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Feminist Moral Theory

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Feminist Moral Philosophies Do men and women have different morals perspective? Merriam-Webster dictionary defines morals as: of relating to the principles of right and wrong in behavior: ethical (Merriam-Webster, 2013). I would venture to say that if asked, 9 out 10 people will answer, “yes”, for different reasons. A large number of feminist seem to believe so as well. All beliefs are influenced by something, as children, the influence usually comes from our parents or whoever we are raised by. In saying that, morals are introduced to us as youth. As we evolve into young adults we encounter other influences, decide what makes most sense to us as individuals, and we start to develop our own morals/ethics. Some influences, primarily religious beliefs, are imbedded in us for a lifetime (in most cases, not all). Our surroundings also play a large part in our moral approach. In the book Elements of Philosophy it was explained that psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg developed a scenario that was presented to random individuals in order to gage their moral beliefs (Rachels, 1986-2010). The scenario involved a guy whose wife was fatally ill. The guy knew a pharmacist who was selling a medication that could cure his wife’s illness. The pharmacist was selling the drug for significantly more money than what it cost to produce the drug and more than what the husband could afford. The pharmacist would not agree to sell the medicine to the husband for any less than the offered price and would not allow a payment plan. The husband is now contemplating stealing the medication. The question is, would he be wrong for doing so? This scenario was pitched to two people, a young boy and a young girl. The boy expressed that he didn’t feel it would be wrong for the husband to steal the medication, the female disagreed. The two opinions were later dissected by feminist Carol Gilligan who

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