ABSTRACT
Building on the theoretical work of Ferdinand Tonnies (1855-1936) and on a previous review of cross-cultural moral development research (Snarey, 1985), this chapter develops the thesis that Kohlberg’s model of moral development does not adequately represent a communitarian or Gemeinschaft voice. It examines the usefulness of Tonnies’ typology for explicating the possible incomplete nature of Kohlberg’s model, employing an updated review of quantitative and qualitative data from cross-cultural studies that have used the Moral Judgment Interview and the standardized scoring manual. The analyses revealed that there are genuine forms of conventional and postconventional reasoning that are incompletely represented in the current theory and scoring manual. These anomalous judgments are consistent with Tonnies’ description of a communitarian or Gemeinschaft-like voice as it is commonly found in folk-cultural groups and working-class communities. Grounded on this evidence, the chapter then presents a reconstruction of Kohlberg’s theory that expands the cross-cultural inclusiveness of the theory, particularly at the postconventional level.
