The Development Of Moral Judgment

By Author: Jackey
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Among these components, the one with the strongest developmental foundation is moral judgment, extensively informed by the work of Lawrence Kohlberg (1981, 1984). Excellent summaries of his theory and critiques of his work may be found elsewhere (Kohlberg, Levine, & Hewer, 1983; Kuhmerker, 1991; Rest, 1979; Schrader, 1990; Snarey & Samuelson, 2008). Since this work is Cartier Replica Watches widely available elsewhere, I turn instead to a more recent formulation that has great potential to inform future work on the development of moral judgment among college students.

Drawing from the work of Kohlberg and on new insights from schema theory, combined with their extensive research on the development of moral judgment, Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, and Thoma (1999) reinterpreted salient elements from these perspectives, and proposed three developmentally ordered schemas associated with moral thinking. Much of this book is devoted to validating these schemas as an alternative explanation to Kohlberg's stage theory, addressing some of the weaknesses ...
... (e.g., simple stage assumptions/ invariant sequence) while retaining the essence of the developmental sequence.

The first schema is the personal interest schema; as its name suggests, individuals using this approach are motivated by self-interest, such as the personal stake one has in the consequences of an action, or fear of authority. There is no sign of personal responsibility as a reason for an action, and this approach does not reflect an understanding of society as an organized entity. Consider the context of a judicial hearing where a student is asked to explain his understanding of Replica Tag Heuer what he did wrong after being caught cheating and replies, "I got caught." This response suggests that he understood the situation from a personal interest perspective.

The second schema, maintaining norms, is characterized by the acknowledgement of the need for normative rules and systems that are reliable and provide for safety and coordination among community members. Formal laws, rules, codes of conduct, and norms that are known by and applied to all members are seen as means that help assure society-wide cooperation. In contrast with the personal interest schema, such rules apply not only to friends and family, but are extended to strangers and even competitors; this level represents a developmental advance as it indicates a more complex and encompassing frame of reference for organizing meaning of social interactions. However, this emphasis on social order becomes morally inadequate when the existing order is protected at the expense of basic human rights.