ABSTRACT
The fourth and highest stage in the development of moral judgement is that of autonomy, self-rule, when the rules governing moral behaviour come from within the individual. The controls of the stages of heteronomy and socionomy are from without although both stages are accompanied by an increasing inner development without which autonomy could not be achieved. In the stage of autonomy the controls are internalised; it is, therefore, to this stage that the term 'moral' applies in all its fullness.
