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Individual Moral Development and Moral Progress

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2016

At first glance, one of the most obvious places to look for moral progress is in individuals, in particular in moral development from childhood to adulthood. In fact, that moral progress is possible is a foundational assumption of moral education. Beyond the general agreement that moral progress is not only possible but even a common feature of human development things become blurry, however. For what do we mean by 'progress'? And what constitutes moral progress? Does the idea of individual moral progress presuppose a predetermined end or goal of moral education and development, or not? In this article we analyze the concept of moral progress to shed light on the psychology of moral development and vice versa; these analyses are found to be mutually supportive. We suggest that: moral progress should be conceived of as development that is evaluated positively on the basis of relatively stable moral criteria that are the fruit and the subject of an ongoing conversation; moral progress does not imply the idea of an end-state; individual moral progress is best conceived of as the development of various components of moral functioning and their robust integration in a person's identity; both children and adults can progress morally-even though we would probably not speak in terms of progress in the case of children-but adults' moral progress is both more hard-won and to a greater extent a personal project rather than a collective effort.

Moral Development

The Encyclopedia of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 2013

Although moral development has been studied from a variety of psychological perspectives, including learning theory, psychoanalysis, and others, current studies of moral development have been strongly influenced by the cognitive developmental approach of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg identified several fundamental philosophical issues underlying studies of moral development, such as the question of a culturally fair definition of the construct. Psychologists studying morality or moral development must deal with the problem of moral relativism or value neutrality, which stems from the value-laden words "moral" and "development." Moral relativism is the position that moral values differ among cultures and peoples and are therefore not universal. Conceptually, we must distinguish ethical moral relativism from descriptive moral relativism, because the relevant reasoning and evidence differ. Ethical relativism insists that basic values held in different cultures are equally right. Descriptive relativism simply holds that, factually, moral values held by people vary with culture. Ethical relativism may have value in guiding cross-cultural research in culturally fair ways. For Western psychologists, it might have the principal effect of restraining easy applications of their own conceptions to other cultures-important because Western psychologists have had more opportunities to apply the theories of their own cultures to other non-Western cultures. For non-Western psychologists, the doctrine of cultural relativism may have the effect of raising the status of their culture-bound conceptions or values. However, the doctrine of relativism has the pitfall of leading people to the position that any psychological phenomenon in a culture should be understood and evaluated only by its own cultural standards. Considering the increased

On the implications of development for moral education

OGIRISI: a New Journal of African Studies, 2016

This paper examines the concept of development and the implication it has for moral education. While using the word "development" in its general understanding as change from one stage to the other, it went beyond this to the psychological. It alludes that in terms of moral education, development is not just any behaviour change, but a change toward greater differentiation, integration, and adaptation. In other words, that development as a movement through a sequential progression represents movement from a less adequate psychological state to a more adequate psychological state. Using the method of analysis and description, it came to the conclusion that education for moral and general cognitive development must be judged by its contribution to a more general concept of egodevelopment. Development in Perspective The developmental-philosophic strategy in contrast with some other approaches can deal with two persistent problems: the ethical question of having a standard of non-relative or universal value and factual questions of prediction. The concept of development, as elaborated by cognitive-developmental theory, implies a standard of adequacy internal to, and governing, the developmental process itself (Udokang 2010). It is obvious that the notion of development must do more than merely define what comes later in time. This is so because it is not clear that what comes later must be better. For example, if anal interests mature later in time than oral interests, this in itself is no reason for claiming that the anal interests are better than the oral interests. Cognitive-developmental theory, however, postulates a formal internal standard of adequacy which is not merely an order of events in time. In doing so it elaborates the ordinary-language meaning of the term "development". Webster's Dictionary tells us

Moral development at the crossroads: New trends and possible futures

Developmental Psychology, 2014

This article introduces a special section on moral development. We claim that the field is now undergoing a resurgence of theoretical and methodological innovation after the eclipse of paradigmatic moral stage theory. Although research on prosocial development, moral emotions, and social domain theory has sustained interest in moral development, recent additional trends have contributed to its resurgence. This includes research in neuroscience, sociobiology, and social psychology; broad interest in moral-character education and virtues; and the appearance of recent handbooks and special journal issues. We review 3 broad possible future themes (early development, self and personality, and culture) of moral development research and introduce a set of new contributions in this special section as examples.

Introduction: Meaning, measurement, and correlates of moral development

European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 2013

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The Virtues and Vices of Moral Development Theorists

Developmental Review, 1996

In arguing that "Kantian presuppositions" underlie contemporary research on moral judgment, Campbell and Christopher resort to a number of errors, misconceptions, and exaggerations. They construe the cognitive-developmental and domain approaches too narrowly, overinterpret the influence of Kant on moral judgment theorizing to the exclusion of other equally important non-Kantian philosophical influences, and ignore much of the research evidence. Contemporary and historical philosophical perspectives and research findings from studies of social and moral development are used to illustrate the need for drawing a number of distinctions in research on social judgments, including that between domains of social reasoning, informational assumptions, moral judgment, and variations in judgments and behavior between social contexts. The limitations of a strictly eudaemonist perspective on morality are discussed.