Levels as traps: beyond linearity

Learnings for the Future of Inter-Faith Dialogue (Part #8)

The level approach has been criticized by feminist scholars, notably Carol Gilligan (19, 20), for being gender biased in its uni-directionality. It is argued that women are less concerned with rules and more with relationships, with where actions might lead and with the history behind moral dilemmas. Emphasis on levels de-emphasizes the degree of connectedness experienced by women. Cognitively, levels may thus be seen as a metaphorical trap.

The need to see different 'levels' as each providing its own valid framework, between which it is important to be able to shift flexibly, is stressed by another female scholar J Hemenway (21) in her description of four complementary faith frameworks. Jacobs endorses this principle although pointing to resemblances between such frameworks and the kinds of stage distinguished above. He stresses that her approach is not developmental in nature. There is no sense in which someone moves 'back' or 'forward' between stages that would imply a value judgement that one framework is more 'healthy' than another. He also points to theefforts of Don Cupitt (22) to produce a kind of non-linear 'metro-map' interrelating 16 religious approaches.

For Jacobs, 'if the wish for order draws us toward linear models, it is important to emphasize that at whatever stage a person is, especially in terms of their psychology of belief, none is any 'better' or 'worse' than another. The only qualification to this is that within each stage some forms of belief appear to be more positive for psychological health than others.' (p. 52)