“I think Mark’s criticism of the Stages as a taxonomy are right on, but my distaste goes deeper. If anything, Kohlberg is measuring amoral or immoral rationalization ability. Kohlberg is measuring a social derivitive of linguistic intelligence. Kohlberg is measuring an ability to please.
Kohlberg talks about laws, but in the general way that people have who do not know them. Laws were created and could be erased at any time. They typically were created incompetently and the whole reason for my parents’ profession was that cleverness counted more than wisdom. One could find evidence in the Law for nearly anything. What counted was the fashions of the time for some words on some texts.
It’s clear that instead of a universal moral development, the change in answers Kohlberg observed are an interaction between a basic drive for fairness and rhetorical dexterity. The first is widespread among the most popular human phenotype of “wary cooperators” or “strong reciprocators.” Berk adequately covers a genetic predisposition to fairness on pages 476-477, so instead I will focus on the role of practice.“
Read the rest here.
I’m admittedly out of touch with what is happening in Ed journals these days, but I’m inclined to believe that Dan has in his post, a good start on writing something really provocative for publication.
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Dan tdaxp:
November 20th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
Hey Mark,
Thanks for this post. I respondeded over at tdaxp, but I’ll post some thoughts on Lind here.
I think that the idea of dialectical quality shifts, with all its Hegelian baggage, is the weakest part of Lind’s theory. 4GW has existed at least for thousands of years, and I’m sure you can find ancient examples of all other “generations” in the distant past as well.
Similarly, if Kohlberg had said “here are the types of moral reasoning I’ve observed” then there would be little to argue with. But Kohlberg is arguing for a clean category-by-category progress, and by using the term “moral development” he further baselessly implies a normative progression.
mark:
November 21st, 2006 at 5:18 pm
“But Kohlberg is arguing for a clean category-by-category progress, and by using the term “moral development” he further baselessly implies a normative progression.”
Kohlberg’s earlier, ” no regression” position was problematic for me -though I believe he was modifying that stance prior to his death.