Society and the Highest Stages of Moral Development

In this paper, a discussion of Kohlberg's stage theory of moral development results in a re-definition of Moral Stage 6, Kohlberg's highest stage. Our task here is to construct Moral Stage 6 in a non-arbitrary way that satisfies General Stage Model (Commons & Richards, 1984a) criteria for what constitutes a stage. Moral Stage 6 is found to manifest itself only inter-individually. At this stage, morality is no longer a property of individuals, as it is at earlier stages, but a property of the social enterprise of discourse. This leads to a novel politization of morality and, conversely, to a moralization of politics.