Individual development

Normal individual development in modern society may be examined in three stages:

(1) The small child, who establishes a natural identity, gradually distinguishing his own body from the environment. He has needs which must be met; and these he learns to negotiate through claims and responses which work, first with his mother and later with peers and siblings as well. These are elaborated by role testing in different situations. Internal behaviour controls and role responsibilities are built up through growth in the family environment and experience of the Oedipal crisis.

(2) The school child: there is rapid cognitive, emotional, moral, physical and interactive development during which the child achieves an identity defined by role. Conflict and depression mark a coming to terms with the development process and release from internalized mother- and father-concepts as the young person is prepared for departure from the parental family. Intermediate between attachment of the libido to previous and new objects there is a narcissistic stage with characteristic moral instrumentalism. The individual learns to distinguish between norms and the principles which legitimate them, discriminating those which seem worthy and attempting, despite conflicting role expectations and systems, to consistently embody some principle.

(3) The young adult, where there is integration into the whole society, a balancing between different areas of life and and overall unifying interpretation of life-history. There is also interactive participation where there is attempted exploitation of the situation for his own wealth and prestige, but within the bounds of socially acceptable rules.

These three stages are considered by L Kohlberg as three levels of judgement:

(1) Pre-conventional: This may be subdivided into two stages or bases for moral decisions, fear (obedience to parents or to God as a 'super parent' to avoid punishment) and self-interest (personal gratification and satisfying of needs through a bargaining procedure, whether with parent figures or with God).

(2) Conventional: This may be subdivided into two stages or bases for moral decisions, respect for authority (conformity in order to conform to expectations of society or of God as the ideal of good and protector of goodness, and thus receive approval) and maintenance of social order (real respect rather than dependence on authority and/or on God as the basis of order).

(3) Post-conventional or Self-accepted: principles are accepted because they are believed to be right rather than for reasons of convention – within which several stages are defined, including rights of others (upholding society's obligations on individual and minority rights and, from the religious viewpoint, cooperating with God in community encouragement of dignity and freedom), universal principles (shift in emphasis towards individual judgement on moral and religious issues and the willingness to defy society and to suffer on those issues), and 'stage 7'. The individual is now orientated to general principles such as sanctity of life and furthering the development of mankind. The final stage is hypothesis, where logic and reason no longer seem sufficient and there is post-conventional religious orientation, where the morally mature question and seek answers to the meaning of life in a non-egoistic and non-dualistic approach. There may be despair in the face of individual smallness and impermanence compared with the infinite, but courage can help the coming to terms with and achieving union with God. This last stage is more a goal than a reality, and according to Kohlberg is the only stage where faith precedes moral commitment.

Kohlberg's bases for moral judgement may be compared with James Fowler's stages of faith development. Each of Fowler's stages may be shown to arise prior to the transition to a new basis for moral decisions and it has been suggested that they in fact trigger the transition.