“…Hardy (1978) suggested borrowing theories from other disciplines is appropriate when they are empirically validated to determine their congruence with nursing knowledge and practice. As with Kohlberg's theory, Gilligan's framework has many critics (Gould, 1988;Greeno &Moccoby, 1986;Luria, 1986;Walker, 1984Walker, , 1986. Adoption of Gilligan's theory is premature however, according to Huggins and Scalzi (1988), there is sufficient empirical support to question the exclusive use of Kohlbergian measures of moral reasoning in nursing research.…”