Personal Theory of Moral Development

Moral education has always been central to the educational process. Since the time of the Greek philosophers those responsible for educating young children have been concerned either directly or indirectly with moral questions. What has changed is the way in which educators have approached moral issues in the classroom and in the curriculum. The questions and issues are complex and form the basis of reformers' efforts to change the way in which schools confront the moral dimensions of education in a postmodern world. The challenges educators confront today have clear grounding in what has occurred over the past 200 years, as schooling moved increasingly toward a public good.

The Roots of Moral Development

Moral development finds root in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant's conception of morality was based on duty and performance regardless of circumstance or consequence. Morality depended upon the distinction between actions directed by hypothetical imperatives and actions directed by categorical imperatives. To Kant, hypothetical imperatives predicated on the just reward principle were the antithesis of moral behavior. Only categorical imperatives represented a higher order of morality, a universal law.

Kant constructed a dichotomy of morality, contrasting heteronymous morality with autonomous morality. Heteronymous morality depended upon external authority such as God or obedience to the state. Autonomous morality was a personal choice, a free will, where actions were based on individual conscience. Moral actions, as conceived by Kant, were both altruistic and formalist in concept. A formalist perceived moral development to occur in stages of universal categorical imperatives (moral rules) that guided social action. An altruist perceived moral development to be based solely in self-sacrifice and the desire to help others, a tenet of prosaically behavior. (Presser, pp. 162-188)

The 20th-century developmental psychologist Jean Piaget based his theories of moral development on the prosaically behavior of children during play. Piaget's theory of moral development displayed the Kantian influence of formalism. Piaget observed children's application of rules as they played. He interviewed young children to determine their reactions to acts such as stealing and lying. Piaget found that young children's moral reasoning could rarely go beyond the formalist concept of a forbidden act. Piaget concluded that within this heteronymous stage of moral reasoning, a child made moral decisions based on duties, rules, and obedience to authority. Additionally, Piaget found that a young child's moral reasoning was egocentric and founded on a form of moral realism. Moral realism, a form of hypothetical imperative, would, for example, value the letter of the law above the purpose. Young children were more concerned about the outcome of the action than the underlying intent. Powerless, young children adhered to principles of immanent justice, expecting punishment to be the natural result of wrongdoing. Piaget determined that as children matured, moral reasoning became autonomous. Older children's level of moral awareness commonly assigned importance to the intention of the act and concepts of mutual respect and cooperation. This shift from egocentric morality to perspective taking was a significant stage in Piaget's theory of moral ...