What is Lawrence Kohlberg Doing?

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Abstract
Lawrence Kohlberg's work in moral education appears to be significant enough philosophically that one is tempted to use much of it to resolve basic problems of long standing. In this essay it is argued that it would prove more fruitful for Kohlberg or anyone else to avoid applying his developmentalist position to the settling of such problems as utilitarian/formalist supremacy or the search for a ‘best’ morality. Instead, emphasis could be placed on the explicating of the fundamental requirements of a non‐relativistic, non‐egoistic morality of whatever sort. Such basic moral requirements serve to highlight of what principled morality (Stages Five and Six) consists, and why it need not be tied to a Rawlsian Formalism, or to any other normative ethical position. In fact, there is considerable cause for supposing that what Kohlberg really achieves with clarity is nothing more than a sequential typology of development in moral thinking from egoism to universalism, and from situation‐specific rules to universalizable and reversable judgments of principle. This in itself constitutes, of course, an enormous undertaking and, if successfully defended, would be a very significant breakthrough in Psychology, Education and Philosophy. It is what Kohlberg ought to be about, rather than something unnecessarily contentious.

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