What Does Moral Functioning Entail?

Abstract

The past several years have been marked by renewed interest and vigorous debate regarding character formation and moral development. This situation has been provoked partly by the clash of moral values apparent in stridently competing worldviews; by recurrent observations regarding the claimed deterioration in moral standards and behavior in our society; and by frequently voiced concerns regarding the adequacy of the moral socialization that typically occurs in many contexts, including families, schools, peers, and the media. This chapter sets out the scope of the moral domain to keep us mindful of its breadth and complexity and to help guide our attempts to nurture moral maturity in children and adolescents. This chapter argues that the field currently suffers from a conceptual skew that yields an inadequate and incomplete depiction of moral functioning and that thus provides ineffectual means for fostering moral maturity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)