The David Gribble Archive : Talks

Children don’t start wars

Leipzig University, 2008
Page 4

It is not surprising that these researchers decided on a minimum age of four. Since then other researchers have found evidence of empathy in much younger children.

From How Babies Think, again:

Systematic studies indicate that two-year-olds begin to show genuine empathy toward other people for the first time. Even younger babies will become upset in response to the distress of others (we all know the disturbing way the baby will suddenly begin to howl when a marital argument starts). They don't just feel your pain, they try to allay it.

In 1969 Lawrence Kohlberg put forward a new theory about stages of moral development. He defined six stages, divided into three groups of two – pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional. Even the third group, though rational, does not correspond to the stage rational-altruistic; people who have reached this level are supposed to be capable of making their own rules of behaviour, and sticking to them; altruism does not come into it. Kohlberg considered morality to be something that could only be appreciated intellectually, a matter of the distribution of rights and duties according to principles of equality and reciprocity.

Then around 1980 Carol Gilligan, who was collaborating with Kohlberg in some of his research, noticed that women discussed moral questions in a different way from men. Kohlberg’s conclusions, which were supposed to describe the development of moral judgment from childhood to adulthood, were based entirely on the study of eight-four boys. He did not include any girls at all.

Gilligan looked into this omission. This led her to new perceptions, and her important book, In a Different Voice, was published in 1982.

Gilligan distinguished two approaches to moral questions that she called the justice approach and the caring approach. Kohlberg had been concerned solely with the justice approach, which is typically male. Gilligan was concerned with both approaches, and found that the caring approach, ignored by Kohlberg, was the more important approach for women.

The descriptive terms are clear. The justice approach is based on fairness, personal rights, rules and set standards of behaviour; individual welfare is a secondary consideration. The caring approach is a concern for the welfare of other people, regardless of rules. Staub’s experiment with the child crying in another room illustrates this clearly: the older children thought obedience was more important than going to help another child.

Gilligan and others following up on her work have found over and over again that, though neither sex is limited to one type of response, males are more likely to make justice responses and females are more likely to make caring responses.