Moral Orientation and Moral Development [1987]

This chapter presents a similar phenomenon with respect to moral judgment, describing two moral perspectives that organize thinking in different ways. The analogy to ambiguous figure perception arises from the observation that although people are aware of both perspectives, they tend to adopt one or the other in defining and resolving moral conflict. The chapter reconstructs the account of moral development around two moral perspectives, grounded in different dimensions of relationship that give rise to moral concern. The justice perspective, often equated with moral reasoning, is recast as one way of seeing moral problems and a care perspective is brought forward as an alternate vision or frame. The chapter elaborates an analysis of the language and logic of men's and women's moral reasoning about a range of hypothetical and real dilemmas underlies the distinction. It reports an association between moral orientation and gender speak directly to the continuing controversy over sex differences in moral reasoning.