Moral maturity is an integral aspect of positive individual and collective human life. In human development, the morally mature person evidences not only the courage to do what is right (see chapter 12, this volume) and an empathic "connection" with others (see chapters 15-19, this volume), but also a clear grasp of the bases for interpersonal and societal norms of life, affiliation, contract or truth, property, law, and legal justice. "Clarity" can be interpreted as a profound discernment of that which is intrinsically moral, unconfounded with extraneous considerations. Furthermore, most researchers posit that moral judgment maturity is "constructed," a cognitive process of mental coordination that is distinguishable from traditional identification or internalization notions of moral development (see Gibbs, in press; cf. Schulman, in press). This chapter focuses on the history and construct validity pertaining to instruments measuring moral judgment maturity.
History: From Clinical to Standard MeasuresMeasures of moral judgment maturity generally have derived from cognitive developmental theory, and have evolved from clinical interviews into more standard measures of production and evaluation. Researchers who have developed measures of moral judgment maturity using the cognitive developmental approach have conceptualized moral judgment in terms of a basic, crossculturally discernible sequence of stages (Gibbs, 1995, in press).
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