Gilligan’s Theory

What would the strengths and weaknessess of Gilligan’s theory of moral development be? What stage of this theory would a 40 year old woman be experiencing?
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(1) What would the strengths and weaknesses of Gilligan’s theory of moral development be?

Theory of Moral Development in Gilligan’s Argument

Gilligan argued in her book “In a Different Voice” (1982) that Lawrence Kohlberg’s (1971, 1981, 1984 as cited in Strain, 2005) theory of Moral Development only involved males. She challenged Kohlberg’s stages of moral development as not affecting the moral reasoning of females. For example, Kohlberg had presented stages of development that was based upon a man’s reaction to a dilemma of moral fairness. From this perspective, he traced moral development from the progression of an” egocentric” rendering of fairness (Stages 1 and 2) to a concept of fairness in societal agreement (Stages 3 and 4). The final understanding of fairness depicted in the fifth and sixth stages is based on the logic of equality and reciprocity (Gilligan, p. 3). However, according to Gilligan (1982) Kohlberg focused on logic from a male perspective to resolve a dilemma based on two views of moral reasoning: (a) …