Cognitive Development Of Individual Moral Reflection And Reconstruction - New Kohlberg Theory

Based on the data gathered over the past 25 years on the research associated with the use of the Defining Issues Test (DIT) of moral judgment, absorbing the new ideas of cognitive psychology and in light of their responses to the criticisms of the Kohlberg's theory, Kohlberg's student-James Rest and his colleagues-Darcia Narvaez, Muriel Bebeau, Stephen Thoma put forward the neo-Kohlbergian theory at the turn of the century. This theory had three main parts. First, based on the DIT, they rectified the DIT1 and constructed the DIT2. Second, in accordance with the factor analysis on the responses to the DIT, they postulated three moral schemas (the personal interest schema, the maintaining norm schema and the postconventional schema) instead of stages with distinct justice operations. Third, in light of the double classification(the moral schema predominance and the moral schema mixture), they produced six moral types. This paper analyses this theory and shows that the neo-Kohlbergian theory inherits and develops the cognitive-developmental approach of moral psychology. Although the neo-Kohlbergian theory is not perfect, its development will stimulate work in the field of moral psychology and give an important reference and instruction for developing moral education.