Caring about injustice: The moral self-perceptions of professional female bodybuilders

The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to investigate the moral orienta tions of professional female bodybuilders and (b) to explore the relationsh ip between professional female bodybuilders' moral orientations when reason ing about self-identified and standardized hypothetical (steroid) moral dil emmas. Ten professional female bodybuilders ranging in age from 26 to 40 ye ars participated in the study. Results revealed that female bodybuilders us ed both justice and care reasoning in their considerations of moral dilemma s encountered in the bodybuilding context; however, one moral orientation p redominated over the other for each participant. Although Gilligan and coll eagues (Brown et al., 1988) claim that women tend to use predominantly care reasoning, the present study found that half the participants used a justi ce perspective. Results are discussed in light of Rest's (Rest, Narvaez, Be beau, & Thoma, 1999) supposition that care and justice are ideals appropria te to different kinds of social situations and are complementary rather tha n rival moralities.