Relations between adult developmental conceptions of the beautiful and moral development.

Abstract

The cross-sectional study with 180 adult subjects researched structural-developmental levels of conceptions of the beautiful and also studied their relations with structural-developmental levels of moral development. Measures of moral development that are considerably beyond the scope of Kohlberg’s conception of justice-reasoning were used. Six levels of conceptions of the beautiful were studied. The highest level, not discerned in previous studies, was established from some responses to Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon. Six structural-developmental conceptions of the beautiful across four Picasso paintings and one Michelangelo sculpture meet the criterion of generality which supports the claim to finding hierarchical structures within a domain of their own. Distinctions are made about the domain of the issues under study among four domains: I) the real, II) the good, III) the just and right, and, IV) the beautiful. The beautiful, domain IV, involves the contemplation, or, appreciation, and fashioning of beautiful objects. Data were collected and analyzed in two domains and two sub-domains of moral development characterized as: 1) conceptions of the good, 2) judgments of justice-reasoning (obligations, liberties and duties), and 3) compassion as a supererogatory act which a person does for the sake of another’s good at considerable cost or risk to the self. The moral domains and subdomains used as a framework for the measures of moral development in these studies are based on the framework of Rawls’s social contract philosophy and the psychological study of conceptions of the beautiful is based on Kant’s philosophy of the beautiful. The relations between the developmental level of conceptions of the beautiful and the structural-developmental levels of moral decisions were studied through standardized justice-reasoning dilemmas and administration of a fidelity/infidelity structural interview. The data suggest that as the level of moral development rises, there is a tendency for the levels of conceptions of the beautiful to also rise. In 91% of instances, there was plus or minus a half level correspondence between the level of conceptions of justice-reasoning and the level of conceptions of the beautiful. In 98% of the analyzed cases, the levels of conceptions of the good and the levels of conceptions of the beautiful are within one level of one another. The study also contributes toward resolving the unsettled question about the number of developmental domains and subdomains that exist.