Men are from Mars, Women from Venus?

Men are from Mars, Women from Venus?
Answer this question? From your experience in living life, is there any truthfulness to John Gray’s thesis Men are from Mars, Women from Venus?

Consider… Are their significant differences in how you and your spouse perceive opportunities and problems? Are their significant emotional and intimacy needs that distinguish you from your spouse? Are their different modes of behavior between you and your spouse? For example, are men really “wild at heart?”: do they really need adventure, the opportunity to save a damsel in distress, and be a hero to someone?

Ethics of Justice vs. Ethics of Care
An look into Carol Gilligan’s, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982, 1993), Chapter 2.

Images of Relationships: Chapter 2
Harvard Professor Carol Gilligan (1936-) begins Chapter 2 with the following introduction: “in 1914 with his essay, “on Narcissism,” Freud swallows his distaste at the thought of a ‘abandoning observation for barren theoretical controversy’ and extends his map of the psychological domain. Tracing the development of the capacity to love, which he equates with maturity and psychic health, he locates its origins in the contrast between love for the mother and love for the self. But in thus dividing the world of love into narcissism [self-absorption] and ‘object’ relationships, he find that while men’s development becomes clearer, women’s becomes increasingly opaque.

Professor Gilligan continues: The problem arises because the contrast between mother and self yields two different relationships. Relying on the imagery of men’s lives n charting the course of human growth, Freud is unable to trace in women the development of relationships, morality, or a clear sense of self. This difficulty in fitting the logic of his theory to women’s experience leads him in the end to set women apart, marking their relationships, like their sexual life, as a ‘dark continent’ for psychology.’” [Freud, “On Narcissism: An Introduction” (1914) XIV: 212] (pg. 24).

Professor Gilligan interprets Freud as stating: “To Freud, though living surrounded by women and otherwise seeing so much and so well, women’s relationships seemed increasingly mysterious, difficult to discern, and hard to describe. While this mystery indicates how theory can blind observation, it also suggests that development in women is masked by a particular conception of human relationships. Since the imagery of relationships shapes the narrative of human development, the inclusion of women, by changing that imagery, implies a change in the entire account” (pp. 24-5).

The Shift in Imagery: A Case Study: Amy and Jake, two eleven year old students.
Amy and Jake were participants in a “rights and responsibilities study” which was designed to explore different conceptions of morality and self (pg. 25). Both students were bright and articulate. Amy desires to become a scientist. Jake prefers English to math. Their moral judgments seem initially to confirm familiar ideas about the differences between the sexes (i.e., girls having an edge in terms of moral development during the early school years which will give way at puberty with the rise of formal logical thought in boys (pg. 25).

In the following moral dilemma we will see that Jake and Amy see two different problems:

The Moral Dilemma to Resolve:
The Shift in Imagery: A Case Study: Amy and Jake, two eleven year old students. The Moral Dilemma to Resolve: “A man 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.” Heinz predicament. The wife’s disease. The druggist’s refusal to lower his price Should Heinz steal the drug? The reason for and against stealing are then explored through a series of questions that vary and extend the parameters of the dilemma in a way design to reveal the underlying structure of moral thought:

Jake sees the moral conflict between values of property and life. He discerns the logical priority of life, and uses that logic to justify his choice. “For one thing, a human life is worth more than money, and if the druggist only makes 1,000, 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.”

Jake was also asked if Heinz should steal the drug if he doesn’t love his spouse? “Jake replies that he should, saying that not only is there a ‘a difference between hating and killing,’ but also if Heinz where caught, ‘the judge would probably think it was the right thing to do.’ Asked about the fact that, in stealing, Heinz would breaking the law, he says that ‘the laws have mistakes, and you can’t go writing up a law for everything that you can imagine.’” (pg. 26).

Considering the law and recognizing its function in maintaining social order, the judge, Jake asserts, “should give Heinz the lightest possible sentence.” Jake considers the law to be man-made, subject to error and change (pg. 26).

Kohlberg Analysis Moral Maturity (6 steps):
Jake’s Ethics of Justice: Kohlberg Analysis Moral Maturity (6 steps):

What are Jake’s Assumptions/Methodology? The Ethics of Justice
Ethics of justice might be described as follows: 1. Locates truth in math which is “the only thing that is totally logical” pg. 26 (deductive logic); certainty is found in logic (pg. 45). - He establishes the problem between life & property as an equation & proceeds to workout the solution; it is a contest of rights. 2. Rational conclusion: He assumes anyone following “reason” would arrive a same conclusion.

What are Jake’s Assumptions/Methodology? The Ethics of Justice
Ethics of justice might be described as follows: 3. Differentiates morality from laws and examines how laws can be corrected/changed in order to have a principled conception of justice. 4. Self is defined via autonomy & personal confidence. 5. Restraint from certain actions because of the needs of others (p 38). 6. Transposes a hierarchy of power into a hierarchy of values (pg.32). 7. Places the problem into an impersonal conflict of claims (pg. 32).

Amy offers a different view regarding Heinz’s moral dilemma to the question whether the husband should steal the drug?: “Well, I don’t think so. I 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” (pg. 28).

When Amy is asked why she should not steal the drug, her response is: “ 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 get more of the drug, and it might not be good. So, they should really just talk it out and find some other way to make the money” (pg. 28). Asked whether or not Heinz loves his wife she maintained that he shouldn’t steal or let her die. And even if it was a stranger dying, Heinz should still try to save her life, but not steal the drug (pg. 28).

When asked again why Heinz shouldn’t steal she simply restates her position, “Because it’s not right”. When asked to explain why, she states, “if he took it, he might not know how to give it to his wife, and so his wife might still die.” She assumes that if the druggist were to see the deathly situation, he would surely want to help him save her. If they would just talk about it, surely they could come to an understanding (e.g., The druggist could give it to them and have the husband pay for the drug later). Lastly, she sees the problem being a failure of the druggist: “it is not right for someone to die when their life could be saved” (pg. 29).

Test Results for Amy: When the test is considered in view of Kohlberg’s definition of stages and sequence of moral development, her moral judgment are a full stage lower than those of Jake (pg. 30). Scored as a mixture of stages 2 & 3 (shared conventions of societal agreement), she is as follows:

Test Results for Amy: 2. Inability to think for herself;
1. Stunted by a failure of logic; 2. Inability to think for herself; 3. Her replies are evasive, unsure, & lacks confidence; powerlessness. 4. Does not consider property and law but rather the effect that theft could have on the relationship between Heinz and wife. 5. Sees the dilemma as being the druggist’s failure to respond to wife. 6. The answer to the moral problem is “communication” rather than the systematic application of logic.

Test Results for Amy: In sum, following the Kohlberg test:
Jake sees a conflict between life and property that be resolved by logical deduction and categorical thinking. Amy see a conflict between life and a lack of communication: the problem that can resolved by honesty and open communication; she appeals to contextual relationships. Kohlberg summarizes the test by stating that the children arrive at answers that fundamentally diverge because Jake demonstrates moral maturity through the application of logic.

A Network of Relationships:

What’s Carol Gilligan’s Interpretation?
An Ethics of Care. Rather than being displayed as a hierarchy of maturity through the application of logic, females are fundamentally different than males (pg. 31): We need to ask the question: What does Amy see that Jake doesn’t? An ethics of care according to Carol Gilligan. In other words, like Amy, women have a different perspective; they are able to achieve the highest level of moral development.

Descriptive Elements of An Ethic of Care:
1. The world is comprised of a web of relationships sustained by communication (pg. 38). -Actors in dilemmas are “members of a network of relationships on whose communication they all depend” (30). 2. Self is defined through interpersonal connection.

Descriptive Elements of An Ethic of Care:
3. Amy speaks of morality and responsibility as a way of restoring community. 4. Focuses on the need for a response. 5. Wherever it is broken, thus the problem of “loneliness” constitutes a major moral problem. 6. One is responsible to care for others, to alleviate their loneliness.

A Working Definition of an “Ethic of Care”
A working definition of Ethic of Care: 1. It is at least an ethical perspective that seeks to preserve and nurture the concrete relations in a web of relationships, attending and positively responding to the needs of others.

Other Observations: Violence:
In a series of studies on how danger is perceived between the sexes (pg. 42), men see danger: 1. Often in close personal affiliation than in achievement and constructing danger from intimacy: entrapment/betrayal; smothering relationship; humiliated by rejection/deceit.

Other Observations: Consider this fictional story:
“Nick saw his life pass before his eyes. He could feel the cold penetrating even deeper into his body. How long had it been since he had fallen through the ice-thirty-seconds, a minute? It wouldn’t take long for him to succumb to the chilling grip of the mid-February Charles River. What a fool he had been to accept the challenge of his roommate Sam to cross the frozen river. He knew all along that Sam hated him. Hated him for being rich and especially hated him for being engaged to Mary, Sam’s childhood sweetheart. But Nick never realized until now that Mary also hated him and really loved Sam. Yet there they were, the two of them, calmly sitting on a beach in the riverbend, watching Nick drown. They’d probably soon by married, and they’d probably finance it with the life insurance policy for which Mary was the beneficiary” (pg. 40).

Other Observations: Women see danger: 1. Danger of isolation,
2. A fear in standing out or being set apart by success, left alone (pg. 42), 3. A relational failure (pg 43). Thus, women see violence as a “fracture of human connection” with the activities of care being those activities that make the social world safe, avoids isolation, and prevents aggression. Conclusion by Gilligan: “Men and women may experience attachment and separation in different ways and that each sex perceives a danger which the other does not see men in connection, women in separation (pg. 42).”

Other Observations: “When the interconnections of the web are dissolved by the hierarchical ordering of relationships, when nets are portrayed as dangerous entrapments impeding flight rather than protecting against the fall, women come to question whether what they have seen exists and whether what they know from their experience is true. These questions are raised not as abstract philosophical speculations about the nature of reality and truth but as personal doubts that invade women’s sense of themselves, compromising their ability to act on their own perceptions and thus their willingness to take responsibility for what they do. This issue becomes central in women’s development during the adolescent years, when thought becomes reflective and the problem of interpretation thus enters the stream of development itself” (pg. 49).

Other Observations: The struggle to be understood; the struggle for uniqueness in a context of relationships. In view of this hierarchical relationship of ethics of justice, both psychologists and women themselves find it difficulty to account for their identity and moral belief; they are in crisis: “A crisis that centers on her struggle to disentangle her voice from the voices of others and to find a language that represents her experience of relationships and her sense of herself” (pg. 51).

In her concluding remarks, Professor Gilligan offers the following statements (pp. 62-3). “While the truths of psychological theory have blinded psychologists to the truth of women’s experience, that experience illuminates a world where psychologists have found hard to trace, a territory where violence is rare and relationships appear safe. The reason women’s experience has been so difficult to decipher or even discern is that a shift in the imagery of relationships gives rise to a problem of interpretation. The images of hierarchy and web, drawn from the texts of men’s and women’s fantasies and thoughts, convey different ways of structuring relationships and are associated with different views of morality and self. But these images create a problem in understanding because each distorts the other’s representation.

As the top of the hierarchy becomes the edge of the web and as the center of a network of connection becomes the middle of a hierarchical progression, each image marks as dangerous the place which the other defines as safe. Thus the images of hierarchy and web inform different modes of assertion and response: the wish to be alone at the top and the consequent fear that others will get too close; the wish to be at the center of connection and the consequent fear of being too far out on the edge. These disparate fears of being stranded and being caught give rise to different portrayals of achievement and affiliation, leading to different modes of action and different ways of assessing the consequence of choice.”

She goes on to say in the last paragraph: “The reinterpretation of women’s experience in terms of their own imagery of relationships thus clarifies the experience and also provides a nonhierarchical vision of human connection. Since relationships, when case in the imagery of hierarchy, appear inherently unstable and morally problematic, their transposition into the image of web changes an order of inequality into a structure of interconnection.

She continues… But the power of the images of hierarchy and web, their evocation of feelings and their recurrence in thought, signifies the embeddedness of both of these images in the cycle of human life. The experiences of inequality and interconnection, inherent in the relation of parent and child, then give rise to the ethics of justice and care, the ideals of human relationship,-the vision that self and other will be treated as of equal worth, that despite difference in power, things will be fair; the vision that everyone will be responded to and included, that no one will be left alone or hurt. These disparate visions in their tension reflect the paradoxical truths of human experience-that we know ourselves as separate only insofar as we live in connection with others, and that we experience relationship only insofar as we differentiate other from self” (pg. 62-3).

Is this Distinction Philosophically Sound?
B. Is it philosophically sound? If it is sound as an alternative approach in ethical theory, a “feminine approach” (in contrast to utilitarian or deontological ethics) one might answer with a resounding “no.” If it is sound in bringing to the forefront how masculine structures dominated Western thought and culture (from authority structures to linguistics), oppressing, discriminating, and nullifying feminine development/identity in a modernistic worldview, then same people might argue “yes.”

4 reasons that may be used to argue that Gilligan’s view is not “philosophically sound”: Do boys inherently use formal logical thought, relying on the conventions of logic with no regard for interpersonal relationships? 2. If the world is constituted primarily by a network of relationships, then we would take “justice” into account that would involve rules, maxims, or principles.

3. If ethics of care is interpreted as an “ethical approach” rather than merely a [complementary] perspective, advocating the displacement of normative ethics such as utilitarianism (for its emphasis on calculations, horrific injustices, future consequences, etc) or deontological ethics (for its focus on rules, rationality, or absolutes to the neglect of a person’s welfare, etc), one might argue that this model is not philosophically sound for the following 5 reasons:

A. Care ethics lacks clarity in resolving moral conflicts. B. Vast differences on what constitutes “care” “nurture” or even “relations.” Different people, cultures, and sub-groups have vast opinions on what constitutes “care.” (Some people eat their neighbors for food whereas others love their neighbors ). Aristotle’s Republic; Spartan Rule, to Marxism, postmillennialism, etc. C. Is “care” a feminine morality, a master-value and all other things are valuable only to the extent that they can contribute to it?

D. It fails to gives us significant help in the practicalities on how we should behave; it is too nebulous (unlike utilitarianism with its calculations or deontological ethics with it’s universal and necessary a priori rules). E. There is no distinctly feminine morality (cf. Mary Wollstonecraft in Vindication of the Rights of Woman). - If there is a feminine morality does that mean that utilitarianism and deontological ethics is a masculine morality because it is not as “caring”?

Is this distinction philosophically sound?
4. Jean Grimshaw’s criticisms: A. There is little agreement among women on what accounts as “female values.” B. Dependent on the polarization of “masculine” and “feminine” which has itself been so closely related to the “subordination of women.” C. There is no autonomous realm of female virtues ~ A Companion to Ethics, “The Idea of a Female Ethic” edited by Peter Singer (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), pg. 498.

On the other hand, one could argue that this distinction is ultimately true but the way it has been handled is confusing and unclear. If the following is true, then the ethics of care has not been ignored in philosophy:

Philosophically, (1) the ethics of justice is better interpreted as a theory of individualism and ethics of care as a theory of community. To be sure, both views have been taught in philosophy, though one could argue, analogous to the critique of modernism by critical continental thinkers, that (2) modernism at is apex (with all its authority structures and conceptions) ignored discriminated, oppressed, and even nullified female identity, development, and voice (e.g., Freud) in contemporary thought and culture. Lets’ take a closer look at these two issues. Consider the following quotes:

Consider the following:
Community: Aristotle—In the Ethics we are told that “Man is born for citizenship,” and in the Politics we are told, “Man is by nature a political animal.” More explicitly, Aristotle tells us, “The state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part.” For Aristotle, then, the individual presupposes community. The sustenance of community is the moral goal, not the moral problem.

Community: Hegel— Patriotism does not simply mean the willingness to make exceptional sacrifices. Rather, it is the recognition “that the community is one’s substantive groundwork and end” (#268). Here again, in an Aristotelian vein, we see in very plain language that the community is presupposed by the individual for Hegel. The moral self cannot define itself in separation from others, but rather must understand itself as constituted by its connection with others in the community.

Community: Marx—Living with others does not constitute for Marx (as it seemed to do for Jake) a limitation on personal freedom. Rather, “only in the community is personal freedom possible” (197). Here again we see a clear priority being established: the individual can only be defined through relationship with other members of community.

Need for Contracts: Individualism:
Hobbes—In the state of nature, men are in the “condition which is called war, and such a war as is of every man against every man. The natural state of man is “solitary.” And it becomes clear that this picture of humanity, though perhaps softened a bit, is essentially that of all contract theorists. For the whole premise behind contract theory is that human beings are essentially individuals, wildly scrambling to pursue their own interests.

According to Mill: Individualism:
“The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.” This is in Mill’s chapter praising individualism as “one of the elements of well-being.” This, for Mill, is the pinnacle of moral responsibility: not being a nuisance. And this is the sentiment expressed by Jake when he explained that, if he wanted to kill himself, he should do it with a gun rather than a stick of dynamite, since the dynamite might kill others, i.e., be a nuisance to them.

Individualism according to Rawls and Nozick
John Rawls and Robert Nozick, for example, although differing from one another in substantial ways, are unanimous in their individualism. The community presupposes the individual and, for both of them, having to live in community with others constitutes the problem that philosophy must solve.

Individualism according to Rawls and Nozick:
In fact, the community is seen as nothing but the sum of individual preferences, therefore necessitating a morality of restraint. Even what appears to be a morality of care, for Rawls, is best characterized in terms of a limitation of the individual’s limitless pursuit of gain and pleasure. So, although historically the ethic of care has not been omitted, it has certainly been overlooked in much modern and contemporary moral thought.

In Summary: What Gilligan calls an “ethic of care” has not been ignored in the history of philosophy. Indeed, an “ethic of care” has been the predominant model for moral thinking until the last few centuries. Still, one can understand why it might seem as though the ethic of care has been omitted. The major thinkers in modern and even contemporary moral and social-political philosophy have been largely concerned with what Gilligan calls an “ethic of justice.” This is in view of the rise of modernism and its ramifications in thought and culture, and the two dominant ethical views prior to 1958 (Anscombe’s article): Utilitarianism vs. Deontological ethics.

Oppression of a Female Identity:
To be sure, some say that care ethicists and even more forceful feminist philosophers do bring a warranted claim that needs to be considered in contemporary society: wherever gender oppression exists, critical evaluation and reform is needed. In fact, they argue that we need to end oppression wherever it exists, whereby certain types of people are not inherently seen as inherently valuable, where voices are neglected, rejected, discriminated, and persecuted. Do you agree or disagree? Why? WHAT IS YOUR JUSTIFICATION?

Alienation of a female identity in a Modernistic Worldview:
However, like continental theorists, in contemporary thought some blame modernism with its emphasis upon rationality, individualism, and categorical-systematic thinking whereby females are defined, categorized related, and interpreted in view of their “synchronic” relationship to maleness, whether culturally, linguistically, etc. (hence, even the word “fe-male” or wo-man”) to the extent that the psychological theory of and study of women have been alienated (e.g., Freud).

Alienation of a female identity in a Modernistic Worldview:
Whether there is really is a distinctly feminine “care ethics” perspective, it is difficult to deny that females have been ignored or undervalued, and even alienated in certain segments of Western thought and culture (e.g., Taliban; Marxism).

Let’s consider the following?
If women and men are significantly different in how they perceive and respond to others (relationships, opportunities, problems, etc), then when it comes moral conflicts, how would these two groups perceive and interpret moral conflicts? What is the probability that men and women would come to the same conclusion (consider Jake and Amy’s case)? All women jury vs. All men jury? 50% men vs.50% women on a jury? Moral conflicts at home? Moral conflicts at work? Moral conflicts at school?

Considerations from a Biblical Worldview: “A Harmony of Differences”
1. “Radical feminism has blurred the distinctions between the sexes, leaving men and women stranded in regard to forming their sex roles.” ~ Elizabeth Eliot. 2. Archetypes: (First Stamp): Man and Woman were historical Adam and Eve. They were both made by God, in the image of God, and placed in moral responsibility (Gen. 1-2). 3. God created women gloriously different than man, from the man, for the man (fulfillment), and named by the man. It was not out of dust, but out of Adam’s rib.

Considerations from a Biblical Worldview:
4. Each were given a responsibility expressed in different modality; each expresses His image: It is a “glorious harmony of differences.” 5. It was God’s idea of an operator and responder. Just as there is an ebb and flow, moon and sun, and lesser and greater. Likewise, Operator (leader, Adam) and co-operator (responder, Eve) (e.g., Waltz).

6. The harmony was defaced by sin (Gen. 3). The original archetype was historical Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:26-27; Gen. 9). The serpent came and tempted her to “upgrade” her lifestyle. But, we have to remember that humanity was not created to bear the weight of responsibility from the Tree of Good and Evil. She was too proud be a human being, she wanted to be “like God”, appealing to the lust of the eyes, flesh, and pride of life. In Adam’s presence, she usurped Adam’s authority and he abdicated his leadership. Thus, he came to be responder and she became the operator. Believed she would be deprived of fulfillment from God, she yielded to that temptation.

7. In view of yielding to the temptation, Adam ceased to husband Eve, failed to protect her, failed to be the leader, and capitulated to Eve’s whim. She took the initiative and usurped his authority, reversing the roles. 8. Where is fulfillment found? Is it in vocation or obedience? Fulfillment is located in obedience by saying “yes” Lord: God, what do you want me to do? (involves obedience and “being the appropriate godly person; virtue).

9. What is a biblical view of subordination (e.g., consider the doctrine of the Trinity)? Many problems or reactions to a biblical view of the “harmony of differences” is confusing “essence” and “function.” But just as the Only and only Triune God is one “essence” (Triunity), each member of the Trinity, fully and equally God, they also show an order or function of subordination (The Holy Spirit submits to the Son; the Son submits to the Father). “Made according to our likeness” Genesis 1:26-27. 10. Philippians 1:9-10: relationships cannot be divorced from discernment.

Consider her perspective from a Biblical worldview: We are made in the image of God:
1. Image = content (intellect, will, emotion). 2. Image = dominion (authority; rule) 3. Image = interpersonal relationships (in our image) 4. Representation (we are his Representatives) 5. Holistic (all the above; seen like a diamond).

Men are from Mars, Women from Venus?

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