ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION As an anthropologist I believe that Piagetian studies of moral development can greatly increase our understanding of moral thought in simple, nonliterate societies, but many anthropologists would vigorously oppose such a claim. Relativists would say that there is no such thing as moral development, because all moral rules are arbitrary social conventions that vary from one society to another. Others would agree that there has been moral development in the course of history, but claim that this has been the result of increasing social complexity, and that social facts can never be explained by individual psychology.
