John Rawls’s Conception of Personal Moral Development

Abstract

J. Rawls’ conception of individual moral development has undeservedly rarely attracted scholars’ attention. It is most often addressed in respect to the tasks of clarifying moral psychology or moral sentiments how Rawls has understood them. Meanwhile, it is undoubtedly a matter of interest as such, since, on the one hand, it echoes in a number of its parameters with the leading theories of moral development of the 20^th century (J. Piaget, L. Kohlberg), and, on the other hand, it presents a philosophical theory, which has no corresponding empirical basis, and Rawls purposefully developed in order to clarify some of the fundamental provisions of his theory of justice. Rawls’ concept assumes that the individual passes through three stages in moral development — “the morality of authority”, “the morality of association” and “the morality of principles”. At each stage, the individual demonstrates special ways of justifying moral decisions and moral motivation, each of them reveals a unique understanding of guilt and its causes, as well as their own sets of virtues and vices. As Rawls shows, the personal moral development is continuous: the experience of the morality of authority creates prerequisites for the familiarization of the morality of association, and the experience of the latter prepares the individual for acquirement of the morality of principles. At the same time, the model the stages of individual moral development proposed by Rawls can be easily interpreted in terms of the typology of moral systems, and this conjugation of the schematics of moral development and the typology of moral systems is of clearly interest. The article concludes that due to the moral and psychological consideration, Rawls was able to reveal the context in which the principles of justice become significant, and their development by the individual ultimately marks the transformation and elevation of one’s everyday experience.