Kohlberg and Ethical Universalism by Kwok Wing Anthony Yeung B.A. (Hons.), The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1990 M. Phil., the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1992 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES Department of Philosophy We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA September 30, 1998 Kwok Wing Anthony Yeung 1998
In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada Date C?d. I. /ff<2- DE-6 (2/88)
ii Abstract This dissertation is a study of Kohlberg's moral psychology, which is a six-stage model of moral development. Kohlberg claims that his stages form a universal invariant sequence and that they are hierarchical, i.e., higher stages are better than lower stages. Accordingly, he claims that Stage 6 morality, which centers on justice, is universally valid. This ethic of justice is embodied mainly in respect for persons, fairness, and the procedural principle of ideal role taking. Kohlberg claims not only that Stage 6 values and principles are universally valid, but also that they are determinate. In other words, reasoning in terms of these values and principles guarantees that, for each particular moral problem, there will be a distinct solution on which all morally mature people could agree. By making these claims Kohlberg is advocating a strong and traditional version of universalism, which I call 'paradigm universalism.' The dissertation is divided into five chapters. In the first two chapters I outline Kohlberg's theory and explore its philosophical implications. In Chapter 3 I discuss Kohlberg's debates with two important critics, Gilligan and Flanagan. Gilligan claims that Kohlberg's emphasis on justice rather than care indicates a gender bias in his model. Flanagan, on the other hand, argues that since morality is multifarious it is wrong to i equate morality either with justice or care of a combination of both. While these criticism do point out certain shortcomings of Kohlberg's theory, I argue that they do not seriously threaten the universal validity of Stage 6 moral values and principles in general. Chapter 4 introduces the main philosophical arguments of this dissertation. In this chapter I argue that (1) moral psychology is relevant to moral philosophy; (2) that the claim of hierarchy for the Kohlbergian stages does receive significant support from his research; and
Ill therefore (3) Stage 6 does plausibly reflect certain universal moral ideals. At the same time I allow (4) that there is clearly certain cultural bias in Kohlberg's theory and (5) that he is excessively optimistic about the determinacy of Stage 6 moral reasoning. In the final Chapter, I reflect on the universalism-relativism debate in light of Kohlberg's theory. I argue that paradigm universalism is too strong for Kohlberg to support, and that universalism is acceptable only in a weakened form which I call 'minimal universalism.' Contrary to the hope of paradigm universalists, this minimal universalism cannot serve as a comprehensive theory for solving moral problems. Neither does it exclude all forms of ethical relativism, but it does set important limits to any acceptable relativist theory.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract Table of contents Acknowledgment Introduction Chapter 1: Kohlberg's theory the early model Section 1. The stage model Section 2: Empirical tests Section 3: Philosophical implications Section 4: Explanatory difficulties Section 5: Summary Chapter 2: Kohlberg's theory the late model Section 1: Modifications made in the late model Section 2: Empirical support Section 3: Postconventional moral conception Section 4: Philosophical implications updated Chapter 3: Criticisms of Kohlberg Section 1: Gilligan and the ethic of care Section 2: Reply from Kohlberg and his school Section 3: Reflections on the Kohlberg-Gilligan debate Section 4: Flanagan and pluralism Section 5: Kohlberg's reply Section 6: Flanagan's counter-arguments Section 7: Reflections on the Kohlberg-Flanagan debate Section 8: Summary Chapter 4: From moral psychology to moral philosophy Section 1: The relevance of psychology to moral philosophy Section 2: Supremacy and universality of Stage 6 Section 3: Summary Chapter 5:A reflection on the universalism-relativism debate Section 1: A reflection on Kohlberg's universalist claims Section 2: Minimal universalism Section 3: From minimal universalism to limited relativism Section 4: The study of human good Bibliography Appendices
Acknowledgment There are many people I wish to thank for their assistance and support in the preparation of this dissertation. I would like to thank my supervisor, Professor Earl Winkler, for his guidance and encouragement. He patiently went through my rough, disorganized drafts, gave advice on how to refine my arguments, and helped to shape this dissertation as it is today. I owe much to Professor Lawrence Walker, with whom I have studied moral psychology. His instruction provided me with a good foundation for understanding Kohlberg's theory and moral developmental psychology in general. I am also indebted to Professor Jerrold Coombs, who helped me clarify important ideas for understanding Kohlberg's theory and method on the one hand, and its philosophical implications on the other. I am also grateful to my proof-readers, Angela Yee, Emma Poon and Jeaneette Lim. Finally, I have to thank my wife, Carole Hang Fung Hoyan, who helped me edit my final drafts, and advised me on the writing of the dissertation. I am most grateful for her love and support.
1 Introduction The project This dissertation is a study of Kohlberg's moral theory. Kohlberg is probably the most important moral developmental psychologist of the century. What is especially interesting about his theory is that it concerns not only the phenomena of human moral development, but also the possibility of developing a certain universalist moral philosophy based on these phenomena. Kohlberg's theory and arguments suggest a strong version of universalism, although he may not have advocated it explicitly. According to this universalism, there are some ultimate and all-embracing moral principles and decision-making procedures that determine the solutions of moral dilemmas in a definite way. Two questions then follow. First, is it possible to develop any ethical theory based on empirical knowledge at all? Second, does Kohlberg's research successfully defend the form of universalism he wants to defend? If not, precisely what theory does his research support? This dissertation is an attempt to reply to these questions. I will argue that empirical studies are relevant to moral philosophy in a way comparable (though not identical) to the way in which observations of particular events support general scientific theories. But I will also argue that Kohlberg's research does not support the kind of universalism he wants to defend. The only way we can defend universalism is to weaken our universalistic claim by abandoning the idea that universal moral principles or decision-making procedures can guarantee unique solutions for all moral problems. But a kind of universalism, weakened this way, does receive significant support from
Kohlberg's research. In the course of developing this view I will explain what remains universalitc about this "minimal" universalism. Why moral psychology That Kohlberg's research supports a weak version of universalism has great significance. We live with a mixture of many moral intuitions. When philosophers discuss moral problems, they cannot help starting from premises which they find undeniable. Different philosophers begin with different fundamental intuitions, all of which are believed by their proponents to be obvious, but people nevertheless disagree. Bentham intuits that all pleasures are good and that they differ only in quantity. Mill agrees that pleasure alone is good but insists that pleasures differ in quality as well as in quantity. Moore rejects the idea that all good is ultimately grounded in pleasure. And so on. Who is to be the final judge? If empirical data about moral development do support a certain kind of ethical theory, we can say, as physicists may do, that there is no final judge, or rather that the only judges we have are logic and the empirical data, at least ideally speaking. If I believe that time and space are absolute, I am wrong in spite of my strong intuition that they are so. In face of all the empirical evidence, it is no use for me to complain that it is unimaginable that time and space are relative. Likewise, if empirical data about moral development do support a certain kind of ethical theory, then there will be real hope that we can settle some important controversies in moral philosophy. Since Kohlberg's (1958) study, the cognitive developmental approach in moral developmental psychology has become a distinctive field of study. Kurtines & Gewirtz
say that Kohlberg was "almost single-handedly responsible for a 'cognitive' revolution in the moral development literature that paralleled the cognitive revolution that was taking place in developmental psychology during the decades of the 60s and 70s." 1 Kohlberg's developmental theory is a six-stage model of moral development. 2, Every stage represents a "form" of moral reasoning. Two claims of Kohlberg's are especially important and philosophically interesting. First, he claims that development through these stages is universally invariant. Everybody in different cultures develops morally through the same sequence of stages. Second, when one moves from a lower stage to a higher one, the moral adequacy of one's mode of reasoning increases. From these two claims it follows that Stage 6 represents the universal destiny of moral development, and hence represents the universal moral ideal. In this sense the moral standard at Stage 6 is ultimate and supreme, and the standard constitutes a form of ethical universalism. > There are also other interesting philosophical claims in Kohlberg's theory. These include his formalism, rationalism, objectivism, and constructivism. Kohlberg regards his theory as a formalism in that moral adequacy is determined by the "form" of reasoning behind particular moral judgments. It is rationalistic in that, firstly, moral correctness is largely determined in terms of moral reasoning, and secondly, the correct way of moral 1 William M. Kurtines & Jacob L. Gewirtz, Prologue to "Part I: Cognitive Developmental Perspectives'^In Moral Development: An Introduction, ed. William M. Kurtines & Jacob L. Gewirtz (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995), 19. 2 Kohlberg also assumes the existence of a seventh stage. Stage 6 reasoning, being the most adequate form of reasoning, deals only with the question of what is the morally right thing to do. Stage 7 goes beyond Stage 6 in that it proceeds to address the quesiton of why one should be moral at all. It does not introduce any new moral principles or values, but accomodates morality by constructing a view about the relation between the individual and the universe: Generally speaking, Stage 7 involves an identity or unity with being, life, or with God, and moral life is an expression.such identity (Kohlberg 1984, p. 41). Since Stage 7
4 reasoning is nearly all one needs to be a moral person. It is objectivist in that there is a method by which we can judge the validity of a moral judgment, which is independent of personal feelings or opinions. But his objectivism takes a naturalistic form. It does not, like Plato's theory of idea, regard moral values as something that exists totally independent of the human mind or human activities. Rather, it manifests itself as a claim that morality is a human construct. He calls this view "constructivism." Though the validity of these claims is not the main concern of this dissertation, I will also discuss these topics briefly. Gilligan and Flanagan Although Kohlberg's theory has become a powerful theory in the field of moral psychology, it is not immune from criticisms. Many argue that Kohlberg's theoretical model fails to provide a complete account of the kinds of moral reasoning people actually employ. Some challenge his methodology, and some challenge his derivation of normative claims from empirical phenomena. Some even deny that Kohlberg is studying moral reasoning at all. The MJI method (Moral Judgment Interview, the method Kohlberg uses to elicit the moral reasoning of his subjects), it is maintained, elicits people's moral justification rather than their reasoning. 4 The difference between moral reasoning and moral justification is that, while the former is what the subject employs in order to reach his decision, the latter is what the subject uses to rationalize his choice after the choice is made. Therefore it can hardly be the case that Kohlberg's model is a model about the reasoning that determines moral decisions. has nothing to do with adequacy of moral reasoning as such, I will not discuss its status in detail in this dissertation. 3 As we shall see, the second idea has been weakened with the later development of Kohlberg's theory.
5 I will deliberately avoid discussing the last of the above objections. My project in this dissertation is to explore and critically examine the claim of universality in Kohlberg's theory. Since universalism only deals with the problem of universal moral standards, we can avoid the intriguing problem about whether Kohlberg is measuring reasoning or justification. Even if what Kohlberg measures is justification but not reasoning, it still reveals something about the moral standards of people, for both moral reasoning and moral justification presuppose certain moral standards. Whether one is to reason about a moral problem or to justify one's moral decision, he has to rely on some moral standards. He can be satisfied or dissatisfied with his moral justification as much as he can with his reasoning. As far as he is dissatisfied with his moral justification, he will either throw doubts on the standards behind his justification or admit that his moral decision is not justifiable. Therefore, even if what the MJI method elicits is moral justification, it still helps to reveal the moral standards of the subjects. The first two questions, however, cannot be so avoided. If Kohlberg's account of people's approaches to moral reasoning is incomplete, then one can reasonably doubt whether his theory is universally applicable. If there is any problem in his research method or in his basic ideas about the relation between psychology and philosophy, then his arguments for his philosophical claims will not be sound. I will concentrate on two principal critics of Kohlberg, Gilligan and Flanagan. Gilligan is doubtlessly the most famous opponent of Kohlberg. She is a moral psychologist who used to work with Kohlberg but became convinced that Kohlberg's model is flawed. Flanagan, on the other hand, criticizes Kohlberg from a more philosophical perspective. They are not the only 4 This point is mentioned by Professor Coombs to me in a personal discussion.
6 opponents of Kohlberg's theory, but their criticisms represent principal objections from the views of both disciplines. By considering their objections to Kohlberg we can have a fairly complete understanding of both the strengths and weaknesses of Kohlberg's theory. Structure of the dissertation This dissertation is composed of five chapters. In the first two chapters, I will explore Kohlberg's empirical studies, the various formulations of his theory, and their philosophical implications. In Chapter 3 I will review Gilligan's and Flanagan's objections to his theory. I will assess how well Kohlberg's views can survive these objections. Then, in Chapter 4,1 will argue in support of Kohlberg's claim for the supreme adequacy of Stage 6 moral reasoning, partially on the basis of relevant empirical research. The final chapter will be a reflection on the universalism-relativism debate in light of Kohlberg's theory and research. Based on what we have learned from the debate between Kohlberg and his critics, I will propose a minimal universalism. In doing so, I will also briefly discuss how universalism and relativism can be reconciled.
7 Chapter One: Kohlberg's theory the early model Kohlberg's developmental theory was changing almost all through his academic life. His theoretical claims and study methods at different times are intricately related to each other, and are impossible to be summarized in a few paragraphs. In order to provide the reader with a relatively clear picture of Kohlberg's theory, I will describe his theory in terms of an early model and a late model, using Kohlberg's two anthologies as representatives of these models. The first anthology is The Philosophy of Moral Development, published in 1981 (abbreviated as Kohlberg 1981 below). 1 This anthology is a collection of a number of Kohlberg's early papers, which were written between the years 1967 and 1979. These include most of his seminal research in moral psychology, as well as his early views on moral philosophy and moral education. The second anthology is The Psychology of Moral Development, published in 1984 (abbreviated as Kohlberg 1984). This second volume also includes a few of Kohlberg's early papers, but starting with Chapter 3 it represents the a substantially revised version of his theory, and reports studies using revised research methods. Since the publication of the (1984) anthology, the revision of the theory is largely complete, though there has still been some minor change in the description of the top developmental stage (i.e., Stage 6). For the sake of convenience, I will refer to the theoretical model as established up to the publication of the (1981) anthology as the 'early model,' while referring to the model developed since the (1984) anthology as the 'late model.' In this first chapter we shall review Kohlberg's early model of moral development. Reference will be made mainly to the (1981) anthology, but when necessary to other essays of his as well. The 1 Lawrence Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral Development (Cambridge: Harper & Row, 1981). 2 Lawrence Kohlberg, The Psychology of Moral Development (Cambridge: Harper & Row, 1984). Part 2 of the (1984) anthology, which is co-authored with Charls Levine and Alexandra Hewer, has been published as a monograph in 1983, namely, Moral Stages: a Current Formulation and a Response to Critics (Basel: S. Sarger, 1983). I will refer to this monograph by Kohlberg et al. 1983 in this dissertation.
8 first half of this chapter is a review of his psychological theory; after this we shall discuss its philosophical implications. By doing so, I wish to discuss the initial formulation of Kohlberg's theory, which sets out the basic issues and provides the historical context for the understanding of the more recent development of his theory. Section 1: The stage model Kohlberg's research on moral development can be traced back to the late 1950's, when he conducted research on a group of American school boys for his Ph.D. program. In this research Kohlberg interviewed his subjects and asked them to solve hypothetical dilemmas in order to see how they reasoned morally. 3 The project ended up with six typologies of moral conceptions. These typologies provided him with the foundation for developing his stage model of moral development. 4 Kohlberg's theory then develops into a six-stage cognitive model, in which every stage represents a distinct form of moral reasoning. Each "form of moral reasoning" involves a way of resolving "moral conflicts," by which he means conflicts of claims. He then calls a principle that serves the purpose of resolving moral conflicts a "principle of justice" (Kohlberg 1981, p. 143). For Kohlberg, the relation between justice and morality is so close that they are hardly distinguishable from each other. This strong correlation between justice and morality is an important theme of his early works, and his model is often understood as a "justice" model of morality. 1.1 Stage descriptions In the (1981) anthology, each stage is defined in terms of (1) a set of criteria for judging the morally right from the morally wrong, and (2) a set of motives for moral 3 See Appendix 1 for a list of the hypothetical dilemmas employed by Kohlberg in his research. 4 For details about the research see Lawrence Kohlberg, "The Development of Modes of Moral Thinking and Choice in the Years 10-16" (Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1958).
9 behavior. The stages fall into three different levels, the preconventional, the conventional and the postconventional. Below is a brief review of the definitions of the stages. 5 Preconventional Level The morality of this level is marked chiefly by an apparent egocentrism. The Tightness and wrongness of actions are judged on the basis of their physical consequences in relation to the subject himself/herself. It is not perfectly accurate to say that people at this level are selfish, for an alternative to a self-oriented morality is still not available to them. Rightness and wrongness are interpreted "in terms of either the physical or the hedonistic consequences of action (punishment, reward, exchange of favors) or in terms of the physical power of those who enunciate the rules and labels." The preconventional level is composed of two stages. Stage 1 morality is called 'Punishment and Obedience Orientation.'' At this stage the subject interprets rightness in terms of obedience and wrongness in terms of disobedience and punishment. The motive for moral behavior is simply to avoid punishment. "The avoidance of punishment and unquestioning deference to power are valued in their own right." At Stage 2, the Instrumental Relativistic Orientation, rightness of actions is still understood in terms of self-interest. However, unlike Stage 1, in which people understand rightness in terms of the avoidance of punishment alone, reward comes into play at this stage. Whatever brings about good results for the self is right. Cooperation with others in one's own interest starts to make sense to the subject. Therefore, "elements of fairness, reciprocity, and equal sharing are present, but they are interpreted in a physical and pragmatic way." Reciprocity is a matter of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours." 5 The stage descriptions reported here are first published in 1970, in his paper "Education for Justice: A Modern Statement of the Socratic View," which has become a chapter of his (1981) book (see Kohlberg 1981, pp. 29-48, esp. 17-19). In reporting his stage descriptions, I have tried to retain many of Kohlberg's own words, which I put inside quotation marks.
10 The motivation at this stage for right behavior is "to obtain reward, have favors returned, and so on." Conventional Level At the second level, which Kohlberg calls the 'conventional level,' the subject's moral concern is extended from the self to the group one belongs to. Such a group can be one's family, one's nation, or a social group of any other kind. "Conformity" with the expectations of one's group, "loyalty to it," and "actively maintaining and supporting its order" are considered the right things to do. The conventional level is also marked by a recognition of the difference between intentions and immediate consequences, and the judgment of rightness and wrongness proceeds in light of intentions (see the definition of Stage 3). The conventional level includes Stage 3 and Stage 4. At Stage 3, The Interpersonal Concordance or "GoodBoy Nice Girl" Orientation, the central concept of moral rightness is that of social approval. What makes an action right is that it "pleases or helps others and is approved by them." There is much conformity to stereotypical images of what constitutes majority or "natural" behavior. "Behavior is frequently judged by intention the judgment "he means well" becomes important for the first time. One earns approval by being 'nice.'" The motive for moral behavior is the avoidance of "disapproval and dislike by others." At Stage 4, the Society Maintaining Orientation, the orientation becomes one of "maintenance of the social order." "Right behavior consists of doing one's duty, showing respect for authority, and maintaining the given social order for its own sake." The motive for moral behavior becomes the desire to "avoid censure by legitimate authorities and resultant guilt." Postconventional, Autonomous, or Principled Level
11 "At this level, there is a clear effort to define moral values and principles which have validity and application apart from the authority of the groups or persons holding these principles, and apart from the individual's own identification with these groups." This level has two stages, namely Stage 5 and Stage 6. At Stage 5, The Social-Contract Legalistic Orientation, right actions are defined in terms of "general individual rights" and consensus among individuals (or, in Kohlberg's own words, "standards that have been critically examined and agreed on by the whole society"). The "legal point of view" is acknowledged, but with "an emphasis on the possibility of changing law in terms of the rational consideration of social utility (rather than freezing it in terms of Stage 4 'law and order')." "There is a clear awareness of the relativism of personal values and opinions and a corresponding emphasis on the procedural rules for reaching consensus. Aside from what is constitutionally and democratically agreed on, the right is a matter of personal 'values' and 'opinion,'" and "free agreement and contract" become "the binding elements of obligation." The motive for moral behavior is "to maintain the respect of the impartial spectator judging in terms of community welfare." In short, the Stage 5 moral conception is a mixture of social contract, human rights, and utilitarianism. Stage 6 is The Universal Ethical Principle Orientation. Moral Tightness is defined by "the decision of conscience in accord with self-chosen ethical principles appealing to logical comprehensiveness, universality, and consistency. These principles are abstract and ethical (the Golden Rule, the Categorical Imperative); they are not concrete moral rules like the Ten Commandments. At heart, these are universal principles of justice, of the reciprocity and equality of human rights, and of respect for the dignity of human beings as individuals." The motive for moral behavior is "to avoid self-condemnation."
12 1.2 Features of the stages Three features are essential for understanding Kohlberg's concept of moral stage. First, a moral stage is a structured whole, a total way of thinking. The moral stage of a subject is not determined by any particular moral judgment he/she makes, but by the salient features of his/her process of moral reasoning as a whole. This structural wholeness can be further explained by the introduction of Kohlberg's form-content distinction. He defines moral content as the judgment of what is morally right in a particular situation, and moral form is defined as the way in which a subject reasons in order to arrive at that judgment. This usage of the terms.'form' and 'content' is somewhat atypical in philosophical writings, but is crucial to the understanding of Kohlberg's so called "formalism." Kohlberg observes that individuals tend to employ the same "forms" of moral reasoning when faced with different moral problems, and hence for one particular subject there is a particular "form" of reasoning which represents his "total way of thinking." It is this total way of moral reasoning instead of the "content choices" that defines the moral stage of that subject (Kohlberg 1981, pp. 120-2). A second feature of the moral stages defined by Kohlberg is that of a universally invariable sequence. The order of the stages (from Stage 1 through Stage 6) represents the chronological order of their appearance in the moral development of human beings. Except in situations where keeping up with one's moral standards is excessively threatening to the self, people never (1) skip stages or (2) reverse stages in their development. This sequence is expected by Kohlberg to be constant in all (or almost all) individuals regardless of their society or culture. However, it is not expected that every single person goes through the whole sequence from Stage 1 to Stage 6. It is possible for an individual to stop at a particular stage in his development, failing to proceed any further. It is also not expected that every stage appears in every society or cultural group. It is possible that there exists a society in which no member is capable of exceeding a
13 certain stage of moral development. Indeed Kohlberg embraces a mild version of "social evolutionism." Some societies can be less developed (morally) than others in that their members stop their development at a lower level, and thus in them the highest stages entirely fail to exist (Kohlberg 1981, p. 128). However, whatever stage an individual reaches, he/she has to develop through the sequence of earlier stages to arrive there (Kohlberg 1981, pp. 120 & 122). A third essential feature is the hierarchical nature of moral stages. There is a normative side and an empirical side of the hierarchical claim. On the normative side, it means that later stages are better than earlier stages. Proving that the later stages are more adequate than the early ones is an important task for Kohlberg. He claims that there are a number of criteria by which the later stages can be judged to be better. He supposes that these criteria are widely accepted and need no justification. We shall discuss these criteria in detail shortly. On the empirical side, the hierarchical claim means that the sequence reflects a certain logical order. Higher stages "include lower stages as components," that is, lower stages are "reintegrated" in higher ones. People at higher stages have no difficulty comprehending moral concepts of lower stages and employing them in their reasoning, while those of lower stages do have difficulty in understanding and employing the concepts of higher stages. Very few people can understand two stages above their own modal stages, and many do not understand any stage above their own at all. Also, people tend to prefer higher stages to lower stages (or, more precisely, prefer statements that instantiate higher-stage moral reasoning to those instantiating lower-stage one) as far as they can comprehend them (Kohlberg 1981, p. 137).
14 1.3 The claim of hierarchy of the moral stages Among all the features of the Kohlbergian moral stages, their hierarchical nature is most important to our discussion. An ultimate concern of this paper is to examine the question of whether any universal moral standards exist. The claims of structural wholeness and of universal invariable sequence are purely empirical. Although I believe that these empirical claims are not totally irrelevant to normative ethics, their relation to ethics is less direct than the claim of hierarchy. The hierarchical claim is itself strongly normative, and hence it deserves close examination. How do we judge that the stages are hierarchical? Kohlberg uses two criteria to explain this, one cognitive and the other normative. The cognitive criteria: integration and differentiation Kohlberg's theory of moral development is a cognitive-developmental model. In this model, moral maturity is closely related to cognitive maturity. Higher stages are cognitively more sophisticated. Kohlberg describes these cognitive sophistications by saying that higher stages are more integrated and differentiated than the lower stages. The increasing integration and differentiation, Kohlberg claims, explain why the stages form an invariant sequence. To him, there is an inner logic in the sequence of the moral stages; the new integration and the new differentiation made at each stage logically depend on those made in its preceding stage (Kohlberg 1981, p. 137). The idea of integration is quite clearly presented in Kohlberg's writings. A higher integration means a wider scope of applicability, better equilibrium, 6 greater stability, and greater consistency (Kohlberg 1981, pp. 135-136, & 147). To explain this, we can start with the comparison of the conventional level and the postconventional level. The conventional level has its values defined within the context of a particular community, 6 Equilibrium seems to mean the balance between the perspectives of different parties involved in a moral problem. See Kohlberg 1981, pp. 211-214.
15 while postconventional morality strives to define values independent of any particular culture or subculture. There is clearly a difference in the scope of applicability between the two levels. Kohlberg states that conventional morality defines "good behavior for a Democrat but not a Republican, for an American but not for a Vietnamese, for a father but not a son" (Kohlberg 1981, p. 135). This seems to be an overstatement, as the Stage 4 society-maintenance conception of morality surely can assign the rights for people of different roles in the society, and thus prescribe right behaviors for both fathers and sons. The point he actually wants to make is probably this: when there are real conflicts between different parties, there exists no higher principle available within the conventional moral conception to resolve the conflicts, especially when these parties come from different societies. This point can be made clear by considering Kohlberg's explanation of consistency. In Kohlberg's terminology, "the different definitions of right for Republicans and Democrats, for Americans and Vietnamese, for fathers and sons" are enough to constitute "self-contradiction" (Kohlberg 1981, p. 136). This makes conventional morality less consistent than postconventional morality. At first glance, the use of the term 'self-contradiction' is illegitimate. How can different definitions of the rights of different parties cause se/^contradiction? They might contradict each other, but surely nobody is contradicting himself. I believe I should follow the policy of the American government, therefore I should fight against the Vietnamese communists. Where is the inconsistency in my belief? Kohlberg does not state this clearly, but a plausible answer might go like this: Suppose I am the American soldier. My society tells me that the North Vietnamese are evil, or that they have evil intentions, and I must fight against them. Following the values of my society I see them as evil. But so far as I accept that I am right because I am following the values of my society, I have to admit that the Vietnamese I fight is also
16 right because he, too, is only doing what his society requires. But this appears to contradict the belief that the North Vietnamese, or their intentions, are evil. It is in this sense that conventional morality is inconsistent. Similarly, conventional morality is more consistent than preconventional morality. For instance, a preconventional thinker judges that it is good to do something if it benefits herself. When another person, out of self-interest, does something which conflicts with her interests, she will naturally say the other is wrong. What she may not be fully aware of is that her judgment is only based on her own interest. If she recognizes this, she will have to say that the other is also doing the right thing, because the other is also acting according to his own interest. Again there is no way for resolution unless our protagonist can draw upon a value system which takes the needs or claims of both parties into consideration. For a case like this, a morality of the conventional level could serve as such a mediating value system. From the above interpretation one can infer that the scope of applicability, stability, and consistency are very much one and the same thing. Kohlberg himself does say that universality and consistency are closely linked (Kohlberg 1981, p. 135). The reason for their close relation is apparent in the above examples. With a wider scope of applicability, a set of moral standards can handle more moral conflicts with more consistency, hence it is less vulnerable to challenge from different value systems and less subject to change, i.e., more stable. All these concepts are unified under the name of integration. From this point of view, the hierarchy of the Kohlbergian stages can be understood in a simple way. Preconventional morality defines morally right behavior in terms of personal interests, and has the narrowest scope of applicability. When conflicts emerge between individuals making compromise impossible to achieve, conventional
17 morality provides solutions. Conventional morality presupposes a community of some kind, e.g., a family, a society, or a social organization, where there are conventional norms that are designed to stipulate the right thing to do in different situations of conflict. People can therefore determine the right solution when conflicts arise between them. But conventional morality has its limits too. The most obvious one is that it presupposes the absolute value of a particular set of conventions and social institutions. Therefore when conflicts arise between communities, or between individuals from different communities, there is no higher authority to whom to appeal in resolving these conflicts. Thus, it is essential for moral progress that they find some universalizable standard to determine a mutually acceptable method of resolution. This is exactly what leads to postconventional morality. We can now see how higher stages are more integrated than lower stages. They are more integrated because their scopes of applicability for conflict resolution are wider. Preconventional morality is applicable to the individual only. Conventional morality is applicable only to people within a community. Postconventional morality is applicable to the entire human species. By virtue of wider scope of applicability for conflict resolution, each stage is also more consistent and stable. Moral stages are also hierarchical in that they are cumulative, i.e., the later stages include the earlier stages as their elements (Kohlberg 1981, pp. 180, 190). Sometimes Kohlberg even says that there is a "logical order" among the stages, and this logical order requires that every stage must "imply" its lower stages (Kohlberg 1981, p. 137). Such wording is highly misleading and cannot be understood literally. 7 A better understanding 7 The use of the word "imply" is misleading because it leads us to think that the definition of a morally right behavior at a lower stage can be logically derivedfromthat at a higher level. If this is so, what is regarded as morally right at a lower stage would be necessarily regarded as right at a higher level too. But this is obviously not the case in Kohlberg's theory. What is admitted as morally right at a lower stage can be, and is often, rejected at a higher stage due to the change in the moral conception held by the subject.
18 of the cumulative nature of stage progression is made possible by Kohlberg's statement that every stage is a structure which "includes elements of earlier structures but transforms them in such a way as to represent a more stable and extensive equilibrium." Seen in this light Kohlberg's talk of implication or logical order has at least two meanings. The first is that the moral standards represented by the lower stages are "available to, or comprehended by" the higher-stage thinker, though the thinker shows a preference for the higher stages over the lower stages (Kohlberg 1981, p. 137). The second meaning is that the values of the lower stages are in one way or another adopted by the higher stages, though the values then function quite differently from the way they did at the lower stages. Kohlberg illustrates this by comparing Stages 4 and 5. I said that the superiority of Stage 5 is partly a cognitive superiority, that the judgments of Stage 5 are more cognitively complex (differentiated) and more cognitively inclusive than Stage 4 judgments (inclusive meaning that Stage 5 ideas include Stage 4 ideas as elements or parts). I cited, as an example, the cognitive perspective of Stage 5 as compared to Stage 4.1 claimed that Stage 5 ideas arose from a social contract, utilitarian, "prior-to-society" law-making perspective, while Stage 4 judgments arose from a "member-of-society" law-maintaining perspective. As contrasted to Stage 5, at Stage 4 the authority of laws does not rest on free contract but rests directly on divine, natural, or societal authority. Laws are not judged functionally as revisable in the light of maximizing utility or public welfare, but maintaining laws is necessarily utilitarian in preventing disorder. In including Stage 4 considerations of authority and functions of law, the Stage 5 perspective is cognitively better (Kohlberg 1981, p. 190). He says here that Stage 4 morality is a law-maintaining.perspective, while Stage 5 morality represents a law-making perspective. The recognition of the law-making perspective implies the recognition of the law-maintaining perspective, for it is useless to make law without having the law maintained or followed. What distinguishes the lawmaking perspective from the law-maintaining perspective is that, the law-making perspective recognizes that law is made by human beings to serve human goals. As it is Lawrence Kohlberg, "The Claim to Moral Adequacy of a Highest Stage," 632.
19 made to serve human goals, it can also be violated or changed when doing so serves human goals better. It seems that the Stage 4 subject may possibly be aware that laws are made for human goals as well. However, as he/she treats the laws as societal authority, he/she seems to be unable to take into consideration the point that the legal system should be adjustable to human goals. In this sense Stage 5 is cognitively better than Stage 4. The recognition that law is made to serve human goals deprives law-maintenance of its ultimate value status. Nevertheless, it allows law-maintenance to retain some of its value as far as it carries out its proper function. The social order, for the Stage 5 reasoner, is what people have agreed upon, or would agree upon to the extent that they are rational, in forming social rules of cooperation so as to enable everyone equally to pursue his/her own good. If a law clearly fails in this function, there is no reason to maintain the law. Kohlberg does not illustrate how each stage includes the elements of its predecessors. However, it is not hard to understand how this works. Stage 2 is an orientation of exchange for one's own good. This orientation still acknowledges the value of avoidance of punishment, since avoidance of punishment is certainly a kind of good. Stages 3.and 4 are oriented to social norms and social order, but they do not negate the value of self interest. Conventional morality may sometimes require a person to sacrifice his/her personal interests, but it surely does not define the pursuit of personal interest as a moral evil. The idea of increasing differentiation, on the other hand, refers to the increasing separation of "ought" from "is," and the separation of non-moral value judgments from moral ones (Kohlberg 1981, p. 135). Consider the conception of right at different stages. At Stage 1, having a right is confused with having power or authority, and obligation (i.e., what one should do) is defined as demand from external authorities. At Stage 2, the
20 concept of right and the concept of obligation are differentiated from external authority. Having a right is now defined as having the ability to control one's own behavior and one's possessions. On the other hand, an obligation is understood as what is required in order to achieve one's goal. By defining right and obligation in this way, Stage 2 is still confusing right and the ability to control, and obligation is confused with or limited to prudence. At Stage 3, people are able to separate right from ability to control on the one hand, and obligation from means to desired ends on the other. They define rights in terms of group expectations. According to their understanding, one has to earn his/her rights by doing things that his/her society expects him to do. For instance, one has the right of property because one earns it by working hard. Obligation is defined in terms of the social role one plays. Despite these advances, the Stage 3 conception of right is still confused with expectations and demands assigned to the individual according to his/her role. Stage 4 transcends Stage 3 by separating rights and obligations from particular role expectations. There are rights which are awarded by society to particular members according to the roles they play, but there also exist rights which represent freedoms that all members of society are entitled to, and the latter have priority over the former. Obligation is likewise defined in terms of (1) one's membership in society, and (2) the responsibility of the role one voluntarily enters. By introducing rights and obligations that one has due to his/her membership in society, Stage 4 differentiates right and obligation from any particular role expectations. However, they are still confused with societal expectations. At Stage 5, the subject proceeds to separate these concepts. Rights become something prior to society. Freedom is valuable for its own sake, and should not be limited by society unless it is incompatible with the like freedom of others. Obligation is defined in terms of a rational concern for the welfare of others. At Stage 6, there are universal rights of just treatment in addition to liberty rights. Rights represent universalizable claims that each individual can make on
21 others. Obligation is defined in terms of respect for others' rights. By defining obligation as concern for the welfare of others, Stage 5 reasoning is somewhat incapable of differentiating supererogation from duty, whereas Stage 6 reasoning sharpens the demarcation (Kohlberg 1981, pp. 215-219). The claim that higher stages are better than lower ones because they are more differentiated is itself not particularly interesting. Since 'more differentiated' means greater ability to distinguish moral values from non-moral ones, saying that the more differentiated is better amounts to saying that it is better to distinguish moral values from non-moral ones than to mix up the two. What is more interesting, however, is his particular view about what constitutes non-moral values: self-interest at level 1, and social norms at level 2. The presupposition behind his claim that greater differentiation makes a stage better is that personal interest and social convention themselves do not provide moral justification to a behavior. Of course such a presupposition is a normative one, and therefore the criterion of differentiation is not purely cognitive. But now let us go to another topic, namely the normative criteria. The normative criteria: prescriptivity, universalizability Kohlberg emphasizes that higher stages are not merely cognitively superior, but also normatively so. To argue for the normative superiority of higher stages, he begins with the formalist's convention that an adequate moral judgment must have certain formal properties. These are, essentially: prescriptivity, primacy, and universality (Kohlberg 1981, pp. 135, 171, 191). 9 9 In many places Kohlberg also mentions "reversibility" and "equilibrium" as formal properties which determine the adequacy of certain moral judgments. However, it seems reasonable to suppose that these properties are not independent of universality. To the extent a moral judgment is universalizable, it should be equilibrated and reversible as well.
22 Though Kohlberg does not explicitly say so, prescriptivity and primacy of moral judgment come together to form a parallel with differentiation. What prescriptivity means is that moral judgment represents "a distinct concept of an internal duty" (Kohlberg 1981, p. 191). Thus understood, "prescriptivity" seems to mean something close to what philosophers mean by 'categoricalness.' 10 Primacy, on the other hand, means the "superiority of moral considerations over non-moral ones" (Kohlberg 1981, p. 191). The two combine to form a distinct deontological conception of morality. This is what the criterion of differentiation is all about. Differentiation is the subject's ability to separate moral from non-moral values, and make moral judgments only with reference to moral values. Universality, on the other hand, parallels the criterion of integration. Given that integration has much to do with the scope of applicability and equilibrium, as we have already seen, the parallelism between universalizability and integration is clear, and needs no further elaboration here. Universalizability means that a moral judgment has to be one which "all people can act on" (Kohlberg 1981, p. 191). This obviously echoes the Kantian conception of morality presented by his Categorical Imperative. Kohlberg is confident that these formal requirements of moral judgments are fairly noncontroversial (Kohlberg 1981, p. 173). Granted these requirements, Kohlberg infers that higher stages are more adequate as they yield moral judgments which conform more completely to these formal requirements. In Kohlberg's view, prescriptivity and universality are closely related. A highly prescriptive principle implies valuing something independently of other factors. This independence in turn implies that the value of the particular thing at stake is recognized under all circumstances, which entails universality. Consider Dilemma IA (I call it 10 This use of the word 'prescriptivity' sounds, of course, a little strange for philosophers. The word 'prescriptive' is usually contrasted with 'descriptive', and has no necessary connection with "internal duty". What we usually regard as related to internal duty are rather concepts like "unconditionality" or "obligatoriness". To be faithful to Kohlberg's own wording, 1 will still use the word 'prescriptivity' to refer to the formal character of moral judgments that they are expressions of internal duties. But the reader should bear in mind that it means something like unconditionality or obligatoriness.