Human development: contributions of Moral Psychology

Abstract

We shall try to evaluate the contributions that the knowledge accumulated by Moral Psychology has made to the understanding of human development with the purpose of sustaining the following thesis: the source of energy of moral duty must be sought not only among exclusively moral feelings, but also among those which play a role in human development as a whole. Our approach will be presented in three steps. Firstly, we shall analyze if there is any possibility of articulation between the theories which emphasise the affective dimension of morality (Freud and Durkheim) and those which stress the intellectual dimension of morality (Piaget and Kohlberg). In the second place, once the impossibility of such articulation is verifi ed, we shall defend that shame, present in morality but also present in other dimensions of human development, is a necessary condition for the feeling of moral duty. Finally, we shall discuss if shame can be evoked as an essential source of energy in the theoretical approaches which emphasise the intellectual dimension of morality.