Criticism on moral development theories of Piaget , Kohlberg

Abstract

Its been years in the psychology and assessment of moral development that theories of genetic epistemology and social behaviorism (which are based on Piaget, Kohlberg, and Banduras approaches) have been in the center of attention for the psychologists and education experts and have been used by the educational counseling centers and other psychology centers in Iran. Therefore, there have not been a suitable theory and proper native assessing tools made in our country in the field of moral development. The main issue is that the theoretical foundations and the structure and content of these viewpoints are provided without considering the innate and eternal moral foundations, moral motive and feeling, moral belief and culture, and moral behavior and reactions. Such viewpoints are not in consistency with our school students moral development. This article has shown that Piaget, Kohlberg, and Banduras viewpoints have strictly positioned the moral judgment, learning social laws, and relations of the Western countries as the foundation for their theories without considering spiritual, rational, and motivational bases of moralities, which have roots in divine creation and the human nature. By providing a new model for moral development formation, this article has shown that individuals social and moral development is a result of complicated, dynamic, and mutual interactions of the five following factors: innate nature of the individual, social contexts, events and experiences, moral judgment development, and manifestation and change of stimulations and sentiments of sympathy and helping other people. The article tries, while criticizing the present psychological approaches on moral development, to prepare the way for a new scientific and authentic research in making theory for moral development and preparing theoretical basis for making national assessing scales for moral development.