Kolhberg at the “Is-Ought” Gap

Abstract

In an impressive monograph on moral developmental psychology, entitled “From is to ought,”Professor Lawrence Kohlberg makes some rather extraordinary claims about both psychology and philosophy, claims that are so appealingly audacious that the reader feels as Adam should have felt when offered a bite of the apple from the tree of knowledge, that is, inclined to search, if not for a serpent, at least for a worm. Kohlberg, thoroughly familiar with philosophical literature from Socrates to Rawls, appreciates the arguments of the Wittgensteinians as to why psychology cannot be value-neutral. He maintains that psychology should engage in dialogue with moral philosophy and claims that his own empirical studies, conducted in accordance with the highest standards of experimental research, have enabled him to arrive at solutions to the most vexing problems of substantive and procedural ethics. In his view the logical relations among ethical principles, as well as the stages of development of moral consciousness both in the child and in the human race, reveal a pre-established harmony, somewhat like Leibnizian clocks that simultaneously peal the arrival of enlightenment.