and good artists, as we say, look to this in their work), a?d if, furt�er, virtue is more exact and better than any art, as nature also IS, then VIrtue must have the quality of aiming at the intermediate. I mean moral virtue; for it is this that is concerned with passions and actions, and in these there i s excess, defect, and the intermediate. For instance, both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and pity and in general pleasure and pain may be felt both too much and too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel them at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of virtue. Similarly with regard to actions also there is excess, defect, and the intermediate. Now virtue is concerned with passions and actions, in which excess is a form of failure, and so is defect, wh�le the inte�mediate is praised and is a form of success; and being praIsed and bemg successful are both characteristics of virtue. Therefore

82 Chapter One

virtue is a kind of mean, since, as we have seen, it aims at what is intermediate.

Again, it is possible to fail in many ways (for evil belongs to the class of the unlimited, as the Pythagoreans conjectured, and good to that of the limited), while to succeed is possible only in one way (for which reason also one is easy and the ofher difficult- to miss the mark easy, to hit it difficult); for these reasons also, then, excess and defect are characteristic of vice, and the mean of virtue;

For men are good in but one way, but bad in many. Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a

mean, Le. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by fhat principle by which fhe man of practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect; and again it is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue bofh tinds and chooses that which is intermediate. Hence in respect of its substance and the definition which states its essence virtue is a mean, with regard to what is best and right an extreme.

But not every action nor every passion admits of a mean; for some have names that already imply badness, e.g. spite, shamelessness, envy, and in the case of actions adultery, theft, murder; for all of these and suchlike things imply by their names that they are themselves bad, and not the excesses or deficiencies of them. It is not possible, then, ever to be right wifh regard to them; one must always be wrong. Nor does goodness or badness with regard to such things depend on committing adultery with fhe right woman, at the right time, and in the right way, but simply to do any of them is to go wrong. It would be equally absurd, then, to expect that in unjust, cowardly, and voluptuous action there should be a mean, an excess, and a deficiency; for at that rate there would be a mean of excess and of deficiency, an excess of excess, and a deficiency of deficiency. But as there is no excess and deficiency of temperance and courage because what is intermediate is in a sense an extreme, so too of the actions we have mentioned there is no mean nor any excess and deficiency, but however they are done they are wrong; for in general there is neither a mean of excess and deficiency, nor excess and deficiency of a mean.

7

We must, however, not only make this general statement, but also apply it to the individual facts. For among statements about conduct those

Introduction 83

which are general apply more widely, but those which are particular are more genuine, since conduct has to do with individual cases, and our statements must harmonize with the facts in these cases. We may take these cases from our table. With regard to feclings of fear and confidence courage is the mean; of the people who exceed, he who exceeds in fearlessness has no name (many of the states have no name), while the man who exceeds in confidence is rash, and he who exceeds in fear and falls short in confidcnce is a coward. With regard to pleasures and pains­ not all of them, and not so much with regard to the pains- the mean is temperance, the excess self-indulgence. Persons deficient with regard to the pleasures are not often found; hence such persons also have received no name. But let us call them 'insensible'.

With regard to giving and taking of money the mean is liberality, the cxcess and the defect

. prodigality and meanness. In these actions people

exceed and faU short III contrary ways; the prodigal exceeds in spending and falls short III takmg, whIle the mean man exceeds in taking and falls short III spe�d�?g. (A.t present we are giving a mere outline o r summary, and ar� sat1sft�d With this; later these states will be more exactly determmed.) WIth regard to money there are also other dispositions- a mean, magniticence (for fhe magnificent man differs from the liberal man' the former deals with large sums, the latter with small ones), an excess: tastelessness and vulgarity, and a deficiency, niggardliness; these differ from fhe states opposed t o liberality, and the mode of their difference will be stated later. With regard to honour and dishonour the mean is proper pnde, the excess IS known as a sort of 'empty vanity', and fhe deficiency is undue hur,mlIty; and as

. we said liberality was related to magnificence,

dIffenng from It by dealIng WIth small sums, so there is a state similarly related to proper pnde, bemg concerned with small honours while fhat is concerned with great. For it is possible to desire honour as one ought, and more than one ought, and less, and the man who exceeds in his desires is called ambitious, the man who falls short unambitious while the intermediate person has no name. The dispositions also a;e nameless, except that that of the ambitious man is called ambition. Hence the people who are at the extremes lay claim to the middle place; and we ourselves sometimes call the intermediate person ambitious and sometimes unambitious, and sometimes praise the ambitious man and sometimes the unambitious. The reason of our doing this will be stated in what follows' but now let us speak of the remaining states according to the method which has been indicated.

With regard to anger also there is an excess, a deficiency, and a mean. Although they can scarcely be said to have names, yet since we call the

84 Chapter One

intermediate person good-tempered let us eall the mean good temper; of the persons at the extremes let the one who exceeds be called irascible, and his vice irascibi1ity, and the man who falls short an inirascible sort of person, and the deficiency inirascibility.

There are also three other means, which have a certain likeness to one another, but differ from one another: for they are all concerned with intercourse in words and actions, but differ in that onc is concerned with truth in this sphere, the other two with pleasantness; and of this one kind is exhibited in giving amusement, the other in all the circumstances of life. We must therefore speak of these too, that we may the better see that in all things the mean is praise-worthy, and the extremes neither praiseworthy nor right, but worthy of blame. Now most of these states also have no names, but we must try, as in the other cases, to invent names ourselves so that we may be clear and easy to follow. With regard to truth, then, the intermediate is a truthful sort of person and the mean may be called truthfulness, while the pretence which exaggerates is boastfulness and the person characterized by it a boaster, and that which understates is mock modesty and the person characterized by it mock-modest. With regard to pleasantness in the giving of amusement the intermediate person is ready­ witted and the disposition ready wit, the excess is buffoonery and the person characterized by it a buffoon, while the man who falls short is a sort of boor and his state is boorishness. With regard to the remaining kind of pleasantness, that which is exhibited in life in general, the man who is pleasant in the right way is friendly and the mean is friendliness, while the man who exceeds is an obsequious person if he has no end in view, a flatterer if he is aiming at his own advantage, and the man who falls short and is unpleasant in all circumstances is a quarrelsome and surly sort of person.

There are also means in the passions and concerned with the passions; since shame is not a virtue, and yet praise is extended to the modest man. For even in these matters one man is said to be intermediate, and another to exceed, as for instance the bashful man who is ashamed of everything; while he who falls short or is not ashamed of anything at all is shameless, and the intermediate person is modest. Righteous indignation is a mean between envy and spite, and these states are concerned with the pain and pleasure that are felt at the fortunes of our neighbours; the man who is characterized by righteous' indignation is pained at undeserved good fortune, the envious man, going beyond him, is pained at all good fortune, and the spiteful man falls so far short of being pained that he even rejoices. But these states there will be an opportunity of describing elsewhere; with regard to justice, since it has not one simple meaning, we shall, after

Introduction 85

describing the other states, distinguish its two kinds and say bow each of them is a mean; and similarly we shall treat also of the rational virtues.

8

There are three kinds of disposition, then, two of them vices, involving excess and deficiency respectively, and one a virtue, viz. the mean, and all are in a sense opposed to all; for the extreme states are contrary both to the intermediate state and to each other, and the intermediate to the extremes; as the equal is greater relati vely to the less, less relatively to the greater, so the middle states are excessive relatively to the deficiencies, deficient relatively to the excesses, both in passions and in actions. For the brave man appears rash relatively to the coward, and cowardly relatively to the rash man; and similarly the temperate man appears self-indulgent relatively to the insensible man, insensible relatively to the self-indulgent, and the liberal man prodigal relatively to the mean man, mean relatively to the prodigal. Hence also the people at the extremes push the intermediate man each over to the other, and the brave man is called rash by the coward, cowardly by the rash man, and correspondingly in the other cases.

These states being thus opposed to one another, the greatest contrariety is that of the extremes to each other, rather than to the intermediate; for these are further from each other than from the intermediate, as the great is further from the small and the small from the great than both are from the equal. Again, to the intermediate some extremes show a certain Hkeness, as that of rashness to courage and that of prodigality to liberality; but the extremes show the greatest unlikeness to each other; now contraries are defined as the things that are furthest from each other, so that things that are further apart are more contrary.

To the mean in some cases the deficiency, in some the excess is more opposed; e.g. it is not rashness, which is an excess, but cowardice, which is a deficiency, that is more opposed to courage, and not insensibility, which is a deficiency, but self-indulgence, which is an excess, that is more opposed to temperance. This happens from two reasons, one being drawn from the thing itself; for because one extreme is nearer and liker to the intermediate, we oppose not this but rather its contrary to the intermediate. E.g. since rashness is thought liker and nearer to courage, and cowardice more unlike, we oppose rather the latter to courage; for things that are further from the intermediate are thought more contrary to it. This, then, is one cause, drawn from the thing itself; another is drawn from ourselves; for the things to which we ourselves more naturally tend seem more cpntrary to the intermediate. For instance, we ourselves tend morc

86 Chapter One

naturally to pleasures, and hence arc more easily carried away towards self-indulgence than towards propriety. We describe as contrary to the mean, then, rather the directions in which we more often go to great lengths; and therefore self-indulgence, which is an excess, is the more contrary to temperance.

9

That moral virtue is a mean, then, and in what sense it is so, and that it is a mean between two vices, the one involving excess, the other deficiency, and that it is such because its character is to aim at what is intermediate in passions and in actions, has been sufficiently stated. Hence also it is no easy task to be good. For in everything it is no easy task to find the middle, e.g. to find the middle of a circle is not for every one but for him who knows; so, too, any one can get angry- that is easy- or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble.

Hence he who aims at the intermediate must tlrst depart from what is the more contrary to it, as Calypso advises- Hold the ship out beyond that surf and spray.

For of the extremes one is more erroneous, one less so; therefore, since to hit the mean is hard in the extreme, we must as a second best, as people say, take the least of the evils; and this will be done best in the way we describe, But we musl consider the things towards which we ourselves also are easily carried away; for some of us tend to one thing, some to another; and this will be recognizable from the pleasure and the pain we feel. We must drag ourselves away to the eontrary extreme; for we shall get into the intermediate state by drawing well away from error, as people do in straightening sticks that are bent.

Now in everything the pleasant or pleasure is most to be guarded against; for we do not judge it impartially. We ought, then, to feel towards pleasure as the elders of the people felt towards Helen, and in all circumstances repeat their saying; for if we dismiss pleasure thus we are less likely to go astray. It is l]y doing this, then, (to sum the matter up) that we shall best be able to hit the mean.

But this is no doubt diflicult, and espeeially in individual cases; for or is not easy to determine both how and with whom and on what provocation and how long one should be angry; for we too sometimes praise those who fall short and call them good-tempered, but sometimes

Introduction 87

we praise those who get angry and call them manly. The man, however, who deviates little from goodness is not blamed, whether he do so in the direction of the more o r of the less, but only the man who deviates more widely; for he does not fail to be noticed. But up to what point and to what extent a man must deviate before he becomes blameworthy it is not easy to determine by reasoning, any more than anything else that is perceived by the senses; such things depend on particular facts, and the decision rests with perception. So much, then, is plain, that the intermediate state is in all things to be praised, but that we must incline sometimes towards the excess, sometimes towards the deficiency; for so shall we most easily hit the mean and what is right.

THE ETHICS OF CARE

In the 1970's, a psychologist named Lawrence Kohlberg was working at Harvard University, trying to develop a theory regarding the moral development of children. Kohlberg and his staff would ask children of various ages about moral dilemmas and problems, and categorize their answers in order to try to find similar stages of moral thinking that each child was exhibiting at a certain age. After an extensive longitudinal study of many children, Kohlberg developed the following scale of moral maturity:

Level I: Preconventional Morality (age 1-10) Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment Orientation (age 1-5): The right thing to do is to obey those with superior power and thus avoid punishment. Moral judgment is motivated by a need to avoid punishment. Stage 2: Instrumental Relativist Orientation (age 5-10): The right thing to do is whatever would get me what I want. Moral judgment is motivated by a need to satisfy my own desires.

Level II: Conventional Morality (age 10-13) Stage 3: "Good Boy/Nice Girl" Orientation (age 8-16): The right thing to do is whatever will gain the approval of others: Conform to the expectations of others. Moral judgment is motivated by a need to avoid rejection or disapproval from others. Stage 4: Law and Order Orientation (age 16-�): The right thing to do is to obey the rules of society. Anyone breaking the (positive) law deserves to be punished. Moral Judgment is motivated by a need not to be criticized by a true

authority figure (e.g., the sheriff).

Level III: Postconventional Morality (adolescence-adulthood) Stage 5: Contractarian Orientation (only about 20-25% of adults reach this stage, and then usually only after their mid-twenties):

The right thing to do is to obey the laws, but only if they were

established in a fair manner and fuUlll an ethical purpose. Moral judgment is motivated by respect for all, respecting democratic social order, and living under fairly determined laws,

Introduction 8 9

Stage 6: Universal, Ethical Orientation: The right thing to do is to act on principles which are autonomously chosen by me and for which I can stand up as a responsible and reasonable individual. Moral judgment is motivated by one's own conscience,

Hence, Kohl berg presented moral development as a process of growing abstraction and impartiality in moral thinking, leading ultimately to an entirely impartial universalist viewpoint in stage six. One of Kohlberg's Graduate Assistants named Carol Gilligan noticed something strange about the way children fit into this scale. The girls in the study scored consistently lower (in every age group) than the boys. And many of the girls seemed to get "stuck" at stage three. Since, according to Piaget, a theory of development does not stand on its base, but hangs from its apex (i.e., hinges upon what we take the top of the scale to be), Gilligan decided to use mature women as the standard of complete moral maturity. This led her to an amazing discovery. According to Gilligan, in general, men and women think morally differently. They see moral problems from radically different perspectives

According to Gilligan, women (typically) have a different conception of moral problems. They tend to see conflicting responsibilities rather than competing rights. They focus on helping other members of a community Uoined by bonds of relationship) who are in need rather than respecting other autonomous and separate individuals. Gilligan gave a name to these two ways of seeing moral problems: The Ethics of Justice, and the Ethics of Care.

Ethics of Justice vs. Focus on Rights

Adhering to rules

Separation/Individuation /Autonomy

Abstract/Formal

Black/White Principled Thinking

Ethics of Care Focus on responsibilities (responding to the needs o f those with whom I a m i n relationship).

Nurturing caring relationships

Connection/Bonds of Care Ideal of Impartiality (Fairness) Ideal of the Nurturing and Partial Caregiver (e.g., A Caring Mother).

Concrete/Contextual/Narrative

Creative and Contextual Thinking

90 Chapter One

There is a great deal of debate about where the differences that Gilligan describes might originate. Some claim that they are biologically based; others see them as the result of cultural conditioning (perhaps, particularly the systematic oppression of women by men for millennia). And, regardless of where these differences originate, what we should do about them has also generated controversy. Should men and women try to become more like each other in their moral thinking? But thc least that we can say about these differences is that women's moral voices deserve to be heard in the discipline of ethics. Hence, many of the papers that follow make use of the perspective of the Ethics of Care in order to try to understand our obligations with respect to family life.

The following excerpt from Gilligan's work describes some of her findings regarding the different ways that men and women typically think morally (especially as these differences actually occurred in some of the children Gilligan studied).

EXCERPT FROM IN A DIFFERENT VOICEl BY CAROL GILLIGAN

Over the past ten years, I have bcen listening to people talking about morality and about themselves. Halfway through that time, I began to hear a distinction in these voices, two ways of speaking about moral problems, two modes of describing the relationship between other and self. Differences represented in the psychological literature as steps in a developmental progression suddenly appeared instead as a contrapuntal theme, woven into the cycle of life and recurring in varying forms in people's judgments, fantasies, and thoughts. The occasion for this observation was the selection of a sample of women for a study of the relation between judgment and action in a situation of moral conflict and choice. Against the background of the psychological descriptions of identity and moral development which I had read and taught for a number of years, the women!s voices sounded distinct. It was then that I began to notice the recurrent problems in interpreting women's development and to connect these problems to the repeated exclusion of women from the critical theory-building studies of psychology research . ...

The different voice I describe is characterized not by gender but theme. Its association with woman is an empirical observation, and it is primarily through women's voices that I trace its development. But this association is not absolute, and contrasts between male and female voices are presented here to highlight a distinction between two modes of thought and to focus a problem of interpretation rather than to represent a generalization about either sex, '"

The penchant of developmental theorists to project a masculine image, and one that appears frightening to women, goes back at least to Freud ( l 905), who built his theory of psychosexual development around the experiences of the male child that culminate in the Oedipus complex. In the J 920s, Freud struggled to resolve the contradictions poscd for his theory by the differences in female anatomy and the ditIerent configuration of the young girl's early family relationships. After trying to

1 Reprinted by permission of the publisher from IN A DIFFERENT VOICE: PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY AND WOMEN'S DEVELOPMENT by Carol Gilligan, pp. 1-2, 6-7, 9-12, 14, 25-29, Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1982, 1993 by Carol Gilligan

92 Chapter One

fit women into his masculine conception. seeing them as envying that which they missed, he came instead to acknowledge, in the strength and persistence of women's pre-Oedipal attachments to their mothers, a developmental difference. He considered this difference in women's development to be responsible for what he saw as women's developmental failure.

Having tied the formation of the superego or conscience to castration anxiety, Freud considered women to be deprived by nature of the impetus for a clear-cut Oedipal resolution. Consequently, women's superego - the heir to the Oedipus complex - was compromised: it was never "so inexorable, so impersonal, so independent of its emotional origins as we require it to be in men." From this observation of difference, that "for women the level of what is ethically normal is different from what it is in men," Freud concluded that women "show less sense of justice than men, that they an less ready to submit to the great exigencies of life, that they are more often influenced in their judgments by feelings of affection or hostility" (1925, pp. 257-258).

Thus a problem in theory became cast as a problem in women's development, and the problem in women's development was located in their experience of relationships . ...

Janct Lever (1976), considering the peer group to be the agent of socialization during the elementary school years and play to be a major activity of socialization at that time, set out to discover whether there are sex differences in the games that children play. Studying 181 tifth-grade, white, middle-class children, ages ten and eleven, she observed the organization and structure of their playtime activities. She watched the ehildren as they played at school during recess and in physieal education class, and in addition kept diaries of their accounts as to how they spent their out-of-school time. From this study, Lever reports sex differences: boys play out of doors more often than girls do; boys play more often in large and age-heterogeneous groups; they play competitive games more often, and their games last longer than girls' games. The last is in some ways the most interesting finding. Boys' games appeared to last longer not only because they required a higher level of skill and were thus less likely to become boring, but also because, when disputes arose in the course of a game, boys were able to resolve the disputes more effectively than girls: "During the course of this study, boys were seen qualTelling all the time, ?ut not once was a game terminated because of a quarrel and no game was Interrupted for more than seven minutes. In the gravest debates, the final word was always, to 'repeat the play,' generally followed by a chorus of 'cheaters proof" (p. 482). In fact, it seemed that the boys enjoyed the legal

Introduction 93

debates as much as they did the game itself, and even marginal players of lesser skIll particIpated equally in these recurrent squabbles. In contrast, the eruption of disputes among girls tended to end the game.

Thus Lever extends and corroborates the observations of Piaget in his study of the rules of the game, where he finds boys becoming through chIldhood mcreasmgly fascmated with the legal elaboration of rules and the development of fair procedures for adjudicating conflicts, a fascination that, he notes, does not hold for girls. Girls, Piaget observes, have a more "pragmatic" attitude toward rules, "regarding a rule as good as long as the game repaid it" (p. 83). Girls are more tolerant in their attitudes toward rules, more willing to make exceptions, and more easHy reconciled to innovations. As a result, the legal sense which Piaget considers essential to moral development, "is far less developed in little girls than in boys" (p.77).

The bias that leads Fiaget to equate male development with child development also colors Lever's work. The assumption that shapes her dlSCUSSlOll of results IS that the male model is the better one since it fits the requirement., for

. modern corporate success. In contrast, the sensitivity and

care for the feelmgs of others that girls develop through their play have lIttle market value and can even impede professional success. Lever implies that, given the realities of adult life, if a girl does not want to be left dependent on men, she will have to learn to play like a boy.

To Piaget's argument that children learn the respect for rules necessary for moral development by playing rule-bound games, Lawrence Kohlberg (1969) adds that these lessons are most effectively learned through the opportunities for role-taking that arise in the course of resolving disputes. Consequently, the moral lessons inherent in girls' play appear to be fewer than in boys'. Traditional girls' games like jump rope and hopscotch are turn-takmg games, where competition is indirect since one person's s�ccess does . .

not n�c�ss�ily signify another's failure. Consequently, dIsputes reqUlrmg adjudIcatIOn are less likely to occur. In fact, most of the girls whom Lever interviewed claimed that when a quarrel broke out, they ended the game. Rather than elaborating a system of rules for resolving dIsputes, gIrls subordmated the continuation of the game to the continuation of relationships.

. Lever concludes that from the games they play, boys learn both the

md . e��ndence and the organizational skills necessary for coordinating the

actlvmes of large and diverse groups of people. By participating in controlled and SOCIally approved competitive situations, they learn to deal WIth competition in a relatively forthright manner - to play with their enemIeS and to compete with their friends - all in accordance with the

94 Chapter One

rules of the game. In contrast, girls' play tends to occur in smaller, more mamate groups, often the best-friend dyad, and in private places. This play repheates the soclal pattern of pnmary human relationships in that its organization

. is more cooperative. Thus, it points less, in Mead's terms,

toward learnmg to lake the role of "the generalized other," less toward the abstraction of human relationships. But it fosters the development of the empathy and sensitivity necessary for taking the role of "the particular other" and points more toward knowing the other as different from the self . . ..

The problem that female adolescence presents for theorists of human development is apparent in Erikson's scheme. Erikson ( 1 950) charts eight stages of psychosocial development, of which adolescence is the fifth. The task at this stage is to forge a coherent sense of self, to verify an identity that can span the discontinuity of puberty and make possible the adult capacity to love and work. The preparation for the successful resolution of th� adolescent identity crisis is delineated in Erikson's description of the CflSes that characterize the preceding four stages. Although the initial crisis in infancy of "trust versus mistrust" anchors development in the experience of relationship, the task then clearly becomes one of individuation. Erikson's second stage centers on the crisis of "autonomy versus shame and doubt," which marks the walking child's emerging sense of separateness and agency. From there, development goes on through the cr�sis of !!initiative versus guilt,!! successful resolution of which represents a further move in the direction of autonomy. Next, following the inevitable disappointment of the magical wishes of the Oedipal period, children realize that to compete with their parents, they must first join them and learn to do what they do so well. Thus in the middle childhood years, development turns on the crisis of "industry versus inferiority," as the demonstration of competence becomes critical to the child's developing self-esteem. This is the time when children strive to learn and master the technology of their culture, in order to recognize themselves and to be recognized by others as capable of becoming adults. Next comes adolescence, the celebration of the autonomous, initiating, industrious self through the forging of an identity based on an ideology that can support and Justify adult commitments. But about whom is Erikson talking?

Once again it turns out to be the male child. For the female, Erikson ( 1 968) says, the sequence is a bit different. She holds her identity in abeyance as she prepares to attract the man by whose name she will be known, by whose status she will be defined, the man who will rescue her from emptiness and loneliness by filling Hthe inner space." While for men, identity precedes intimacy and generativcly in the optimal cycle of human

Introduction 9S

separation and attachment, for women these tasks seem instead to be fused. Intimacy goes along with identity, as the female comes to know herself as she is known, through her relationships with others.

Yet despite Erikson's observation of sex differences, his chart of life­ cycle stages remains unchanged: identity continues to precede intimacy as male experience continues to define his life-cycle conception. But in this male life cycle there is little preparation for the intimacy of the first adult stage. Only the initial stage of trust versus mistrust suggests the type of mutuality that Erikson means by intimacy and generatively and Freud means by genitality. The rest is separateness, with the result that development itself comes to be identified with separation, and attachments appear to be developmental impediments, as is repeatedly the case in the assessment of women . . . .

These observations about s e x differences support the conclusion reached by David McClelland ( 1 975) that "sex role turns out to be one of the most important determinants of human behavior; psychologist') have found sex differences in their studies from the moment they started doing empirical research." But since it is difficult to say "different" without saying "better" or "worse," since there is a tendency to construct a single scale of measurement, and since that scale has generally been derived from and standardized on the basis of men's interpretations of research data drawn predominantly or exclusively from studies of males, psychologists "have tended to regard male behavior as the 'norm' and female behavior as some kind of deviation from that norm" (p. 8 1 ). Thus, when women do not conform to the standards of psychological expectation, the conclusion has generally been that something is wrong with the women.

What Matina Horner ( 1 972) found to be wrong with women was the anxiety they showed about competitive achievement. From the beginning, research on human motivation using the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) was plagued by evidence of sex differences which appeared to confuse and complicate data analysis. The TAT presents for interpretation an ambiguous cue - a picture about which a story is to be written or a segment of a story that is to be completed, Such stories, in reflecting projective imagination, are considered by psychologists to reveal the ways in which people construe what they perceive, that is, the concepts and interpretations they bring to their experience and thus presumably the kind of sense that they make of their lives. Prior to Horner's work it was clear that women made a different kind of sense than men of situations of compet.itive achievement, that in some way they saw the situations differently or the sit.uations aroused in them some different response ...

96 Chapter One

The shill in imagery that creates the problem in interpreting women's development is elucidated by the moral judgments of two eleven-year-old children, a boy and a girl, who see, in the same dilemma, two very different moral problems. While current theory brightly illuminates the line and the logic of the boy's thought, it casts scant light on that of the girl. The choice of a girl whose moral judgments elude existing categories of developmental assessment is meant to highlight the issue of interpretation rather than to exemplify sex differences per 5e. Adding a new line of interpretation, based on the imagery of the girl's thought, makes it possible not only to see development where previously development was not discerned but also to consider differences in the understanding of relationships without scaling these differences from better to worse.

The two children were in the same sixth-grade class at school and were participants in the rights and responsibilities study, designed to explore different conceptions of morality and self. The sample selected for this study was chosen to focus the variables of gender and age while maximizing developmental potential by holding constant, at a high level, the factors of intelligence, education, and social class that have been associated with moral development, at least as measured by existing scales. The two children in question, Amy and Jake, were both bright articulate and, at least in their eleven-year-old aspirations, resisted easy categories of sex-role stereotyping, since Amy aspired to become a scientist while Jake preferred English to math. Yet their moral judgments seem initially to confirm familiar notions about differences between the sexes, suggesting that the edge girls have on moral development during the eady school years gives way at puberty with the ascendance of formal logical thought in boys.

The dilemma that these eleven-year-olds were asked to resolve was one in the series devised by Kohlberg to measure moral development in adolescence by presenting a conflict between moral norms and exploring the logic of its resolution. In this particular dilemma, a mall named Heinz considers whether or not to steal a drug which he cannot afford to buy in order to save the life of his wife. In the standard format of Kohlberg's interviewing procedure, the description of the dilemma itself - Heinz's predicament, the wife's disease, the druggist's refusal to lower his price _ is followed by the question, "Should Heinz steal the drug?" The reasons for and against stealing are then explored through a series of questions that vary and extend the parameters of the dilemma in a way designed to reveal the underlying structure of moral thought.

Introduction 97

Jake, at eleven, is clear from the outset that Heinz should steal the drug. Constructing the dilemma, as Kohlberg did, as a conflict between the values of property and life, he discerns the logical priority of life and uses, that logic to justify his ehoice:

For one thing, a human life is worth more than money, and if the druggist only makes $ 1000, he is still going to live, but if Heinz doesn't steal the drug, his wife is going to die. (Why is life worth more than money?) Because the druggist can get a thousand dollars later from rich people with cancer, but Heinz can't get his wife again. (Why not?) Because people are all different and so you couldn't get Heinz's wife again,

Asked whether Heinz should steal the drug if he does not love his wife, Jake replies that he should, saying that not only is there "a difference between hating and killing," but also, if Heinz were caught, "the judge would probably think it was the right thing to do." Asked about the fact that, in stealing, Heinz would be breaking the law, he says that "the laws have mistakes, and you canlt go writing up a law for everything that you can imagine."

Thus, while taking the law into account and recognizing its function in maintaining social order (the judge, Jake says, " should give Heinz the lightest possible sentence"), he also sees the law as man-made and therefore subject to error and change. Yet his judgment that Heinz should steal the drug, like his view of the law as having mistakes, rests on the assumption of agreement, a societal consensus around moral values that allows one to know and expect others to recognize what is "the right thing to do,"

Fascinated by the power of logic, this eleven-year-old boy locates truth in math, which, he says, is "the only thing that is totally logical." Considering the moral dilemma to be "sort of like a math problem with humans," he sets it up as an equation and proceeds to work out the solution. Since his solution is rationally derived, he assumes that anyone following reason would arrive at the same conclusion and thus that a judge would also consider stealing to be the right thing for Heinz to do. Yet he is also aware of the limits of logic. Asked whether there is a right answer to moral problems, Jake replies that "there can only be right and wrong in judgment," since the parameters of action ar e variable and complex. Illustrating how actions undertaken with the best of intentions can eventuate in the most disastrous, of consequences, he says. "like if you give an old lady your seat on the trolley, if you are in a trolley erash and that seat goes through the window, it might be that reason that the old lady dies."

98 Chapter One

Theories of developmental psychology illuminate well the position of this child, standing at the juncture of childhood and adolescence, at what Piaget describes as thc pinnacle of childhood intelligence, and beginning through thought to discover a wider universe of possibility, The moment of preadolescence is caught by the conjunction of formal operational thought with a description of self still anchored in the factual parameters of his childhood world - his age, his town, his father's occupation, the substance of his likes, dislikes, and beliefs, Yet as his self description radiates the self-confidence of a child who has arrived, in Erikson's terms, at a favorable balance of industry over inferiority - competent, sure of himseU; and knowing well the rules of the game - so his emergent capacity for formal thought, his ability to think about thinking and to reason things out in a logical way, frees him from dependence on authority and allows him to find solutions to problems by himself.

This emergent autonomy follows the trajectory that Kohlberg's six stages of moral development trace, a three-level progression from an egocentric understanding of fairness based on individual, need (stages one and two), to a conceptions of fairness anchored in the shared conventions of societal agreement (stages three and four), and finally to a principled understanding of fairness that rests on the free-standing logic of equality and reciprocity (stages fivc and six). While this boy's judgments at eleven are scored as conventional on Kohlbergts scale, a mixture of stages three and four, his ability to bring deductive logic to bear on the solution of moral dilemmas, to differentiate morality from law, and to see how laws can be considered to have mistakes points toward the principled conception of justice that Kohlberg equates with moral maturity.

In contrast, Amy's response to the dilemma conveys a very different impression, an image of development stunted by a failure of logic, an inability to think for herself. Asked if Heinz should steal the drug, she replies in a way that seems evasive and unsure:

Well, I don't think so. 1 think there might be other ways besides stealing it, like if he could borrow the money or make a loan or something, but he really shouldn't steal the drug � but his wife shouldn't die either.

Asked why he should not steal the drug, she considers neither property nor law but rather the effect that theft could have on the relationship between Heinz and his wife:

If he stole the drug, he might save his wife then, but if he did, he might have to go to jail, and then his wife might get sicker again, and he couldn't

Introduction

get more of the dmg, and it might not be good. So, they should really just talk it out and tind some other way to make the money,

99

Seeing in the dilemma not a math problem with humans but a narrative of relationships that extends over time, Amy envisions the wife's continuing need for her husband and the husband's continuing concern for his wife and seeks to respond to the druggist's need in a way that would sust.ain rather than sever connection. Just a she ties the wife's survival to the preservation of relationships, so she considers the value of the wife's life in a context of relationships, saying that it would be wrong to let her die because, "if she died, it hurts a lot of people and it hurts her." Since Amy's moral judgment is grounded in the belicf that, "if somebody has something that would keep somebody alive, then its not right not to give it to them," she considers the problem in the dilemma to arise not from t h e druggist's assertion o f rights but fr o m his failure of response.

As the interviewer proceeds with the series of questions that follow from Kohlberg's construction of the dilemma, Amy's answers remain essentially unchanged, the various probes serving neither to elucidate nor to modify her initial response. Whether or not Heinz loves his wife, he still shouldn't steal or let her die; if it were a stranger dying instead, Amy says that "if the stranger didn't have anybody near or anyone she knew," then Heinz should try to save her life, but he should not steal the drug. But a s the interviewer conveys through t h e repetition of questions that t h e answers s h e gave were not heard or n o t right, Amy's confidence begins to diminish, and her replies become more constrained and unsure." Asked again why Heinz should not steal the drug, she simply repeats, "Because, it's not right." Asked again to explain why, she states again that theft would not be a good solution, adding lamely, "if he took it, he might not know how to give it to his wife, and so his wife might still die." Failing to see the dilemma as a self-contained problem in moral logic, she does not discern the internal structure of its resolution; as she constructs the problem differently herself, Kohlberg's conception completely evades her.

Instead, seeing a world comprised of relationships rather than of people standing alone, a world that coheres through human connection rather than through systems of rules, she linds the puzzle in the dilemma to lie in the failure of the druggist to respond to the wife. Saying that "it is not right for someone to die when their life could be saved," she assumes that if the druggist were to see the consequences of his refusal to lower his price, he would realize that "he should just give it to the wife and then have the husband pay back the money later." Thus she considers the solution to the dilemma to lie in making the wife's condition more salient to the druggist or, that failing, in appealing to others who are in a position to help.

100 Chapter One

Just as Jake is confident the judge would agree that stealing is the right thing for Heinz to do, so Amy is confident that, "if Heinz and the druggist had talked it out long enough, they could reach something besides stealing." As he considers the law to "have mistakes,O! so she sees this drama as a mistake, believing that "the world should just share things more and then people wouldn't have to steal." Both children thus recognize the need for agreement but see it as mediated in different ways - he impersonally through systems of logic and law, she personally through communication in relationship. Just. as he relies on the conventions of logic to deduce the solution to this dilemma, assuming there conventions to be shared, so she relies on a process of communication, assuming connection and believing that her voice will be heard. Yet while his assumptions about agreement are confirmed by the convergence in logic between his answers and the questions posed, her assumptions are belied by the failure of communication, the interviewer's inability to understand her response.