Introduction: Meaning, measurement, and correlates of moral development

Abstract

Morality has again become an important focus of research in different scientific disciplines: from biology (ethology), neuropsychology and evolutionary psychology to social psychology, business ethics, and political philosophy. One of the reasons for this renewed interest, no doubt, stems from the tragedies that human beings, individually or in groups, inflict upon the lives of one another and the world at large, e.g., (civil) war, the extinction of species and ecological destruction, climate change, and last but not least – the financial crisis. Moral destitution and collapse, a lack of respect for human dignity and worth, deficits in proper moral functioning at all levels of the world community often discounted or masked by transparent excuses and vacuous rationalizations, are viewed as a principal cause of the social, societal and ecological crises with which we are confronted today. The key to solving these crises must lie, at least partly, in a better understanding and active deployment of morality. However, morality is not only an important topic of study for its potential relationship with antisocial behaviour, but also for its relationship with prosocial behaviour (helping, sharing, etc.). Relationships of morality with both types of negative and positive conduct shed important insight on moral (dis)functioning. Developmental psychology is charged with the specific task of illuminating the growth and evolution of moral functioning in human beings.