The Moral Judgment of the Child

by Jean Piaget

This classic study examines a problem that stands at the heart of society: How does a child distinguish between right and wrong? Professor Piaget and his colleagues begin their investigation by analyzing the "rules of the game" - in this case a seemingly simple game of marbles - as handed down from one group of children to another. They observe the child's total acceptance of the consensus rules and describe the moral pressure of the group on the individual. Piaget proceeds to an analysis of lying, cheating, adult authority, punishment, and responsibility, noting and evaluating the changing attitudes of growing children toward these "moral realities." The book concludes with a comparison of the findings of this significant study with those theories in social psychology and sociology that bear directly on the moral development of the child.

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Education, Parenting, Science, Psychiatry

428 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1932

About the author

Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980) was a Swiss philosopher, natural scientist and developmental theorist, well known for his work studying children, his theory of cognitive development, and his epistemological view called "genetic epistemology." In 1955, he created the International Centre for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva and directed it until his death in 1980. According to Ernst von Glasersfeld, Jean Piaget was "the great pioneer of the constructivist theory of knowing."

Reviews

[Greg Metcalf · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is dense with analysis that can be tough to follow. This is my second time through it, and I felt like I absorbed a lot more. I'm not sure if it's because it's older or just the ideas are difficult to grasp, probably a bit of both, but it's a fascinating read and the dense analysis parts are mixed with scenarios laid out to kids and their answers, which is easy reading, so I would call it an enjoyable read for a lay person. Two kid responses stick with me. In one they were asking kids if a kid stole (an apple, I think) and didn't get caught but then on their walk home from school the bridge broke and they fell in the water, if they hadn't stole the apple would the bridge had still broken, and the one kid, older, laughed. "The bridge isn't supposed to know the kid stole an apple." Another one was they told a scenario to a kid and asked what he thought of that story, and the kid said, "It's pretty."

[Ursula Witkowska · Rating 4 out of 5]

read this back in the 90's

[Joshua Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Piaget is really the standard in developmental psychology. I knew I was going to have to read him at some point, in order to follow much of the modern conversation in the subject. Since I'm far from an expert on childhood development, I'm definitely not qualified to vouch for the accuracy of the majority of Piaget's claims, or the reasonable-ness of his method in assessing development. I do have some concerns, especially about the latter. However, he's a terrifically interesting writer, and I think his historical significance makes him a worthwhile read, even for those with a layman's interest in the subject.

I found Piaget pretty accessible, which is why I've given him the high rating. The writing is very good, fairly lucid (despite some issues that I have with the particular translation that I was using) and brings in a lot of very important historical referents. Piaget presents a terrific critique of Durkheim, who I have a good deal more experience with, and the critique is really interesting. It does make reading Durkheim a really important piece of material for understanding Piaget's context, but I'm not totally sure that it's necessary. Piaget's primary focus is on the individual interviews and the psychological causes behind much of the childhood behavior. For what it is, it more than meets expectations. I am usually a fairly harsh critic of primary texts, because I think they are given far more credit than they are due. However, I found Piaget more than lived up to the hype, which was a nice change of pace.

[Kristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, it took me almost a month to finish this book. Piaget is hard; 1, he is translated from French, 2, child psychology is not a familiar subject for me. It gets easier when you read his study on play, imitation, and dreams with Carl Rogers' Americanisms to balance out the heavy, lengthy subchapters.

Cooperation comes from the criticism of a rule or law. I would add to this point that debate can be sustained by equals and only after the opposition does not declare your side moot. We would be more adept at debate if we recognize egocentrism and raise the bar up to the next level.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

PIAGET TURNS HIS ATTENTION TO CHILDHOOD MORAL DEVELOPMENT

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are known as "genetic epistemology.”

He wrote in the Foreword to this 1965 book, “Readers will find in this book no direct analysis of child morality as it is practiced in home and school life or in children’s societies. It is the moral judgment that we propose to investigate, not moral behavior or sentiments. With this aim in view we questioned a large number of children from the Geneva and Neuchâtel schools and held conversations with them, similar to those we had had before on their conception of the world and of causality. The present volume contains the results of those conversations.” (Pg. 7)

He continues, “We are more conscious than anybody of the defects and of the advantages of the method we have used. The great danger, especially in matters of morality is that of making the child say whatever one wants him to say. There is no infallible remedy for this; neither the good faith of the questioner nor the precautionary methods which we have laid stress upon elsewhere are sufficient. The only safeguard lies in the collaboration of other investigators.” (Pg. 8)

He explains, “the main thing is simply to grasp the child’s mental orientation. Does he believe in the mystical virtue of rules or in their finality? Does he subscribe to a heteronomy of divine law, or is he conscious of his own autonomy? This is the only question that interests us.” (Pg. 26)

He outlines, “From the point of view of the practice or application of rules, four successive stages can be distinguished. A first stage of a purely MOTOR and INDIVIDUAL character, during which the child handles the marbles at the dictation of his desires and motor habits… The second may be called EGOCENTRIC for the following reasons. This stage begins when the child receives from outside the example of codified rules… children of this stage… play… without regard for any codification of rules… A third stage appears between 7 and 8, which we shall call the stage of incipient COOPERATION… children of 7-8… give, when they are questioned separately, disparate and often entirely contradictory accounts of the rules observed in playing marbles. Finally, between the years of 11 and 12, appears a fourth stage, which is that of the CODIFICATION OF RULES… the actual code of rules to be observed is known to the whole society.” (Pg. 26-27)

He notes, “It is very interesting … to note… [that the] moment a child decides that rules can be changed, he ceases to believe in their endless past and in their adult origin… he regards rules as having been constantly changed and as having been invented and modified by children themselves… Is it, then, the loss of belief in the divine or adult origin of rules that allows the child to think of innovations, or is it the consciousness of autonomy that dispels the myth of revelation?” (Pg. 74)

He observes, “unfortunately … the majority of parents are poor psychologists and give their children the most questionable of moral trainings… Thus the adult leads the child to the notion of objective responsibility, and consolidates in consequence a tendency that is already natural to the spontaneous mentality of little children.” (Pg. 191)

He asks, “Does he establish an immediate bond between the offence and the physical punishment, or does he seek to find intermediate links in the form, for example, of miracles or of some sort of artificialist causality? We have sometimes asked this very question. The subjects who answer ‘God did it’ should immediately be put aside. This is sure to be a learnt formula… For nature, in the child’s eyes, is not a system of blind forces regulated by mechanical laws operating on the principle of chance. Nature is a harmonious whole, obeying laws that are just as much moral as physical and that are above all penetrated down to the least detail with an anthropomorphic or even egocentric finalism… It therefore seems quite natural to them that their movements should command those of the heavenly bodies… In short, there is life and purpose in everything.” (Pg. 256)

He notes, “Not only is there no possible equality between adults and children, but further, reciprocity between children cannot be produced to order.” (Pg. 280)

He states, “It cannot be denied that the idea of punishment has psycho-biological roots. Blow calls for blow and gentleness moves us to gentleness. The instinctive reactions of defense and sympathy thus bring about a sort of elementary reciprocity which is the soil that retribution demands for its growth. But …the individual factors cannot of themselves transcend the stage of impulsive vengeance without finding themselves subject—at least implicitly---to the system of regulated and codified sanctions implied in retributive justice.” (Pg. 321)

He explains, “this idea of a law that is both physical and moral is the very core of the child’s conception of the world; for under the effect of adult constraint the child cannot conceive of the laws of the physical universe except in the guise of a certain obedience rendered by things to rules.” (Pg. 340)

He asserts, “it should be added that psychological explanation cannot account for all aspects of moral development without taking into consideration the general shape of different societies as a whole. It seems to us that two problems in particular must be dealt with … the problem of filial respect and the problem of the liberation of individual minds.” (Pg. 379-380)

The final essay states, “Logic is the morality of thought just as morality is the logic of action. Nearly all contemporary theories agree in recognizing the existence of this parallelism … It is therefore in no way surprising that the analysis of child thought should bring to the fore certain particular aspect of this general phenomenon.” (Pg. 398)

This book may interest those studying Piaget.

[Aaron Slack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Piaget got one thing right: a child's first few years are when his or her mind is most impressionable. This is why early childhood education is so important, in particular for Christians, who so often neglect the very young.

[Raj Agrawal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is where any study of moral development must begin. Foundational book. Assumes away nature, but that is part of Piaget's premise.

[Devin · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do children develop morally? This is the question Jean Piaget sets out to answer.

He does so by observing children playing marbles and asking them about the rules of the game. He also tells children small stories and then asks them what they think about the moral issues involved. Selected responses from the children form a large part of the book, which serve to drive home his conclusions.

What does Piaget conclude? Well, he observes that in the early years of life moral realism predominates. Almost all young children believe in the religious sanctity of rules imposed on them by adults and older children. They believe that 'bad' behavior is always punished (if adults don't do it the universe will) and that punishments must be severe. They believe that the rules externally imposed on them are an unassailable feature of the natural world.

Yet they are simultaneously notoriously bad at applying these rules consistently. Piaget claims this is due to their egocentric nature, with "egocentrism being by definition the confusion of the self with the not-self". That is to say, young children lack the ability to separate themselves from the world around them. They have a very confused and limited perception of the world. Therefore, they cannot possibly apply the 'spirit' of the rules, however much they cling to the letter. They simply can't draw the necessary connections in ambiguous situations. Piaget also observes that very young children play games essentially alone, without much interest in cooperation.

This changes, however, as they age. I want to mention that none of the age ranges are definite (and Piaget mentions that different groups of children may have different average ages for these stages) and they are also not exclusionary. Children of all ages profess moral realism, but by the time they are 12 it is a small percentage of children, while at 6 it is almost all of them.

So what happens? By the time they are 10-12 they are playing cooperatively. This means that they have an active and vital interest in applying the rules fairly and they begin to talk about ideas of reciprocity. Instead of viewing punishment as the wrath of God they view it as a way to re-establish social bonds. This means that the punishments they prefer to use are proportional to the offense and often directly related to the consequences of the offending behavior. Piaget takes this to be a very promising development, as cooperation is the foundation of democracy.

Piaget goes down several other lines of inquiry but this transition from blind obedience to external commands and active cooperation and reciprocity is the main result of his inquiry. He also discusses these results in the context of several sociological theories which leads him to conclude that children would be better off being taught to cooperate, instead of to simply obey.

As he puts it: "The adult must therefore be a collaborator and not a master, from this double point of view, moral and rational. But conversely, it would be unwise to rely upon biological 'nature' alone to ensure the dual progress of conscience and intelligence, when we realize to what extent all moral as all logical norms are the result of cooperation. Let us therefore try to create in the school a place where individual experimentation and reflection carried out in common come to each other's aid and balance one another."

Naturally, he is against domination of children by adults. To which I say, hear hear! All children obviously need and deserve guidance (so do adults), but it must be in the form of a trusted friend - not a petty dictator. True teaching ability is a rare gift, and even teachers with the inclination find their talents squashed and underrated in the classroom. Clearly I have plenty of ideas on this subject of my own, which is why I really enjoyed this book. There's a lot to think about, and my ideas about children and childhood will never be the same.

[Masatoshi Nishimura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first read of Jean Piaget. And it was definitely a challenging one to read casually on a subway. I imagine this book to be the 20th century version of what is now a collection of modern-day academic research papers. He lays out in detail about his experiments on children and their careful analysis. You have to really follow his train of thought to understand.

Nevertheless, the book is full of great ideas. It was the first time I encountered different kinds of morality. He strongly focuses on the individuality. Individuality and development of reciprocity based morality are one and on the same coin.

Other ideas include collective responsibility, unilateral respect, expiation, and many more.

And there's this quote that suggests realizing the imperfection of adult (I assume parents) is also the part of morality development: "this discovery of the inadequate character of adult justice is only one episode in the general movement which takes the child away from the morality of constraint and towards that of cooperation". It shouldn't be only for children. I still remember at my first job, I always felt frustrated for injustice in recognition. But of course, the manager is a human being too. No one is perfect. That is a good example of morality development, now I realize looking back.

Other

I would love to read about the book that applies his theory to the adult's and today's context. An area that would be really interesting is the capital punishment debate from his reciprocity argument. If you know such, please suggest one to me.

[James F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Piaget's fifth book, The Moral Judgement of the Child is one of his most interesting. He begins with a study of how children understand the rules of marbles at different ages, and shows that there are two different ways of looking at rules: the younger children consider them as something objective which must be followed exactly (although in fact they seldom do so), while the older children change them according to circumstances by agreement and then follow them consistently. He then shows in the second chapter that young children tend to see moral rules also as objective ("moral reality"), based on "expiatory" punishment and "objective responsibility" and imposed by the constraint of adults or older children, while in the third chapter he shows that the older children tend to see them as more subjective, a result of mutual agreements, and emphasize reciprocity and equality (and at the highest age, equity.) The fourth chapter is a theoretical polemic with Durkheim, M. Bovet and G.M. Baldwin on the origins of morality based on his observational results. As opposed to the previous four books, he is less concerned with consecutive "stages" than with changes in the proportions of the different types which all exist to some extent at all ages. He also mentions for the first time that his researches were all with children from very poor families, which may explain why the average ages of the various stages seemed to me to be rather higher than I would have expected.

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but it seems to me that it is a stretch to take the child's perspective as being able to establish the parameters of adult morality, even if one is the kernel of the other, as Piaget says. I think there is something indefinable that is added to the human personality as it comes to maturation, something which is not simply definable or attested to the resignation that is the mark of adult morality as Piaget attributes to the amalgamation of the individual into a society of his or her betters. Three stars.

[Vytor Fonte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading for those who are into education and psychology.

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely interesting.

[Aaron Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

For young children (7-8), morality=the law (mainly laid down by their parents, God, teachers, etc.). “Justice is subordinated to adult authority.” “Authority takes precedence over justice.”

(8-11) justice=equality. “progressive equalitarianism”: the onset of autonomy and the priority of equality over authority.

(11-12) “pure equalitarian justice is tempered by considerations of equity.” Equality in relation to particular situations.

“…adult authority, although perhaps it constitutes a necessary moment in the moral evolution of the child, is not in itself sufficient to create a sense of justice. This can develop only through the progress made by cooperation and mutual respect…”

[Chiara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interessante, a volte prolisso o difficile da seguire. Fornisce spunti di lettura e riflessione.

[Rufane]

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