Approaches to the Psychological Theories on Moral Development

Abstract

This paper tries to outline the paradigms related to a psychological body of knowledge which has dealt with contents related to moral development. Psychoanalytical, learning, cognitive-evolutive and socio-cognitive theories are considered, represented by an author or authors considered relevant. Psychoanalysis –centered on its creator, Freud with some references to Klein– explains the moral phenomenon through the three instances of personality and by social and cultural influences. Learning theories, represented in this occasion by Skinner, agree on denying the moral fact as a conscience product, to concentrate its explanatory task on the genesis of moral behavior. Socio cognitive approach –coming from the cognitive-evolutive paradigm- allows us to complete issues which appear in Kohlberg’s theory; namely how the Turiel’s influence of the relational component and Selman’s adoption of perspectives. Finally, the cognitive-evolutive approach, perhaps the one with higher preeminence and research tradition in the actual scientific panorama here presented is reported in Piaget, Kohlberg, and Gilligan’s contributions.