Moral development
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Commentary
Human Development 2015;58:164–171 DOI: 10.1159/000435926
Moral Identity and Developmental Theory Commentary on Krettenauer and Hertz
Daniel Lapsley
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Ind. , USA
Key Words Moral development · Moral identity · Personality · Selfhood
The notion that self-identity and morality are deeply implicated has long-stand- ing roots in both ethical theory and psychology. In ethical theory it is evident in Har- ry Frankfurt’s [1971] account of what it means to be a person: A person (as opposed to a wanton ) is someone who cares about morality. A person cares about the desir- ability of one’s desires (second-order desires) and then wishes to will them all the way to action (second-order volitions). Similarly, Charles Taylor [1989] argued that iden- tity is defined by reference to things that have significance for us. It is the result of strong evaluation about what is worthy or unworthy, and these discriminations are made against a horizon of significance that frames and constitutes who we are as per- sons. He writes, “My identity is defined by the commitments and identifications which provide the frame or horizon within which I can try to determine from case to case what is good or valuable, or what ought to be done or what I endorse or oppose” [Taylor, 1989, p. 27].
The affinity of selfhood and morality is a theme in several psychological tradi- tions as well. Erikson [1968, p. 39] argued, for example, that an ethical capacity is the “true criterion of identity,” but he also noted that “identity and fidelity are necessary for ethical strength” [Erikson, 1964, p. 126]. This suggests that moral identity is the clear goal of both moral and identity development and that in the moral person the two developmental tracks are ideally conjoined. Similarly, Damon and Hart [1982] showed that, within each domain of the “Me Self” (physical, active, social, psycho- logical), the highest level of self-understanding implicates a moral point of view. This suggests that the moral self is the clear outcome of self-development [Lapsley, 2005]. Indeed, recent research has shown that morality is considered indispensable to self- hood; it is the moral self that is essential to our identity, more than personality traits,
Daniel Lapsley Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame 118 Haggar Hall Notre Dame, IN 46556 (USA) E-Mail danlapsley @ nd.edu
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Moral Identity and Developmental Theory 165Human Development 2015;58:164–171 DOI: 10.1159/000435926
memory, or desires [Strohminger and Nichols, 2014]. It may well be that, for all the contingent facts about ourselves, it is our moral integrity that is the necessary fact of the “real me” [Carr, 2001].
Of course few have done more than Blasi [1984, 1985] to elevate the importance of moral identity in post-Kohlberg moral development research. For Blasi, the moral person is someone whose very selfhood is constructed on moral grounds; it is some- one whose desires reflect a wholehearted commitment to morality. Morality is essen- tial, important, and central to self-understanding; and, to the extent that not everyone prioritizes morality in this way, it is also a dimension of individual differences.
Blasi’s account of moral self-identity struck a chord. It encouraged reflection on the link between personal agency and the construction of moral ideals. It raised ques- tions about how best to understand moral character. It opened up possibilities for engaging other psychological literatures, particularly those regarding personality and cognition, with the goal of deriving robust integrative models of moral functioning [Lapsley & Stey, 2014]. It is implicated in research on the moral ideal self [Hardy, Walker, Olsen, Woodbury, & Hickman, 2014], moral exemplars [e.g., Colby & Da- mon, 1992; Walker & Frimer, 2007], and social-cognitive accounts of moral person- ality [Aquino & Reed, 2002; Lapsley & Narvaez, 2004].
From these perspectives, Krettenauer and Hertz [this issue] assembled what they call the “standard model” of moral identity: Moral identity is the degree to which be- ing a moral person is important to an individual’s identity [Hardy & Carlo, 2011]. The goal of moral identity development, on the standard account, is the integration of self and morality; it is the integration of values with motivational and emotional systems. The authors add an important codicil to the standard account: The integration of self and morality is not available to children. Childhood, on this account, is “void of identity.”
But the authors think that Blasian moral identity has been given enough time to show its mettle and has not delivered all that it promised. It promised to offer a reso- lution of the judgment-action gap, but there are doubts about whether moral iden- tity is a better predictor of behavior than moral affect. It implied a developmental model that has not been adequately tested, let alone vindicated. For example, indices of moral identity are uncorrelated with age over the course of adolescence and emerg- ing adulthood. Krettenauer and Hertz are concerned to understand why the develop- mental claims of the standard model have proved unavailing and to offer a number of recommendations by way of remedy.
In their view one reason for the paucity of developmental research is the “top- down logic” that has characterized research on moral identity. This means that extant research focuses on the measurement of moral identity in adolescents and young adults and has neglected charting the developmental trajectories that get us to adult manifestations. A second reason is that current (adult-centric) measurement strate- gies are insensitive to the developmental features of moral identity even if develop- mental research were undertaken. So, on their view, we need both a new conceptual understanding of moral identity and new ways to measure it. Certainly, both are wel- come.
Krettenauer and Hertz propose a way of rescuing the developmental claims of moral identity by linking it to three domains that show more developmental promise. One might find evidence of development in literatures that track the increasing dif- ferentiation and integration of self-development. Harter [2012] showed, for example,
Human Development 2015;58:164–171 DOI: 10.1159/000435926
166 Lapsley
that self-conceptions are both increasingly differentiated as one moves from early to late adolescence but also more deeply integrated. Hence the rhythm of development bids the adolescent to differentiate real versus ideal selves, or display multiple selves across different contexts, or create self-evaluations that differ across domains, but, at the same time, integrate disparate selves into a higher-order generalization, create a global sense of self-worth, or coordinate disparate and contradictory aspects of the self into a coherent self-system. Perhaps something like this can be deployed to un- derstand the rhythm of moral identity development.
Self-determination theory is also held out as a promising source of developmen- tal claims. The continuum of self-determination moves from several forms of extrin- sic regulation (external, introjected, identified, integrated) to authentic internal self- regulation where the self is experienced as the locus of causal agency [Ryan & Deci, 2000]. Perhaps this continuum is a model of how moral identity development might proceed. Finally, one might look for developmental themes in life story narratives [e.g., McAdams, 2009; McAdams & Pals, 2006]. For example, moral identity develop- ment could be a matter of creating a life story but one that follows either an essential- ist (where the focus is on self-traits) or narrative line. In the narrative approach, a life story is constructed in a way that brings coherence to past and future conceptions of self-identity.
This is perhaps enough to reprise the major themes of Krettenauer and Hertz’s thesis. What is attractive about the proposal is just how strongly integrative it is. It folds the “self-importance” aspect of moral identity within the context of what Harter [2012] has to say about differentiation and integration in the development of the self. It locates moral identity as a moment in the growth of internal motivation as outlined in self-determination theory. It holds out a place for moral self-identity in the way we make sense of our lives through personal narrative.
Hence, self-important moral traits will show differentiation and integration; be- havior will be self-regulated increasingly by internal sources of motivation and be connected to larger narratives of the responsible self-as-agent. Indeed, the narrative understanding of the responsible self anticipates connections to important new con- structs [e.g., moral agency; see Pasupathi & Wainryb, 2010]. Moreover, as the authors point out, their scheme aligns with three layers of personality as conceptualized by McAdams [McAdams, 2009; McAdams & Olson, 2010; McAdams & Pals, 2006], a conceptualization that has strong heuristic value.
These are entirely plausible and welcome suggestions. Indeed, Krettenauer and Hertz propose a highly interesting and possibly field-expanding contribution to mor- al identity theory to the extent that it burnishes…
