University of Notre Dame Press Following Kohlberg: Liberalism and the Practice of Democratic Community (Revisions: A Series of Books on Ethics)

This work provides an overview of the research of Lawrence Kohlberg, best known for his theory of stages of moral development. The book illustrates how the Kohlbergian project has much to offer the debate about moral psychology and how to renew our society's jaded sense of fairness. Review "Reed's most original contribution resides in his articulation of distinct conceptions of liberal and democratic thinking." "In this penetrating and insightful discussion of Kohlberg's life and research, Donald R.C. Reed locates a fundamental tension between Kohlberg's structural stage model, based on a philosophy of liberal individualism, and the Just Community approach, based on a communitarian ethic. [T]his book provides one of the most thoughtful and comprehensive treatment of Kohlberg and his work that I have ever read."--F. Clark Power From the Author A comprehensive introduction to Lawrence Kohlberg's work This book offers a comprehensive introduction to Lawrence Kohlberg's research program. It brings the three principal components of this program together in a single volume, offering accounts of the psychological theory and empirical data supporting Kohlberg's stage theory of moral development, the philosophical conception of morality that informed Kohlberg's research on that theory, and the democratic educational interventions in prisons and schools which Kohlberg developed to put this theory into practice. No other such comprehensive introduction to Kohlberg's work is presently available. Beyond providing this introduction, the book explores two surprising features of Kohlberg's work. First, focusing on the type of moral dilemmas Kohlberg used in his research interviews, the book reveals a basic tension in Kohlberg's overall project. The philosophical and psychological concepts that form the theory of developmental stages of morality are in tension with the concepts that Kohlberg and his colleagues articulated in explaining and justifying the democratic interventions. The stage theory is individualist, rules-based, and rights-centered, whereas the theory informing the democratic "just community" interventions is collectivist, relationship-based, and goods-centered. Second, the book shows that in Kohlberg's final published work on Stage 6, he and Carol Gilligan can be seen to agree in all essentials on what constitutes moral maturity. During the four years following publication of Gilligan's In a Different Voice (1982), Kohlberg and Gilligan both revised their accounts of moral development so that they converged far more than is commonly recognized. The book argues that the promise of the Kohlbergian project lies especially in extending this convergence to include the understanding developed in the just community projects. Moral development moves toward a certain type of relationship, including full participation in just, democratic community, not simply toward formally adequate individual reasoning. The Kohlbergian project is at present not so much flawed as unfinished. About the Author Donald R.C. Reed is associate professor of philosophy at Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio. As a fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities (1996-97), he has conducted archival research for a biography of Kohlberg.