It is hardly plausible to view a whole succession of logics as an evolutionary and functional program of innate wiring, particularly in light of the fact that the most mature logical structures are reached only by some adults.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that complex logical reasoning develops over time and is not innate for everyone, highlighting the variance in cognitive maturity among adults.
Lawrence Kohlberg's quote reflects on the intricacies of human cognition, emphasizing that the ability to engage in advanced logical reasoning is not simply an innate ability present from birth but rather a skill that evolves through experience and can differ significantly among individuals. It suggests that while some logical frameworks may develop naturally, the more complex and mature forms of logic are attained through life experiences and intellectual growth across different stages of adulthood.
In practice
This quote can be used in a classroom setting to foster a discussion about cognitive development.
The unit of effectiveness of education is not the individual but the group. An individual's moral values are primarily important for society as they contribute to a moral social climate, not as they induce particular pieces of behavior.
It seems obvious that moral stages must primarily be the products of the child's interaction with others rather than the direct unfolding of biological or neurological structures.
All individuals in all cultures use the same thirty basic moral categories, concepts, or principles, and all individuals in all cultures go through the same order or sequence of gross stage development, though they vary in rate and terminal point of development.
If our psychology seems crude and weak in what it can say about the great human experiences, it is better to make that clear and to mark where we must go than to ignore it.
Although it may be true that the notion of teaching virtues such as honesty or integrity arouses little controversy, it is also true that vague consensus on the goodness of these virtues conceals a great deal of actual disagreement over their definitions.
The arguments about parents being too permissive and kids growing up without superegos are not based on fact. Our research tells us that the family is not the only purveyor of morality.
Presume not that I am the thing I was.
One sees in Latin America, and also elsewhere, among many Catholics a certain schizophrenia between individual and public morality.
Many people never grow up. They stay all their lives with a passionate need for external authority and guidance, pretending not to trust their own judgment.
He that has learned to feel his sins, and to trust Christ as a Saviour, has learned the two hardest and greatest lessons in Christianity.
We have international standards regulating everything from t-shirts to toys to tomatoes. There are international regulations for furniture. That means there are common standards for the global trade in armchairs but not the global trade in arms.
In other words: It seems to me that I will always be happy in the place where I am not. Or, more bluntly: Wherever I am not is the place where I am myself. Or else, taking the bull by the horns: Anywhere out of the world.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.