Lawrence Kolberg thought that Piaget's theory of moral development could be improved and tested.  So, using the story telling techniques of Piaget, he tested 72 boys every three years of a number of years, each time using ten stories that presented a moral dilemma.  From his research he mapped six stages of moral development, organized into three groups,  He argued that as people develop they pass through each stage, however, that people may also get to one stage and fail to develop any further.  The idea that our morals change is, to me, a fascinating one.  Why they change is an even more fascinating question, but also one Kolberg didn't address.

First, some of what  Kolberg said.

In 1977, Kolberg describes moral development by saying:

"Moral development, as initially defined by Piaget and then refined and researched by Kolberg, does not simply represent and increasing knowledge of culture al values usually leading to ethical relativity. Rather, it represents the transformations that occur in a persons form or structure of thought.  The content of values varies from culture to culture; hence the study of cultural values cannot tell us how a person interacts with his social environment, or how a person goes about solving problems related to his/her social world.  This requires the analysis of developing structures of moral judgment, which are found to be universal in a developmental sequence across cultures." Moral Development: A Review of the Theory, Lawrence Kolberg, Richard H. Hersh, Theory into Practice, vol 16. No 2. "Moral Development" (April 1977).  p.54

Thus, the study of moral development is not a study of what should be or should not be done, but of the stages of development people go though as they live and how each of those stages approaches moral questions.  It is not the logical basis for a moral choice that is being examined, but the types of choices being made and bases for that class of choices.  Each stage represents a different matrix of choice and is not necessarily a progressive (meaning somehow "an improvement" over a previous stage).

Kolberg describes the three general stages, each having to sub-stages, as each including three characteristics.

First, each stage is complete in itself with it's own logic and a person in that stage will consistently follow that logic in making moral choices.

Second, each stage is moved through the by the person and unless the person experiences severe trauma, not stage is skipped nor do people move back to a previous stage.  The stages are one way progressive.

And finally, the structure of moral choice made in one stage is carried to the next and is comprehended by the next as moral thinking and decisions incorporate earlier stages and become more sophisticated. 

Kolberg is a bit difficult to understand in describing the third stage as it would appear that he is saying that the higher stages are, indeed, to be preferred to the lower.  But logically to say a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of moral choices is preferred to less complex views of a moral dilemma  one has to first have a belief that greater sophistication is better than less sophistication...a moral view in itself.  I do think the weight of evidence is that a more nuanced and sophisticated approach makes for more satisfactory choice ...satisfactory to the one making the choice anyway.    But that does not, I think, require an acknowledgement that the higher stages are always better at ferreting out the "right" choice.

In any case, here are the six stages.

Stage 1

Preconventional Level

This is the level of moral development where the child (Kolberg worked with children for the most part) understands there is right and there is wrong, but sees those categories strongly linked to punishment and reward.  This is the initial linking of actions and consequences and the child makes moral decisions based on their perception of what the consequences were or are for an action.  Like each of the three stages, preconventional level is divided into two sub-levels.

The first stage is the obedience punishment/reward understanding.  At this stage the child perceives right and wrong as directly linked to the level of punishment or obedience.  There is no conception of any moral code, human value or independent cognitive system, but only of the anticipation of punishment or reward,  with avoiding punishment and gaining reward the total motivation.

The second stage works at the negotiation level as the child learns to judge moral choices as a means to an end.  Here ideas of fairness, sharing and reciprocity enter into the moral choices as the child begins to negotiate his or her social environment.  This sense of right and wrong has little to no bases in theoretical ideas, but is derived by necessity from the need to negotiate with other human beings.

Conventional Level

This level continues and adds to the Preconventional Level, incorporating the lessons learned there and expanding them to include the moral perspectives of their environment.  As the child grows he or she begins to take on the moral and ethical assumptions of their social environment.  Authority is now valued as authority, rather than as just that which grants rewards or punishments.  A theoretical frame work develops by which a social matrix of right and wrong are adopted in response to previous experience with discipline and rewards.

The lowest stage of this level involves the child strengthening links to others by engaging in behaviors which are "good" or "bad" in the eyes of those around them.  This focus on identification of the self as a "good" or "bad"  and learning to be perceived as "good" increases the ratio of reward to punishment and is thus a pragmatic movement.  It also reinforces the various moral judgments of society as they are rewarded and decreases deviation from those norms.

The next stage of this level results in a process by which the learned values become rigid.  It is during this stage that the child becomes more certain of what is right and wrong and displays a more moral rigid code than at any other point in his or her development.  It is for good reason this stage is often labeled the "law and order" stage.

Post Conventional Level (also called the Autonomous or Principled)

This is the level of moral development where the child or young adult (although, strictly speaking the designations "child" and "young adult" are only normative and not absolute descriptors), examines and reexamines his or her moral underpinnings and determines what he or she really thinks or senses to be right or wrong.  Authority becomes less an authority, and the current culture's views come under closer scrutiny. 

The first stage of this third level is a legalist or social contract stage.  In this stage a determination is made to understand how the general morals of society have come into being and how the individual moral values may vary.  Focus is upon how the process by which moral values are negotiated between individuals and groups with an understanding that those processes can be used to change the way the group operates.

The second stage focuses upon discovering the internal principles by which the person determines right or wrong.  This stage focuses upon the universal and abstract concept of morality and attempts a more systematic, logical, and consistent approach.  At this stage moral statements like the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments and the categorical imperative are either replaced by an internal set of convictions or at least incorporated into a larger and broader theoretical framework. 

Finally, we each have a sense of right and wrong.  We each are moving along a course of moral development, but should not take too seriously the idea that the later stages are somehow "better" than the former, for that, is itself, a moral judgment.  What we should ask ourselves is if the later stages are not more pragmatically able to handle the complex moral decisions we need to make.

[Continuation of the above]

My own take on moral development follows similar lines, but stretches the time line from childhood to about twenty, the time line which Kolberg used, to a full life.  I too divide moral development into three basic levels and note how the previous level is incorporated and enhanced by the previous.  My own thinking is very much influenced by Kolberg, but comes at the whole thing from a more historical - philosophical perspective.

My levels begin with the emotive-expressive level present in children from about 2 to 7  The characteristics of the emotive-expressive level are a strong expression of shame when confronted with being "bad," a desire to be loved and thus to be obedient as a form of earning love, and a belief in the magic of expressing oneself love toward the parent or, in the later level, the teacher.  As the child develops he or she becomes more and more to believe that the ideas of right and wrong are true and absolute.  Expressions of surprise when parents or teachers do not do as the child understands should be done are common and the child seeks stability and safety if the moral choices of the parents and older siblings become inconsistent.  This may drive the child into a survival mode mentality and isolation.

When the child enters into extended contact with other children in the school environment he or she begins to transfer his or her focus from the parents to teacher often pitting the perceived moral attitudes of the parents against the teachers.  Depending on which environment is more stable and comforting the child's loyalties or moral alignment may shift from the parents to the school, though the shift is seldom permanent and never complete at this age.  In any case, the child, in response to mixed messages, begins the long process of realizing that morals are not absolute, at least that while they may be absolute people don't always have the same ideas about them.  Team sports are one example as some coaches have a "win at any cost" while others follow "every kid has a chance to be a star" philosophy.

In the confusion of all this the child develops a sort of fairness ideal.  To the child all rules should be rules for everybody, and all people should be treated in accordance to their station in life...meaning that if the society is egalitarian then all rules should be applied equally, and if the society is more class based, that a person should be treated according to his or her class.  "Fairness" is being treated as you should be treated.   It is at the end of this level that the child begins to struggle with the idea that things are not fair and that people do not act morally. 

The second level begins around eight, and is called the social-emotive stage.  It continues and never fades though by about twenty the third level has made it's appearance.  This level incorporates Kolberg's second level as well as the first half of his third level. In this level the child/young adult, transforms his or here moral processing form the mimicry of authority to, the influence of his or her peers.  It is not an absolute thing but layered upon the moral structures of right and wrong delivered to him or her from his or her parents and from his or her early educational experiences.  As the child enters the social world the first thing he or she learns is that the moral underpinnings of his or her life are not shared by all peoples.  In response the child, probably in an attempt to find stability, seeks to find a more rigid senses of right and wrong.  At the beginning of this process the child will adopt strict rules of right and wrong and begins to express to others the need to live up to these ideals.  It is said that at age nine a person has the clearest idea of what right and wrong is, and the most passionate expression of it. 

As the child experiences that moral choices are not black and white, and that he or she cannot readily influence others choices, many children layer their decisions based upon the idea that one person is a "bad" person and another a "good" person.  This classification is based upon their experience and with the labeling often done by their peers.  It is at this level, between nine and fourteen that social alignment comes about with loyalties to the group and it's moral stance taking more and more precedence over what may have been taught at an earlier age.  In an effort to "fit in" the child finds comfort and stability in the shared moral stance of his or her peers and adopts expressions of that stance as a form of identity.  Commonly called "peer pressure" this social-emotive level peaks at around thirteen to fifteen and then begins to wane as the child matures.

This identification with his or her peers is not surprising as the child spend more and more time away from home but still finds a need for inclusion and comfort.   At the same time the child is developing an "ideal self" within to which or she always falls short.  This development of an "ideal self" coincides with the alignment of the moral code with his or her peers and thus, the child may change how the "ideal self" in accordance with the moral vision several times in the course of development.  Here is where the idea of the ideal gender identification takes hold and the movement of the child into puberty includes a growing incorporation of the groups vision of the ideal person.  Boys traditionally begin to enact the vision they had delivered to them as a youngster...that of a 'manly man'...while girls are more influenced by the general ideas of the 'girly girl."  This is also where gender confusion peaks as some boys often find they are not attracted to or cannot enact the moral vision of being the "manly man" and some girls are not particularly fond of or able to enact that of being "girly girls."  The tension between the normative social vision and the inner senses may drive the conflicted child into psychological distress, and/or it may begin the process by which the child separates himself or herself from social-sexual vision of his or her peers, moves from that group to one which is more accepting of his or her gender identity, is actually aligned with it, or learns to adapt to the socially normative vision.  In any case, the moral development at this level is a tension between the inner moral vision of the individual and the social-emotive vision of his or her peers layered over the emotive-expressive concepts of earlier childhood.

The moral development of the child continues to move away from a strictly social-emotive perspective into a more mature version as time passes.  At about fourteen or fifteen the child reaches the peak of peer influence of social choices, and after that begins to develop what will be their adult perspective.

From age fourteen to twenty or so, the young person focuses on the "ideal self" and moral choices become more and more about what he or she senses is right or wrong for him or herself.  The social-emotive values picked up from his or social group or groups, transition into a the third level, the intellectual-emotive.  It is at this period that individuals begin to separate themselves and personality traits begin to influence the growth or restriction of a persons moral development.  For moral development one of the forums of intelligence and it should not surprise anyone that some persons do not develop past a certain moral development level.  This is not a judgment that they are wrong for not developing a more complex moral vision, but in fact, only an observation that, just as some persons cannot proceed past basic math into Algebra, Geometry, Calculus and so on, so too, there is a quotient of moral development as well. 

In any case, those of sufficient moral quotient, internalize, process and adopt basic moral stances at this stage and their moral character is pretty much set for the rest of his or her life.  This is the beginning of the third level of moral development, though it does not come into full force until much later.  In any case at the end of the  second level of the socio-emotive stage commitments to religion, philosophy, politics and every other sort of long term alignment, are made, often in response to what was learned in the first half of the social-emotive level rather than any systematic thought about such matters.  Most people in this time period absorb ideas and assumptions without much question and the search for moral absolutes falls by the wayside under the more pragmatic needs to "fit in" and "get along."  In this period the young person adopts positions out of a sense of need more than any thing else.  As the young person is exposed to more and more ideas he or she often "tries out" one moral stance or another and if one or the other meets the need, so be it.  The difference between this person and the earlier time period where peer pressure is at it's peak, is that the person in the latter half of the second level is not adopting his or her moral stance to "fit in" so much as to "live up to" his or her ideal self.

This idea of an "ideal self" is a development which strengthens as the young person moves from the social-emotive stage into the ideational-emotive stage, marks the advent of adult conception of morals.  Just as in Kolberg the child moves from "effects" to "acceptence" to "independence" so to the same movement from external measures to internalization occurs. 

So, as the second level continues and the young person becomes more independent of his or her family and even of his or her peers they also may begin to build a moral foundation built upon more intellectual ideas.  From about sixteen to twenty if a young person is of a certain personality he or she will continue to expand their moral vision to that of not only their family, school, friends and society, but also explore the intellectual vision of thinkers from history.  This, intellectual moral vision, will, in time, come to dominate as the person configures their ideal self out of personal experiences and the previous experiences of other writers and thinkers.  This is the transition into the third, ideational-emotive level.  In a way they then become influenced by the general cultural direction across a temporal vision that may be decades, centuries or even millennium wide.  One of the characteristics of this level may be a growing conviction that his or her moral vision is superior to most others.  As the individual builds his or her base of knowledge and experience, he or she may feel that he or she has "done away with" the ideas believed at an earlier level because he or she has found a different explanation for the actions of the individuals or groups.  This tendency to throw out earlier beliefs as inferior (because the new knowledge purports to 'explain' why the mistakes in belief in the past, usually by a "scientific" socio-psychological explanation), can often lead the person toward a feeling of moral superiority  by mistaking intellectual superiority for moral superiority.  And it is at the opening stage of the third level which many intelligent persons come to rest.

In any case, as they discover that other moral visions are in competition with their own and begin to sort out the underlying principles of what it means to be a moral person, if they continue to develop the also begin to understand the limits of their own intelligence.  It is hard sloughing at this point as psychologically it is impossible to have faith in anything if you don't have faith in yourself, and we generally want to have the most faith in ourselves.  In other words, you must think you are sane before you can think the things you think are sane.  The final development of a moral stance is a lifelong affair that sometimes includes doubt, faith, uncertainty, and most of all a realization that, as Tolstoy, Silone, Hess, Dostoevsky and many other writers and thinkers have found, maybe you were better off as a child when you thought you knew right from wrong and it was all much, much simpler.  It is not a "good and perfect gift" sometimes to be face to face with the limits of your own mind as you find your own mind may not be fully up to the task of "knowing right from wrong."

Objections

No doubt you will find a lot of objections to Kolberg and my own systems of thought on moral development.  I will let you read up on Kolberg and enter the fray of the arguments that have been going on for many decades now about his theories, and make some critique of my own of my own outline.

First, it's self serving.  (And you thought I didn't notice).  As a philosopher and intellectual it's pretty easy to simply say: the smarter you are and the more educated the more moral you become.  But if that were true you wouldn't see, as I have seen, professors running off with students, top level scientists fudging their numbers,  science writers exaggerating the level of certainty in order to make a story more hard hitting, top level politicians caught in every manner of sexual and financial immorality, and religious and atheist leaders both involved in intellectually and financially defrauding their followers.  I could go on, but I won't.  The overwhelming evidence concludes that smart people are no more moral than less intelligent ones.  I truly wish all there was to making a moral person out of a barbarian is a bit of education, but I fear that too often education just hides the barbarian in a nice long robe and miter that, once dawned, makes the person think they can do no wrong.

But, at the same time, knowledge grows beside the road to wisdom and is the sustenance we much gather as we travel.  It is the seed of wisdom that must be watered, often by the tears of humility you get when you find you have screwed up, yet again.  A wise person is often the one who has suffered the most for his mistakes.

Second, it implies that people may suffer from "arrested" development.  This is true in that most intelligent people never get past the opening stage of the third level and some not even that far.  I'm reminded of Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" in this.  The City of Pride is where most intellectuals reside, and having had a flat there for most of my life I understand the allure of streets paved with the gold of self-proclaimed genius.  It may be that it is a blessing to be of middling intelligence because you begin with an understanding of your limits and can grow quite slowly.  And slow intellectual growth and moral development done in humility, usually produces better results.  At least that's what I think.

In summary, both Kolberg's levels and my own incorporate the idea that there is no going back, and that each successive level incorporates the one that proceeds it.  In Kolberg's taxonomy there appears to be a strong belief that all children proceed through each level, while in mine it may be that the vast majority suffer (or are blessed by) having arrested development.

Finally, it's been a long, one-way discussion of moral development.  If you've actually read this far I apologize if it was a torturous read.  Not much I can do about that.  However, it would be interesting to find out what you think, and especially if you are willing to share, at what level of either Kolberg's or my own, you envision yourself to be.  I know it may be a lot to ask and nobody should feel obligated to say, but it would be interesting anyway.

As for me, like most intellectuals I'm pretty much stuck at the end of the first stage of the ideational-emotive level, though I keep working and do have some hope of pushing on.

AJ

PS  If you wish to read some fiction regarding moral development (as fiction is much more fun to read that these musings of mine -- though some might think them fiction too.-- I would suggest "Bread and Wind" by Ignazio Silone, "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse,  "A Confession" by Leo Tolstoy (actually this is an auto-biography, so it's not fiction), and/or "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  aj