ABSTRACT
The fact that feminists disagree about the ways in which and the degree to which culturally constructed concepts of "femininity" and "masculinity" contribute to women's subordination explains feminist ethics in the plural. The writings of Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings comprise two widely recognized care-focused feminist approaches to ethics. In her pathbreaking book, In a Different Voice, Gilligan offers an account of women's moral development that challenges Lawrence Kohlberg's account of human beings' moral development. Even though Gilligan's ethics of care has been favorably received both by the general public and by many scholars, critics have raised several plausible objections against it. Unlike care-focused feminist approaches to ethics, power-focused feminist approaches to ethics ask questions about male domination and female subordination before they ask questions about good and evil, care and justice, or mothers and children. Feminist ethicists deny that the care-focused and power-focused approaches to ethics are sexist.
