Two Dimensions of Moral Reasoning: Social Principledness and Social Humanism in Cross-Cultural Perspective

Abstract

Summary A project was undertaken to (a) provide evidence from three contrastive cultural contexts for the cross-cultural operativity of two proposed underlying dimensions of moral reasoning and (b) examine the relationship holding between them. The first dimension, social principledness, relates to a readiness in making sociopolitical decisions to differentiate between a conventional and a personal standard of morality; while the second, social humanism, to a readiness to grant priority to the human implications of such decisions. Questionnaires distributed to 336 Hong Kong residents and 76 French and 52 American university students provide strong evidence of internal consistency in each dimension in each culture, of uniformity in the operation of each dimension cross-culturally, and of validity for each dimension as defined. Correlational analysis indicates the lack of any necessary interdependence between the dimensions. The results represent a challenge to Kohlberg's assumption (9) of a necessary link between moral autonomy and humanistic values, they suggest a resolution of the problem of retrogression in the stage-sequence and, they point more generally to the role of underlying cognitive dimensions in influencing sociopolitical reasoning and behavior.