ABSTRACT
The field of moral psychology has mushroomed in the past 20 years or so, with input from many academic disciplines in an attempt to explain moral behavior. A large segment of the field focuses on moral development, which is the subject of chapter 6. Topics that are discussed and critiqued extensively include the issue of the evolutionary basis of human morals; morality as a developmental process, with alternative conceptions of how that takes place: e.g., via the transmission of cultural standards (Hoffman's empathy-based model); intrinsic stages of cognitive/moral development (Piaget; Kohlberg); via innate social intuitions (Haidt); societal and cultural influences on moral development. Also considered are the attributes that determine the moral intensity of a problematic ethical situation; and five paradigmatic forms of ethical dilemmas are described.
