Previous investigations performed during the age of student protest indicated a curvilinear relationship between moral development and political ideology and behavior, with both higher and lower levels of moral reasoning associated with leftist inclinations. The present research was conducted to determine if the linkage between moral reasoning level and political choice could be extended to former students negotiating their middle adulthood during a period of political quiescence. Consistent with the expectations of Haan, Smith, and Block (1968), results suggest a linear relationship between moral judgment and leftist politics, with premoral reasoners no longer overrepresented among either liberal or politically active individuals. Previous investigators' substantive and directional interpretations of the relationship between moral maturity and political preference are weighed against recent challenges to the purportedly primary, structural, and value-free basis of the Kohlberg (1969) model of moral development.

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