Care and moral understanding › What the argument leaves to establish

Gilligan's challenge has several parts that should be assessed separately. The interpretation of an interview needs to show that the participant's reasoning has been understood. A criticism of an assessment needs to show where its categories misrepresent that reasoning. A developmental account needs evidence about change, including the conditions under which the proposed pattern holds.

None of these tasks is completed merely by giving a response a sympathetic label. An interviewer can overinterpret care as well as overlook it. If we assume every hesitant answer contains an unrecognized moral insight, we have exchanged one predetermined interpretation for another. Listening requires testing a reading against what the person says, including answers that complicate our preferred explanation.

There is also a philosophical question about how care and justice relate. Suppose two people have serious needs and one person cannot meet both. Understanding each need is necessary for a careful response, but it does not make the conflict disappear. We still need reasons for a priority and an account of what remains owed to the person whose need cannot be met.

The same issue arises when a familiar relationship competes with a stranger's claim. Closeness can help us recognize a need vividly, but vividness does not by itself establish its moral priority. A satisfactory account needs to explain the significance and limits of particular responsibility. Asking that question does not show that relationships are irrelevant; it prevents their importance from becoming a universal answer.

Gilligan's critique gives us a reason to keep both the interpretation and the evaluative question open. A theory can neglect a kind of moral attention without its rival thereby having a complete answer to every dilemma. Discovering an omission creates work for moral inquiry. It does not relieve us of the need to justify a judgment.