ABSTRACT
In Robert Hogan's view morality has a "social job to do", the job of regulating conduct. The regulative function of morality is to be understood in terms of certain biological mechanisms. For Hogan moral character is a kind of personality structure that encompasses various motives for acting. Moral character depends on the amount of moral knowledge one has acquired. The socioanalytic theory clarifies and extends the original formulation in interesting ways. The epigenetic image is of a child attempting to adapt, that is, the child attempts to accommodate to the new social demands that each new phase of development entails. Hogan's theory appears to be an attempt to reassert the moral imperative to respect law and order, to appreciate conventional standards, and to comply with authority. Asserting the primacy of personality (the body) entails denying rationality (the mind), and vice versa.
