Prof Evans's discussion of Carol Gilligan's essay 'A Different Voice' for Phil 110P for ODU

Psychologist Carol Gilligan asserts that evidence suggests that most men think differently from most women over a range of values. Men tend to emphasize personal autonomy, individual rights, abstract principles of justice, and individualism, whereas most women emphasize our interdependence, relationships ,compassion, and responsibility for others (including needy strangers). Gilligan argues that the moral life requires a complex balancing of complementary but competing values, and that philosophical theories of ethics and psychological theories of moral development have been biased---often unconsciously---against the values more highly esteemed by women than by men.That is why it is time to hear "a different voice."