Moral Identity and Developmental Theory

Abstract

The notion that self-identity and morality are deeply implicated has long-standing roots in both ethical theory and psychology. In ethical theory it is evident in Harry Frankfurt's [1971] account of what it means to be a person: A person (as opposed to a wanton) is someone who cares about morality. A person cares about the desirability of one's desires (second-order desires) and then wishes to will them all the way to action (second-order volitions). Similarly, Charles Taylor [1989] argued that identity is defined by reference to things that have significance for us. It is the result of strong evaluation about what is worthy or unworthy, and these discriminations are made against a horizon of significance that frames and constitutes who we are as persons. He writes, “My identity is defined by the commitments and identifications which provide the frame or horizon within which I can try to determine from case to case what is good or valuable, or what ought to be done or what I endorse or oppose” [Taylor, 1989, p. 27].The affinity of selfhood and morality is a theme in several psychological traditions as well. Erikson [1968, p. 39] argued, for example, that an ethical capacity is the “true criterion of identity,” but he also noted that “identity and fidelity are necessary for ethical strength” [Erikson, 1964, p. 126]. This suggests that moral identity is the clear goal of both moral and identity development and that in the moral person the two developmental tracks are ideally conjoined. Similarly, Damon and Hart [1982] showed that, within each domain of the “Me Self” (physical, active, social, psychological), the highest level of self-understanding implicates a moral point of view. This suggests that the moral self is the clear outcome of self-development [Lapsley, 2005]. Indeed, recent research has shown that morality is considered indispensable to selfhood; it is the moral self that is essential to our identity, more than personality traits, memory, or desires [Strohminger and Nichols, 2014]. It may well be that, for all the contingent facts about ourselves, it is our moral integrity that is the necessary fact of the “real me” [Carr, 2001].Of course few have done more than Blasi [1984, 1985] to elevate the importance of moral identity in post-Kohlberg moral development research. For Blasi, the moral person is someone whose very selfhood is constructed on moral grounds; it is someone whose desires reflect a wholehearted commitment to morality. Morality is essential, important, and central to self-understanding; and, to the extent that not everyone prioritizes morality in this way, it is also a dimension of individual differences.Blasi's account of moral self-identity struck a chord. It encouraged reflection on the link between personal agency and the construction of moral ideals. It raised questions about how best to understand moral character. It opened up possibilities for engaging other psychological literatures, particularly those regarding personality and cognition, with the goal of deriving robust integrative models of moral functioning [Lapsley & Stey, 2014]. It is implicated in research on the moral ideal self [Hardy, Walker, Olsen, Woodbury, & Hickman, 2014], moral exemplars [e.g., Colby & Damon, 1992; Walker & Frimer, 2007], and social-cognitive accounts of moral personality [Aquino & Reed, 2002; Lapsley & Narvaez, 2004].From these perspectives, Krettenauer and Hertz [this issue] assembled what they call the “standard model” of moral identity: Moral identity is the degree to which being a moral person is important to an individual's identity [Hardy & Carlo, 2011]. The goal of moral identity development, on the standard account, is the integration of self and morality; it is the integration of values with motivational and emotional systems. The authors add an important codicil to the standard account: The integration of self and morality is not available to children. Childhood, on this account, is “void of identity.”But the authors think that Blasian moral identity has been given enough time to show its mettle and has not delivered all that it promised. It promised to offer a resolution of the judgment-action gap, but there are doubts about whether moral identity is a better predictor of behavior than moral affect. It implied a developmental model that has not been adequately tested, let alone vindicated. For example, indices of moral identity are uncorrelated with age over the course of adolescence and emerging adulthood. Krettenauer and Hertz are concerned to understand why the developmental claims of the standard model have proved unavailing and to offer a number of recommendations by way of remedy.In their view one reason for the paucity of developmental research is the “top-down logic” that has characterized research on moral identity. This means that extant research focuses on the measurement of moral identity in adolescents and young adults and has neglected charting the developmental trajecto