Toward an Integration of Kohlberg’s and Hoffman’s Moral Development Theories

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Abstract
This article takes an initial step toward integration of Kohlberg’s and Hoffman’s theories of morality and moral development. Kohlberg’s and Hoffman’s theories provide important and complementary contributions to our understanding of moral motivation and development. Kohlberg’s theory emphasizes the individual’s construction of progressively more mature moral meaning. It accounts for moral motivation in terms of a decentration process that generates prescriptions of equality and reciprocity, or justice. Hoffman’s theory emphasizes society’s transmission of moral norms through internalization. Hoffman sees empathic affect and related emotions as the basis for moral motivation. It is concluded that constructive and internalized aspects of ‘internal’ morality commonly derive from social interaction, just as cognitive (justice) and affective (empathy) aspects of moral motivation commonly relate to dynamic organizations of experience.

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