ABSTRACT
Morality', to many, still conjures up a 'code' prohibiting stealing, sex and selfishness. The very word 'code' suggests a body of rules, perhaps of an arbitrary sort, that all hang together but have no rational basis. Rational morality, like science, took a long time to emerge, to become distinguished from religion, law and custom. The significant feature of moral development is found to be the individual's way of conceiving of rules; the supreme virtue is that of justice which regulates, in an abstract way, the autonomous person's assessment of rules. The fact that the Piaget-Kohlberg theory of moral development concentrates only on the form of the moral life viewed rather narrowly in terms of the way in which rules are conceived and in the manner in which they are followed, that is, on ego-strength or strength of will, does not mean that this feature of development cannot be combined with others in a less one-sided account of moral development.
