Christian Views of Self and God: Context Matters

Twenty-four Christian college students and 24 state university students were interviewed using Gilligan's moral choice paradigm (Brown et al., 1988). Justice narratives predominated among the Christian college students; among the state university students, care and justice narratives were equally prominent. Eight state university students articulated belief in the Christian God. These state university Christians described themselves less often in justice terms than the Christian college students and more often in terms of both justice and care than the remaining state university students. Further, the state university Christians described God in terms of justice more often than did the Christian college students. The implications of these differences for faith development are explored. ********** Men and women are moral agents. When they participate in moral dilemmas, they enact how they experience themselves personally and morally, both internally and in relationship with the larger world. Articulating this perspective, Gilligan (1982) used narratives about personal dilemmas to assess morality and described this process of moral decision-making in terms of two orientations: justice and care. (1) An individual with an orientation of justice uses formal, abstract reasoning, emphasizing the autonomy of the person dictating the dilemma and the discernment of what is "fair" based on a system of rules rather than connections. Conversely, an individual with an orientation of care describes moral dilemmas contextually, expressing concern with maintaining relationships and responding to the needs of others. (2) When asked to describe a moral dilemma, men and women may articulate a voice that is predominately justice-oriented, predominately care-oriented, or a voice that articulates both justice and care (Gilligan & Attanucci, 1994). Gilligan and Attanucci (1994) predicted that, whereas men predominately view themselves in moral situations from a context of justice, women predominantly view themselves from a context of care. A weaker form of this prediction, that women produce an ethic of care more than men, was supported by a meta-analysis of studies by Jaffee and Hyde (2000). Such a prediction says little, however, about the use of an ethic of care in lieu of, or in combination with, an ethic of justice. Men and women may generate different types of dilemmas. Walker, de Vries, and Trevethan (1987) identified two major types of dilemmas: a personal dilemma, involving someone with whom the person is closely connected, and an impersonal dilemma, involving an institution or someone with whom the person is not closely connected. They concluded that women generally produce personal dilemmas more than men and that, whereas impersonal dilemmas are more likely to be resolved with an ethic of justice, personal dilemmas are more likely to be resolved with an ethic of care. Age may also play an influential role in moral decision-making (Jaffee & Hyde, 2000), a finding that resonates with Piaget's research on moral development. Piaget (1932/1950) identified two moral self-ethics: moralities of constraint (marked by belief in a single, absolute moral perspective) and moralities of cooperation (marked by awareness of differing viewpoints regarding rules). Constraint requires simply adopting an imposed structure of rules and beliefs, whereas in cooperation, moral views are tested against social and personal experiences. Cooperative morality is characterized by flexibility, the ability to compromise, and a sense that punishment for breaking rules should be fair and commensurate with the transgression and should restore the social bond. Rather than proposing a gender differentiation, Piaget based the occurrence or co-occurrence of these two moralities on maturity, proposing that in the preschool years, moralities of constraint dominate, while moralities of cooperation begin to appear in middle childhood. …