Ethics and Moral Development, Gender Differences in

Historical Views of Gender and Moral Development

Questions about the nature of moral decision making have been addressed in religious, philosophical, and scientific traditions. In each of these traditions, it has often been claimed that compared with men, women are inferior in respect to their moral characters, reasoning abilities, and capacity for self-control. The explanations for this presumed inferiority have varied, and although claims that women are morally inferior have predominated in the Western intellectual tradition, voices critical of the dominant account may also be found throughout this history. In Plato's Republic, for example, Socrates (469-399 BCE) described the just man as one whose reason directs his spirit or passions as well as his appetites. Those who are best able to exercise rational self-control, whether they are men or women, are best suited to become members of the state's guardian or ruling group. By arguing that some women were capable of rational self-control and that they could become rulers, Plato (c. 427-347 BCE) ran counter to prevailing Greek views. However, he qualifies this view by having Socrates argue that within the guardian class, the women's abilities would be inferior to those of the men. Plato presents a further account of the differences between men and women in a mythological story in the Timaeus. In this dialogue, Timaeus, describing a cycle of the birth and rebirth of souls, says that men who failed to control their passions and physical sensations would, after death, be reborn as women.

Plato's view of the relationship of gender to moral development is thus a complex one. Although he is the earliest major Western philosopher to challenge the belief that women as a group are incapable of rational self-control, and though he promoted education for capable women, he nevertheless reserved to men the highest level of rational and moral ability.

Aristotle (384-322 BCE) had a more pronounced view of the moral differences between men and women than did Plato. Parallel to his belief that female bodies produced less heat than male bodies and were therefore less perfect, Aristotle viewed women as lacking in the capacity to exercise practical reason and the other moral virtues such as courage and temperance. Because of this defect, women's [Page 257]excellence or virtue, for Aristotle, was to be ruled by men. Aristotle's view of women largely dominated medieval Christian, Islamic, and Jewish philosophy. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) adopted Aristotle's view that in the natural realm, women ought to accept the rule of men because of women's weaker rational powers. However, he believed that women, as much as men, could achieve perfection in the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity by means of a gift of divine grace. An exception to the general medieval adoption of Aristotle's position was Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), an author and teacher who in her writings questioned the passive moral role generally assigned to women and who attributed to women both self-control and intelligence.

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