CHAPTER XIII

CULTURAL TRADITION AND MODERNIZATION:

Symbiosis in the Development of Moral Reasoning

RICHARD A. GRAHAM

            Chinese philosophers seem to agree that the problem facing China today is to foster, at the same time, progress in both "material civilization" and "spiritual civilization". In the 1991 joint colloquium on "Cultural Traditions and Modernization" they developed this general idea in several ways in papers on "Morals and Law", "Individual and the Collective", "Quality of Man and Social Pro-gress", "Conflict and Interfusion" and "In Search of Wisdom".

            As one philosopher put it, "Traditional culture, as an accumul-ation of wisdom and historical experience is not something static or unchangeable, . . . traditional culture reflects the ways custom and modernization interact on each other." But, he adds, it is important to avoid "realizing modernization ahead of schedule."

            The Chinese philosophers reached several other conclusions which seem consistent with the findings of the research of the late Lawrence Kohlberg and our colleagues at the Center for Moral Education and Development at Harvard University. The findings of this research are supported by studies conducted by other re-searchers on moral development and the development of self-identity. Studies by these researchers have contributed to a set of volumes on the foundations of moral education, edited by George F. McLean, especially the third volume. Much of what follows draws upon this work, and includes as well his "Person, Modern Growth and Character Development" in volume one.1

CONVERGENT CONCLUSIONS ON CULTURE AND

            ITS TRANSFORMATION

            I shall draw the following conclusions from the papers of the Chinese philosophers and then refer to research and analyses from several fields of the social and biological sciences which appear to support them.

From China: Personal Culturation

            The construction in material civilization, the construction in spiritual civilization and the reforming in the organizational system all promote one another.

            The spiritual outlook of society depends on the states of deve-lopment of politics, economy, science and the culture of a society. . . . Social contacts impel people’s ideas of value change. The quality of human life is a consequence of history and in turn has effect on history.

            Individual liberal development is the aim of human develop-ment. . . . When we trace back in history, we see that the further the age is from the present the less the individual is independent. In capitalist society . . . most people still lack the conditions for liberal development.

            In the life of a primitive society, custom as the most important form of moral norm, became a system through a combination of moral and legal norms; morals and laws were fused to form the body of custom. . . . The moral norm has no specific form, but exists in the social ideology and popular views and beliefs of current society. . . . We should appraise the morals of human behavior objectively and historically.

            Wisdom conceals itself behind knowledge. . . . The disclosing of the world corresponds to the opening of the mind; to know the world is to understand oneself. . . . If one cultivates his or her mind perfectly and allows it to open freely, one will know certainly what is right and wrong, what is good and what is evil, and then will behave accordingly.

From the Kohlberg Center for Moral Education and

            Development: The Developmental Character

            of a Moral Civilization

            The research at the Center for Moral Education and Develop-ment2 supports all of these conclusions, except the very last, the Socratic notion that if one knows the good, one will act according to the good. Indeed, our research shows that there is a quite complex relationship between moral judgment and ethical behavior. How-ever, the research supports the other Chinese conclusions in the following ways."

            Modern civilizations and their systems of organization do in-deed appear to foster the development of what might be called "moral civilization". The research strongly indicates that the norms of moral development of the members of a society largely "depend on the states of development, politics, economy, science and the culture of society."

            One of the clearest findings of the research was that the higher levels of abstract reasoning required for responsibility in modern science, industry and administration are also necessary, though insufficient, for higher level reasoning on issues of justice. In every longitudinal study conducted, the development of higher order abstract reasoning preceded an individual’s development of a corresponding level of moral judgment.

            Individual liberal development may not yet be the aim of human development in most societies, but the research strongly supports the Chinese conclusion that it should be a significant part of the aim. In their essay, "Development as the Aim of Education",3 Kohlberg and Mayer noted that in the United States, as in many societies, there are three somewhat conflicting, yet somewhat supporting aims of education, each of which is associated with a separate ideology and psychological theory. They are:

            (1) The aim of mental and physical health and the development of identity and personality. The aim is associated with the romantic ideology and psychological view that, if left to biological maturation, the natural goodness in a person will come out. In the West, this notion often is associated with Rousseau and sometimes with Freud.

            (2) The aim of cultural transmission, the internationalization by an individual of knowledge, cultural rules and values and vocational skills. This aim, associated with John Locke and B.F. Skinner, is the aim most cited as a political concern in modern societies.

            (3) The aim of cognitive development or of the higher stage of reasoning which is required for technological and ethical develop-ment. This involves sequential reorganization of knowledge found in an individual’s "deep structures of thought", "internally organized systems of relations" or "general patterns of thinking about the self and the world". In the course of individual human development, pre-viously formed mental structures are found to be inadequate when the individual perceives discrepancies between his or her mental organization of concepts and categories, one-of-a-kind restructuring of thought which nonetheless follows a highly predictable sequence of development and which, at its highest stages, approaches a kind of universalizable pattern of scientific and moral reasoning. The content of thought, the knowledge and cultural heritage of each individual, remains quite different, but the structures of reasoning which organize the content of thought show great similarity. An in-dividual’s thought content comes much from cultural tradition, while one’s stimulus for progressive reorganization of mental structure comes much from the re-sorting of thought that is required by moder-nization and, most particularly, for the establishment and main-tenance of representative government. As John Stuart Mill ob-served, representative government will not be maintained unless enough people are ready and willing to maintain it. Readiness requires a quality of thought, and willingness involves reliance upon personal and cultural values. Hence, the aim of education cannot be wholly cultural transmission, or liberal development or mental health and personality development, but rather a symbiotic combination of all three.

CONVERGENCE BETWEEN MORAL REASONING

            AND PERSONAL INDEPENDENCE

            Recent historical and anthropological analyses of how moral norms of societies seem to confirm the Chinese philosopher’s conclusion that the further back the age, "the less the individual is independent," and that in primitive societies "morals and law were fused in the body of custom."

            Similar observations have been made in assessing the inde-pendence or, more accurately, the autonomy of reasoning, of in-dividuals in tribal and in feudal societies and, in more controversial comparisons, the relative independence of individuals in democratic and in authoritarian societies. The basic premise of the progressive development of cultures over time seems to be confirmed by the recent analyses of the historical development of a society’s socio-technological complexity and the accompanying development of its religious, social and legal institutions -- the institutions of a society that are particularly concerned with the freedom and dignity of the person. Analyses conducted by Leonard T. Hobhouse around the turn of the century and reported in his Morals in Evolution: A Study in Comparative Ethics4 recently have been expanded upon by Elfenbein and others.5 They found comparable evidence that the patterns of moral reasoning as expressed in a society’s religious teachings, its legal codes, its interpretations of legends and epics and the literature of the time, were remarkably alike. Further, the more primitive the socio-technological development of the society, the less its norms of moral reasoning were concerned with the independence and dignity of the individual.

            The Chinese philosopher is certainly right in saying that in the United States and other Capitalist societies "most people are still lacking in the conditions for liberal development." Several studies confirm that in the United States and in other modern Western societies only about 20 percent of the people exhibit a capacity for moral judgment that can be considered liberal. This is the stage of individual development at which justice is defined in terms of equal rights and opportunities for all and at which one’s rights are matched by one’s obligation to assure them for all others.

            It is a matter of pressing concern for many Americans that the conditions that foster liberal development still are lacking for most people and that there is a growing uncertainty about what to do about it. School improvement and the laws and regulatory agencies that are intended to advance equality of rights and opportunities seem un-likely to assure liberal development when an individual’s growth begins in a fractured family and brutal neighborhood. And if, by the time a child reaches school age, he or she does not have a good foundation in language and a sense of what it is to be a good person as established by family precepts, religious teachings and cultural traditions, he or she is unlikely to possess the rudimentary structures of thought upon which the early experiences of formal education must in large part rely. Typically, this shared failure of family, school and society becomes apparent at about the fourth grade and, unless there is great change in their social environment, for most Ame-ricans the likelihood of liberal development has already been closed off.

            The research confirms the Chinese philosopher’s conclusion that, "If one cultivates his mind perfectly, he will know what is right and wrong, what is good and evil but, as noted earlier, to know the good is not enough to assure behavior according to the good." The mind, as he suggests, requires more than a planting of knowledge and accepted belief. It requires cultivation, a plowing through and turning over of ideas and experiences with people in the world. And, if one has sufficient time and opportunity, one will indeed go beyond the transmitted knowledge and cultural traditions that establish good and evil for most people. He or she will progress to self-developed wisdom, to an individual, autonomous judgment of right and wrong, of good and evil that shares the same structure of reasoning for persons of autonomous judgement in all societies of the world. But, as noted earlier in this paper, for most people, in most societies the transmitted cultural values of the society to which one belongs, and especially the moral norms of one’s sub-culture, whether they are of the seminary or the street gang, are the more powerful.

Conflicts and Reconciliation

            The conflict between reason and desire or between reason and compulsion is perhaps the most worked-over aspect of the "philoso-phers’ dichotomies". Sometimes it is expressed as the conflict between virtue and appetite or the super ego and the id. It is, I believe, the ultimate indication that the philosophical dichotomy is false, for just as cultural tradition and modernization are not dichotomous but rather symbiotic, so too are appetite and reason. This is borne out by two fields of research which are closely related although conducted in two widely separated disciplines. One is research in early childhood development which deals with the child’s search for order, explanation, and identity, the other is neuro-physiological research which deals with the neural maps in the brain having to do with the formation of concepts and categories.

            Gerald Edelman, in Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection,6 reports on his Nobel Prize winning research and describes how, during gestation, the human fetus begins to develop the fundamentally alike, but extraordinarily unique, interconnections in the brain upon which the phenomena of concepts and categories depend. Similarly, Jerome Bruner7 and others, in their research on early childhood development, describe the child’s efforts that begin shortly after birth to make sense of things, to find order and predictability in the world and to establish his or her own identity as separate from others. It is, in effect, an effort to establish the rudimentary concepts, categories and structures of reasoning which act upon, and are acted upon by all subsequent information and experience. What seems clear from all of this is the inter-connection, from the very beginning, between the development of reason and the development of self.

            Thus, in human development, as for all life on earth, there appears to be a natural force for the preservation and progress of the individual which acts to preserve and improve the species. For homo sapiens this force manifests itself in a drive to know the self, to know the world and to know God or Nature’s intent as a means of pre-serving the self or the soul. When reason and passion for pre-servation of one’s imaginary are in self-conflict, whether passion for "self"-preservation stems from sympathy or selfishness, "Reason", as David Hume observed, "is and must only be the slave of passion." As strong as the force for reason may be, the force for "self"-preservation is stronger. It is a "self" or soul that is self-defined in terms of nationality, faith or the social expectations of self-assigned responsibility. It is the self whose preservation is more important than life itself. Individuals sacrifice their lives for their children, their nation, their faith or their pride. Most look to the after-life of the self in heaven, in reincarnation, in ancestor worship, in their vestiges in their children or by their names on college libraries or in the indices of philosophical journals.

            I fear that most philosophers and historians distrust social science research and little understand its method. Even if there was room in this paper to present the tests of reliability and validity along with the research designs and data analyses which provide exce-ptionally strong evidence that these research findings have great significance for understanding the process of an individual’s moral development and the development of the normative values and moral judgments of a society. I doubt that they would be more persuasive. Hence the credibility of these findings will need to be buttressed by their similarity with philosophical conclusions arrived at separately. Still I believe that this research provides telling insights on how to draw upon the stabilizing and unifying forces of cultural tradition during a period of accelerating modernization.

            However, at least partly because it is so foreign to their usual criteria for analysis, this research is not much attended to by American philosophers, historians or theologians. Recent "best-seller" philosophers -- Alasdair Maclntyre,8 Isaiah Berlin,9 and, more recently, Francis Fukuyama10 -- largely ignore historical change in human nature and likewise eschew belief in human pro-gress, however slow, toward a kind of universal sense of human justice that spans cultural traditions. Mostly they ignore the prospect of reconciliation of cultural traditions and modernization and instead revitalize "the philosophers’ dichotomy" in its various manifestations: universalism vs cultural relativity, individualism vs commu-nalism, reductionism vs hermeneutics, rationalism vs romanticism, scientific materialism vs philosophical or religious revelation. Most of them, more or less openly, subscribe to a kind of cultural relativity.

            The more prominent contemporary philosophers seem to think of human nature in historical terms somewhat modified by the median characteristics of today’s adult males in Western societies. They pay little heed to research that examines differences in the structures of thought of individuals of different ages or in different circumstances, both within a society and between societies. They appear unaware of how the general pattern of development of moral reasoning from childhood to adulthood varies in "primitive" and "modern" societies. Instead, they conclude from their observations of "median man" that "his" identity, values and moral judgments not only are determined by the norms of "his" society -- which the research confirms as generally true -- but that they ought to be so determined. Having witnessed the horrors of social engineering in behalf of "universal man", they deny the possibility of natural human progress toward universalizable principles of justice.

CONCLUSION

            I fear that ethical relativist philosophers will reject what I believe to be the fundamental message from the research, namely, that the philosophers’ dichotomy is false; that reason and passion are not in opposition, that "enlightenment", tradition and revelation can work together for human progress.

            It is largely from cultural tradition and religious faith that the paramount virtue of sympathy or love will be preserved in a society. But the stimulus of modernization has much to do with the development of a quality of reasoning that is necessary a balanced sense of freedom and responsibility for the establishment and main-tenance of representative government.

NOTES

            1. Philosophical Foundations of Moral Education and Character Development, George F. McLean, Frederick E. Ellrod, David Schindler and Jesse A. Mann, eds. Psychological Foun-dations of Moral Education and Character Development: An Integrated Theory of Moral Development, Richard T. Knowles and George F. McLean, eds. Character Development in Schools and Beyond Kevin Ryan, Thomas Lickona and George F. McLean, eds. (Washington, D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1992).

            2. School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

            3. Kohlberg and Nager, "Development as the Aim of Education: The Dewey View." In L. Kohlberg The Philosophy of Moral Development (New York: Harper of Row, 1981).

            4. J.T. Hobnwse, Moral in Evolution: A Study of Com-parative Ethics (New York: Holt, 1923), (originally published in 1906).

            5. D. Elfenbein, "Moral Stages in Societal Evolution", unpublished bachelor’s thesis, Harward University, 1973.

            6. G. Edelman, Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (New York: Basic Books, 1987).

            7. J. Bruner, Child’s Talk: Learning to Language (New York: Norton, 1983).

            8. A. MeIntyne, After Virtues: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 1984).

            9. I. Berlin, The Invoked Timber of Humanity (New York: Knopf, 1991).