Theories of moral development

Writean article on developmental psychology: theories of moral development Paper must be at least 1250 words. First of all, what is conscience? Spohn (2000) quotes a definition provided by Sidney Callahan: “conscience is a personal, self-conscious activity integrating reason, emotion, and will in self-committed decisions about right and wrong, good and evil.” Spohn himself quips that conscience is “that still small voice that makes you feel smaller still.” He designates two types of conscience – anterior and subsequent.The goal of moral consciousness is empathy toward others. This is observed in reactive attitudes as experienced in the first-, second-, or third-person (Dwyer, 2003). The first-person response is a person’s feelings about their own behavior, for example, guilt at feeling ill-will toward others. The second-person response is the projection of feeling upon another in reaction for their treatment toward the individual, for example feeling anger at someone who has deliberately done the individual an injustice. The third-person response is a reaction to another’s the treatment of a third party, for example, admiration of a third party for going out of his or her way to offer assistance to another. Moral consciousness also deals with recognizing when to apply judgment to others. For example, being able to determine that a dish was broken on accident or intentionally, and showing the appropriate response. Another example is the ability to recognize the inability of certain others, for instance, babies or mentally impaired individuals, to be held accountable for their actions.In order to distinguish between all of these situations, and others not mentioned, certain skills are required. These include the ability to fact-find, to reflect upon past situations and apply lessons learned to current situations, the ability to recognize consequences of actions, flexibility in ascribing motives to actions (Spohn, 2000).&nbsp.Several theories have been used to describe how children acquire these skills, the most popular being Bandura’s Social Learning Theory, Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory, and Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual Development.