Perspectives on Moral Development (Jan)

• Description

  The course aims to familiarize students with major theories related to individuals’ development of moral understanding over time. Although the class focuses on developmental approaches, students also learn about influential non-developmental approaches.

• Objectives

  • Understand the main assumptions, theories, and methods of theories related to moral development.

  • Understand key similarities and differences between the various theories.

• Highlights

  • Using moral development theories to offer explanations for current events or to contribute to broader discussions of those events.

  • Learning students’ preferred age groups to learn more about moral development and why.

  • Seeing students bring in personal experiences to illustrate certain theories, concepts, and processes.

  • Polling students’ views on various matters related to moral development and learning of their justifications.

  • Discussing aspects of the course with students outside of class as they start drawing connections between the material and other things they are learning about, considering, etc.

• Relevance

  The course’s relevance, as with developmental psychology, bears out all domains of life. Specifically in those interactions that involve moral considerations related to harm/welfare, justice/fairness, and human rights/civil liberties. Although much of the scholarship utilized in the course focuses on younger (children to young adults) rather than older age groups, some efforts seek to address this imbalance.

• Considerations

  • Possibly tweaking/modifying the written assignments.

  • Finding ways to incorporate the polling results in subsequent classes.

  • Possibly being more intentional concerning the intersections of moral development with popular culture.

Core Activities