Carol Gilligan

Wilber's View

Wilber's IP treatment of Gilligan is sharper on one specific point than the parallel material in SES (see Kohlberg's page, which covers the SES-side argument that Gilligan accepts Kohlberg's general hierarchical structure rather than rejecting it): here he goes after what he calls a genuine cultural myth that grew up around her work — the idea, drawn from a misreading of Gilligan, that women's moral development isn't hierarchical or stage-based at all, only men's is. Wilber's reading is the opposite: Gilligan's "selfish" → "care" → "universal care" sequence is, in his framework, just another instance of the same egocentric-sociocentric-worldcentric pattern that shows up across every developmental line he catalogs — a hierarchy in its own right, not an alternative to hierarchy.

In Integral Psychology

Carol Gilligan…outlined a hierarchy of female moral development ("selfish" to "care" to "universal care," yet another version of egocentric to sociocentric to worldcentric), which had an enormous influence on the popular culture to precisely the degree it was widely misinterpreted (as implying that only males go through hierarchical stages; the idea that women do not go through hierarchical development became one of the most influential cultural myths of the last two decades). — Integral Psychology, ch. 7

…researchers from Gebser to Neumann to Gilligan to Loevinger also call specific stages by the actual name "integrated"—usually, their very highest level is given that name, not because the lower levels lack all integration, but because this highest level has the greatest amount of it. — Integral Psychology, ch. 8 (footnote)

See Also

• Lawrence Kohlberg — the SES-side treatment of Gilligan's relationship to Kohlberg's hierarchy
• Chart 5: The Self-Related Stages of Morals and Perspectives — Gilligan correlated against Selman on the fulcrum spine
• Jane Loevinger — another researcher whose highest stage Wilber notes is literally named "integrated"