Moral reasoning: foundations and applications

Cultural Differences

Moral Reasoning

Moral reasoning: An intercultural comparison

Until recently, many Western developmental theorists tended to see morality as a transcultural phenomenon, reflecting their belief that all cultures shared certain common moral assumptions. Both Piaget and Kohlberg stressed that moral development passes through a series of stages, just like the child's ability to understand other complex subjects like mass and volume (Jensen 2008; Sunac n.d). However, this tends to assume that the individual is the primary moral decision-making unit and reflects an individualistic bias. American culture is defined by certain assumptions, such as the importance of individualism and material advancement, which are not necessarily shared by all cultures (or indeed all subcultures within America) (Humphries & Jagers 2009: 206). In America, an individual who 'stands up' to a crowd, or who goes against established ideas and makes a profit in the case of an entrepreneur like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates is upheld as a role model. Acting in an asocial fashion is validated; provided the individual translates his success into material terms.

In communitarian and traditional societies, however, this is not the case. In other societies, too much individualism is seen as dangerous and not necessarily useful or good, regardless of whether it profits the individual or results in material gain. When instilling moral ideas in children, American parents often stress the need to be moral for the sake of one's self. 'Even if no one else knows, you will know,' a parent might counsel his or her child. The Judeo-Christian ethic stresses that the individual's soul or self is a gift from God and all souls are equal. American law is a rights-based culture, and these rights are derived from a sense of 'inalienable' rights connected to the individual (Bedford and Hwang 2002: 129)

But within the Confucian ethos dominant in Asian cultures, " one's life is an inheritance from one's ancestors, just as one's children's lives flow from one's own" (Bedford and Hwang 2002: 129). A personal sense of self derives from one's position in the family, and thus something which might seem admirable to a Westerner, such as defying the values one was brought up with and choosing a different profession or marrying someone of a different religion not approved of by one's parents, would not necessarily be seen as moral or admirable in a Confucian cultural context. The Confucian ethos is also not a democratic one. A person has specific duties, obligations, and responsibilities to others based upon his or her status, and the rights owed to a son are different than the rights owed to a father. Even though this rigid hierarchy is no longer present in its original form in most Asian cultures, it still has an impact upon how the individual is viewed in relationship to the collective. It also is a more relativistic perspective: right and wrong are situation-specific, and depend on the persons involved. The rights owed to a parent are greater than the rights owed to a stranger (Bedford and Hwang 2002: 131).