Prototypic Moral Character

The Philosophy and Psychology of Character and Happiness , 2014

The language of moral virtue comes easily to most of us. When we think about the moral what comes to mind are certain dispositions to do the right thing at the right time for the right reason. We have in mind the possession of certain traits that conduce to living well the life that is good for one to live. To be honest, generous, fair-minded, compassionate, resolute in the service of justice, these and other virtues are the ambition that we have for ourselves and for our children. Indeed how to raise children of good moral character is a pressing concern of parents and educators alike. We hope children come to exhibit traits of character that are praiseworthy and reflect credibly on their formation as a person. Indeed, we would be disappointed if our children developed only a glancing acquaintance with the virtues. Traits and Paradigms Yet it is by no means clear how virtues are to be understood as psychological constructs, or how to understand their causal role in behavior. To say that virtues are traits that produce enduring dispositions to act in certain ways is to say something controversial, although this might come as a surprise to the lay reader. Indeed for many decades the language of traits, virtues and character got little traction within academic psychology, although for somewhat different reasons. The behaviorist paradigm was suspicious of the unobserved mentalist entities that traits seemed to imply, and drew attention instead to the reinforcing contingencies of environments as best explanations of behavior (Skinner, 1972). Hence the behaviorist paradigm gave priority of explanation to salient features of situations. The cognitive-developmental tradition, particularly in the form of Lawrence Kohlberg's moral stage theory, 1 also doubted the empirical reality of traits as predictors of behavior; and worried that the language of traits might give comfort to ethical relativists (insofar as the valuation of traits could depend upon community or cultural standards; Gibbs, 2013; Kohlberg, 1981). Traits also seemed to run afoul of the "moral law folk theory" 2 that has dominated Western reflection on moral matters since the Enlightenment, and is assumed by many of the major theories of moral psychology, including Kantian ethics (Johnson, 1993). This is the view that we are essentially dualistic in our nature, consisting of body and mind, the physical and spiritual that are in conflict, a belief that comes easily to most of us. According to Kantian ethics, reason formulates general laws 1 Kohlberg's theory proposed that individuals develop cognitively toward a deontological sense of moral judgment, moving through three levels (preconventional, conventional, postconventional) and five or six stages. Moral reasoning develops from active social life during the course of maturation. Neo-Kohlbergian research found that enriched social experience, especially Western higher education, contributes to the development of general postconventional moral reasoning (reasoning like a philosopher). 2 Moral law folk theory refers to the common perception that body and mind are separable entities.

2008

Journal of Moral Philosophy

By maintaining that moral functioning depends upon four components (sensitivity, judgment, motivation, and character), the Neo-Kohlbergian account of moral functioning allows for uneven moral development within individuals. However, I argue that the four-component model does not go far enough. I offer a more accurate account of moral functioning and uneven moral development. My proposal retains the account of sensitivity, divides the judgment component into a theorizing component and a reasoning component, and eliminates the motivation and character components.

In this article I attempt to highlight and briefly analyze some problematic aspects of the theory of prototypes and its implications in moral thought. I focus on the issue of moral judgement and the impact of prototypicality on our understanding of moral concepts. The objective of the article is to indicate the significance of the new perspectives opened by the notion of prototype, but also to point out certain difficulties. Some of the problematic questions emerge from the very existence of the prototype structure of categories and concepts; other problems arise with reference to the proposed implications or postulates which are connected with the acknowledgement of the significance of prototypicality. Due to the recognition of the practical dimension of ethics, the main issues are presented through examples of concepts which are commonly used in everyday life, referring to political and social values, traits of character and emotions.

Morality is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those good/right and those that are bad/wrong. The present essay aims at evaluating the theory of moral development proposed by Kohlberg. The essay is evaluated by providing an account of what the cognitive factor implies in the development of morality, the stages proposed by Kohlberg and finally the strengths and weakness of the theory.

Journal of Moral Education, 2000

Kohlberg's work in moral judgement has been criticised by many philosophers and psychologists. Building on Kohlberg's core assumptions, we propose a model of moral judgement (hereafter the neo-Kohlbergian approach) that addresses these concerns. Using 25 years of data gathered with the De ning Issues Test (DIT), we present an overview of Minnesota's neo-Kohlbergian approach, using Kohlberg's basic starting points, ideas from Cognitive Science (especially schema theory), and developments in moral philosophy.

Kohlberg Revisited, edited by Boris Zizek, Detlef Garz & Ewa Nowak (2015), 2015

While Kohlberg broke new ground by defining moral behavior as behavior guided by internal moral orientations and by emphasizing the neglected structural aspect of moral behavior, in his methodology he relied on mainstream external scoring techniques which clearly contradict his theory. We argue that this dilemma is a matter of two deeper questions, namely a) whether the morality of behavior [and hence the scoring standard] is defined externally or internally, that is, by society’s norms or by the individual’s moral principles, and b) whether moral competence is defined as the structural properties of an individual’s response-pattern, or is regarded as represented in each isolated response. We will focus here on the first question and argue that aligning internal moral philosophy with internal measurement of moral competence is the prerequisite for any progress in moral psychology

2004

Psychological Bulletin, 1974

This article examines and evaluates the evidence supporting Kohlberg's theory concerning the development of moral thought. A systematic review of the published research literature suggests that there are several conceptual and methodological problems with the approach. The problems include the derivation, administration, and scoring of the model's primary measurement device; the lack of evidence for both the reliability and validity of that device; and the absence of direct evidence for the basic assumptions of the theory. On the basis of the review, it seems that the empirical utility of the model has yet to be demonstrated.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2008

In recent years, there has been considerable debate in the literature concerning the existence of moral character. One lesson we should take away from these debates is that the concept of character, and the role it plays in guiding our actions, is far more complex than most of us initially took it to be. Just as Gilbert Harman, for example, makes a serious mistake in insisting, plain and simply, that there is no such thing as character, defenders of character also make a mistake to the extent that they imply there is no problem raised by the psychological literature for either the concept of character or the nature of character-based ethics. My hope for this paper is to avoid both of these mistakes by first, exploring exactly what is the concept of character that is so firmly rooted in our philosophical and everyday thinking; and second, exploring the implications of the psychological literature for this appropriately understood concept of character. In so doing, I will come to a resolution that vindicates the existence of character, while at the same time calls attention to the real and serious problem suggested by the psychological evidence. This, we will see, is a problem of moral motivation.

2014

The term moral development most properly describes a natural, long-term process of psychological growth with regard to the individual's capacity to think about moral problems. According to moral development theory, children start out with simplistic, local ideas about what counts as an acceptable moral reason. If social conditions favourable to moral development are present during childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, moral reasoning will become more abstract, universal and flexible. Understood in this sense, moral reasoning is indissociable from Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development. Elaborated, tested, and applied in a research programme spanning several decades and involving thousands of researchers and educators around the world, Kohlberg's theory of moral development, also referred to as "cognitive moral developmentalism", and its school-based application, the cognitive developmental approach to moral education, remains a model of partnership between rigorous psychological research and educational innovation.

2018

The affective though and the intuition in moral judgment has been discovered lately (Haidt, 2001). This article analyzes the Moral Judgment theory (Kohlberg, 1964) and the basic logical operations (Piaget, 1950). The rational stages with a few intervention of emotion have been historically assumed by moral judgment theory, which judges the affective as a mistaken notion and as a simple cognitive extension (Greene & Haidt, 2002). This paper demonstrates that the Piagetian basic operations, seriation and categorization are applicable to an affective system. In addition, the intuition is a moral determinant and finally, that neuronal activity confirms an intuitional cognition for the resolution of social problems. It is expected that the present deliberation guides and stimuli researches on the intuition and emotion in moral judgment.