ABSTRACT
During her 1997 Kohlberg Memorial Lecture to the members of the Association for Moral Education, Carol Gilligan reflected on her scholarly and personal relationship with Larry Kohlberg (Gilligan, 1998) and talked about how their students in the 1960s, caught in the powerful currents of the antiwar movement and the emerging women’s movement, struggled with Tolstoy’s question of “How to live and what to do?” Don’t we all in every era? In the wake of the 2008 global financial meltdown, I watch my students grapple with tensions between choosing meaningful work and choosing a vocation that will pay the bills. I see fellow professionals struggle to maintain a sustainable balance between the demands of work and home. And, at the macro level, the mounting global challenges of climate change, ethnic and religious hatreds, wars, poverty, disease, and hunger seem to have pushed many good people to psychic numbing if not to cynicism or despair. Despite all these challenges, I count myself as extraordinarily lucky to be working in a field where my colleagues have answered Tolstoy’s question by promoting moral development and moral education. We know that morally mature and engaged young people and citizens not only are more likely to live ethical lives themselves but also to be motivated to help their fellow humans and tackle the big problems of their families, communities, and societies.
