ABSTRACT
Students of contemporary approaches to moral development may be struck by the apparent similarity of views espoused by different schools. The proposition that seems to be shared by different theoretical orientations implies that one of the major dimensions of developmental change in morality is the transition from heteronomy to autonomy. It was Jean Piaget who for the first time in psychology systematically described changes in moral reasoning in these terms (Piaget, 1932). The best articulated and most extensively tested theory of moral development that was formulated by Kohlberg contains the same assumption: as an individual moves from preconventional through conventional to postconventional levels he or she loses his or her moral dependency on superior power and societal requirements and becomes instead a self-governing individual (Kohlberg, 1964).
