Journal of Moral Education

ISSN: 0305-7240 (Print) 1465-3877 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjme20

Moral Development; Some Suggested Implications

for Teaching

Frank Simon

To cite this article: Frank Simon (1976) Moral Development; Some Suggested Implications for
Teaching, Journal of Moral Education, 5:2, 173-178, DOI: 10.1080/0305724760050206

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305724760050206

Published online: 07 Jul 2006.

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 173

Journal of Moral Education Vol 5, No 2. pp 173-178

© Pemberton Publishing Company Ltd. 1976

FRANK SIMON

Moral Development; Some Suggested Implications

for Teaching
Abstract:
An attempt is made to describe the overall general process of moral
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development as consisting in the movement from heteronomy to autonomy

through a period of socialization into conventional norms. Existing evidence
suggests that schools are less than successful in fostering development to the
autonomous stage. Using Kohlberg's developmental model as a reference point,
the implications for moral education in schools are elaborated. The importance
of developing ego-strength, a factor neglected in moral development theory,
is emphasised.

A good deal of literature is now available on what teachers should do to enhance

the moral development of their pupils. The reader might well wonder, therefore,
what this article might add to the existing store of suggestions.
Perhaps the chief purpose of this paper is to pull together various assumptions
about moral development, and suggestions for educational practice. It is possible
that from such a perspective our awareness of the attention being given to moral
development and education may become more functionally directed.
In brief, moral development is the process in which an individual advances from
an egocentric, but externally directed being, to a self-directed but socially responsive
and responsible person, paradoxical though this may seem.
During infancy and early childhood, the individual manifests behaviours which
clearly identify his dependence on others, and his desire for rapid gratification of
his wants. His pre-programmed egoncentricity and lack of physical and cognitive
development deny him the ability to * return' what is done for him, and he appears,
therefore, to be a self-serving individual, oblivious to the needs of others. He may
vigorously avoid what he dislikes, and pursue, with equal vigour, any felt need.
This stage is often referred to as the heteronomous or other-directed stage, and
though a prolonged process of social, physical, and cognitive development the
individual is expected to advance from this stage to the autonomous stage. At this
latter stage the individual is deemed capable of behaving independently, but with
certain qualifications governing his conduct. For example, through his long period
of socialization he would have developed an ability to respect the rights of others.
He should have developed, furthermore, a sense of responsibility for his own
behaviour, and for the well-being of others. He should have developed reasons
for his behaviour which take into account not only the effect of his behaviour on
others, but a deep respect for human life and well-being. At this stage it can even
be expected that if he sees his peer group, province or nation to be proceeding in
ways that threaten to damage or destroy human life and well-being, he may choose
Offprints from Professor F. Simon, Faculty of Education, Department of Curriculum and
Instruction, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
 174 FRANK SIMON

to act against his group regardless of the consequences for himself.

Obviously, these two positions represent polar points on the developmental
continuum. They are referred to by Kohlberg as the preconventiond and post-
conventional stages. At the lower extremity of the preconventional stage, an
individual cannot comprehend, or he ignores, what is thought by generalized others
to be morally right or wrong, good or bad; and he may conform with their
expectations of him only under the threat of punishment or promise of a reward.
Before the post-conventional stage however, he will have gone through a socializing
experience in which he learned and accepted the 'rights', 'wrongs', the 'good
things' and ' bad things' of his society. Through this socializing experience the
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individual is expected not only to learn the conventions (rules) of his society but,
in general, to accept them and conform to them. This process Kohlberg appro-
priately names the conventional stage. From childhood through early adolescence
the youngster adopts the behavioural expectations of those he interacts with:
parents, teachers, peers and others, and through them, the rules of his society. He
comes to respect the rights of others and to regard the rules of his society as an
indisputably necessary means of guaranteeing that justice will be served to all. He
becomes able to justify, in concrete terms, the need for rules in terms of con-
sequences which result from compliance and non-compliance with them.
Like Piaget, Kohlberg discribes this pre-conventional, conventional, post-
conventional sequence as a developmental process and by definition, therefore, one
in which it is not possible to skip a stage before achieving a higher one.
Well, what does all this mean for the schools? Let us look first at a child just
starting school. At the elementary level the school will address itself to the purpose
of socializing the youngster. It will involve him in group situations in which
behaviour is regulated by rules designed to socialize him. He will be directed in ways
which would develop independence, responsibility, co-operation, respect for the
rights of others, to say nothing of an ability to postpone gratification of certain
wants. The school will help the child to develop an identity with, and to function
harmoniously with, a larger social group than that with which he was formerly
associated. It is extremely important to point out, however, that the child's com-
pliance (cooperation or whatever) should be sought in such ways that he responds
positively and that his self-image is enhanced rather than threatened. After all, the
process is called socialization, not anti-socialization.
The socialization process continues also through the youngster's adolescent years
as he enlarges the numbers and scope of his formal and informal reference and
identification groups. In these years the youth should come to understand that there
are many societies, many different rules, and that the rules of his own society, while
generally regarded by its members as acceptable, are subject to question and
change. He should come to see that since rules are created for the purpose of
guaranteeing the well-being of the individual members of a society, perceived
instances to the contrary require that the rules in question be closely studied and
perhaps altered. And again, it is possible that youngsters who have come to question
the morality of their society's rules and behaviours may, at this point, choose to
act in ways contrary to the rules and to the expectations of the majority.
The crucial question for the teacher is why the youth is rebelling. If the apparent
 Moral Development; Some Suggested Implications for Teaching 175

reason is that he is being driven by hedonistic desires (for example, seeking to

guarantee personal pleasures, regardless of the rights and well-being of others),
then the teacher might well conclude that the student has not only failed to reach
the post-conventional stage, but the conventional stage as well. Such behaviour does,
in fact, suggest that his moral development has been arrested at the pre-conventional
stage. Only when the youngster's motive is the enhancement of human life and
well-being, generally, can his development be seen to have possibly reached the
post-conventional stage.

All this may sound so familiar as to be mundane. Perhaps not so familiar, how-
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ever, are data which indicate that parents, schools, and other social institutions
appear to be unsuccessful in enabling most youngsters to move through the stages.
Such data have been obtained by Kohlberg and others and, locally, found also in
recent informal studies conducted in Calgary schools by graduate students in social
studies curriculum and instruction at the University of Calgary.
Thus the various but largely similar models of moral development represent a
largely hypothetical, rather than an automatic growth pattern. Indeed, it would
seem that, in the schools, moral development is at least as difficult to foster as the
cognitive and affective.
Returning to an examination of some practical implications for moral education,
available data suggest overwhelmingly that youngsters entering the first grade will
behave, largely, in pre-conventional ways. Such behaviour should not, however, be
regarded as ' bad', or ' inferior'. These children will also not be able to read and
write, to compute, to engage in abstract thinking processes, or to perform a great
variety of physical feats which they will be able to do in later years.
The children must be accepted as they are, and the question to be asked is:
What should the elementary school teacher do to further their moral development?
Consistent with findings by Kholberg and others (including those involved in
the Calgary study) it seems clear that children understand each other, get along
better, and work together more harmoniously when their stages of moral develop-
ment are not far apart. In this regard the elementary teacher is in a fortunate
situation, since it is likely that most children will not be more than a substage1
apart in their moral reasoning.
In accordance with Kohlberg's advice that a teacher employ a level of moral
reasoning and appeal that is not more than one stage above the child's level, it
would follow that the elementary teacher should employ motivational appeals and
teaching-learning activities which appeal to and develop the child's desire for social
approval and acceptance. The child should be rewarded, preferably in non-material
ways, for behaviour which suggests that, for example, he is assuming responsibility,
is working well with others, and is respecting the rights of others. If he seeks
attention by behaving in contrary ways, the teacher should attempt to extinguish
such behaviour in such ways as counselling him to behave in in desirable ways,
and regarding him whenever he behaves in these ways. One must remember that the
use of punishment to secure desirable behaviour is an appeal which falls at the
lowest level of the preconventional stage. It must therefore be used sparingly, if at
all, since the objective is to encourage the child's moral development at and through
 176 FRANK SIMON

the conventional stage. Again, the objective of the elementary school is to direct
the child towards the development of socially desirable behaviour through means
which appeal to the child's desire for social acceptance and approval.
Although this suggestion may seem undesirably authoritarian, the teacher should
not take the view that it is ' professional' or * right' to disregard a child's behaviour.
Such indifference in the elementary school can have adverse consequences for
the child's moral development. In such a school the child may have only limited
success in developing his self-concept in terms of the probable or observed con-
sequences of his behaviour, and any such limitation would be expected to interfere
with and hamper further development.
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Also, in the elementary school, the teacher should foster the understanding that
socially desirable rules are designed to serve everyone in such ways as to maximally
secure and protect each person's well-being. To this end, the teacher should
generally limit his intellectual demands to the concrete level, making wide use of
examples and illustrations, fictitious and real. He should make extensive use also
of moral dilemmas, in individual and group settings, making sure that each dilemma
is examined broadly in terms of its implications for the physical and psychological
well-being of everyone concerned. Needless, to say, social themes on which such
activities ar ebased include empathy, cooperation, justice, and peaceful resolution
of disagreements. The activities themselves should serve to develop consciousness,
acceptance, and participation skills.
It would thus seem that, to this point, moral development is social development.
This is indeed so, since morality, as generally defined, is a socially-derived concept.
Yet it would be wrong to limit the definition of morality entirely to social terms.
Understandably, if the end of moral behaviour is survival and well-being, then
man's relationship with his non-human environment must also be taken into
account. That is, his relationship with nature, in its entirety, must be considered.
It would be morally wrong, therefore, to relate to nature in such ways that he
reacts negatively on the survivability and well-being of human beings. If man
behaves in ways which in the long term best serve his own well-being, then those
ways must also preserve the life-enabling integrity of the non-human environment.
Man is inextricably locked into nature, but perhaps a gross error committed by
civilized man is that he has separated himself too much from nature, with the
concomitant assumption that he can exercise his ' God-given dominion' over it as
he pleases. Since moral development models typically do not include this non-
social dimension, it is imperative, therefore, that man's relationship with the
physical and biological environment also be subject to value analyses in moral
dilemmas and in other forms of auricular content.
Moving from the conventional stage to the post-conventional, the primary
requirements are that the student develop: (1) a realization that the conventional
beliefs and behaviour of individuals and groups of any size (including governments
at any level) are always subject to examination and change on the basis of their
contribution to the well-being of everyone concerned or affected by them, and (2) an
ability to examine the functionality/dysfunctionality/non-functionality of human
behaviour in intellectually more sophisticated ways.
Equipped affectively with social acceptance, a social consciousness, and social
 Moral Development; Some Suggested Implications for Teaching 177

skills, and cognitively with an ability to engage in formal reasoning processes, the
adolescent is prepared to subject to comprehensive scrutiny, the conventions under
which successive generations of young people far and near are socialized. The
valuing process becomes increasingly more elaborate, reflecting the learner's
heightened ability to deal with complex relationships. His socialization at the con-
ventional stage should have preserved his intellectual curiosity, and his sense of
security. These attributes should combine with his advanced cognitive power to
test the rules to which he and others everywhere are expected to conform.
Call them intellectual stimulation, teaching, valuing, or whatever, the processes
by which moral principles (social conventions and the like) are examined should
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help the learner reduce his dependence on external direction, and increase his
ability to make personal, autonomous decisions. Again, thesse decisions are morally
autonomous only if they take into account and are consistent with the rights and
needs of others affected by them. If inconsistent with these criteria, the decisions
may be regarded as being egocentric and therefore preconventional.
But the learning sequence, from the learning of habits, moral concepts and
principles to the testing of principles and the formulation of reasoned moral
decisions is not enough. The degree of ego-strength which decides whether an
individual is prepared to act in ways consistent with his decisions will decide,
ultimately, whether he is, in fact, morally autonomous. If, in difficult situations, the
individual succumbs to tendencies contrary to his morally autonomous principles
and decisions, he can hardly be regarded as being morally autonomous in a real
sense. This is another crucially important matter one should keep in mind when
examining models of moral development. Indeed, they tend to stop short of any
very helpful discussion of this stage of development.
From the pedagogic standpoint in social education, it can be observed that the
intellectual and moral ferment of the last decade has occurred at the post-
conventional level. The emphasis on cross-cultural studies, inductive and valuing
techniques, and post-inquiry (post-valuing) action all serve to make this point.
As is well known in the social studies community, the purposes of these processes
is to encourage and enable students to examine personal and social issues critically,
as a requisite for choosing and acting. Implied but often lacking however, is a
meticulous weighting of the social conditions and events examined in terms of the
survival and well-being of everyone affected by them. Kohlberg's universal pre-
scription in this regard, the acceptance of the ' sacredness' of human life has
seemingly not yet taken hold, as suggested by the relatively small number of sub-
jects sampled who respond to moral dilemmas at the morally autonomous stage.

Summary and Conclusions

The process of moral development is one in which the pre-social, egocentric child
takes on the value and behaviour system of his society, and then, both as a result
of and in spite of such socialization, becomes able to make personal decisions which
may or may not be acceptable to his society. If the sole criterion in making
personal decisions is their effect on the survival and well-being of everyone affected
by it, such decisions must take into account the effects of conditions and policies
that affect the non-human environment as well, in order to assess their likely short
 178 FRANK SIMON

and long-term impact on human life.

The process of socialization should obtain the child's conformity to social rules
not by punitive means, but by means which enable each child to benefit physically
and psychologically. A dependence on punitive methods would be a continuation of
the preconventional punishment-obedience system of conformity-producing peda-
gogy. Reward for desired behaviour should take the form of approval and accept-
ance of behaviour that helps and is fair to everyone concerned. Increasingly,
examination of personal and social issues should be carried out in the elementary
school, making wide use of concrete situations, real and fictitious, inductively and
deductively, to establish knowledge, understanding, acceptance of as well as con-
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formity to the rules.

In the secondary school the rules are translated increasingly into assumptions
(principles) to be examined against their purposes and against the effects of their
implementation/non-implementation. Pedagogically, the required 'intellectually
stimulating' processes are those which are continually being identified and developed
in the social studies/social science field.
In this latter regard those involved in social (moral) education are well aware
of the great challenge facing them. Perhaps still a greater challenge is how to
develop the student's ego strength in ways that will help him grow from a morally
reasoning person to a morally behaving one. Only practice in post-valuing/inquiry
activity appears to have any promise in this regard. Those who stress the action
component of value formation and decision-making may appear more convincing
when the literature on moral development and education converges on this
seemingly inescapable and indispensable stage of moral development.

Footnote
1
In Kohlberg's schemata for moral development each of the three stages consists of two
substages.