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After reviewing the properties of the cognitive-developmental stage concept which, heretofore, has
been restricted in its use to child and adolescent development, adulthood stages for moral de-
velopment are considered. In addition to discussing aspects of adult development in regard to moral
Stages 5 and 6, an attempt is made to delineate a new Stage 7 which is unique to
advanced adulthood and involves adoption of a religious and cosmic perspective. This
new stage is related to Erikson's theory and suggests novel lines of "positive" adult and gerontological
inquiries in a life-span developmental and philosophical perspective.

Stages and Aging in Moral Development

Some Speculations
Lawrence Kohlberg, PhD1
In this paper the focus will be upon two re- valid distinction may be drawn between develop-
lated issues. The first issue is that of whether a ment and age-change in adulthood and old age.
The second issue is that of whether positive de-
I. Professor of Education & Social Psychology, College of Edu- , ,. r . i
cation, Harvard Univ., Cambridge 02138. velopment occurs in the years ot aging which

Winter 1973 497

are generally characterized by decrements in
biological functioning. A positive answer to both
questions seems required before a life-span ap-
proach becomes really interesting and useful in
the study of aging. As an example, Erikson's
theory is a life-span model which represents old
age as potential development through a stage of
integrity versus despair, a development colored
by experiences at all previous stages. This im-
plies a distinction between stage-development
and sheer age-change, and a distinction between
a positive qualitative developmental change
toward "integrity" and all the decremental be-
havior changes involved in aging.
As far as I know, there is no hard evidence
bearing on either of these issues with regard to
aging, but an attempt will be made to extrapo-
late from findings on adulthood moral stage-de-
velopment to raise the possibility of stage-de-
velopment in old age.
The Cognitive-Developmental Stage Concept
In raising these issues I am assuming a struc-
tural or cognitive-developmental conception of
stage (e.g., Kohlberg, 1969, 1973) as distinct
from a conception of stage as "age-linked social
role" or as "developmental task." Viewed as
"sociocultural role" or "developmental task" it
is noncontroversial to discuss a "stage" of in-
tegrity in aging. In the sociocultural conception,
a culture (responding, in part, to maturational
events) outlines a rough sequence of roles or
tasks from birth to death, and adaptation to this
task sequence leads to age-typical personality
changes.
Often opposed to such socioenvironmentally
defined "stages" are biological-maturational
stages. In the psychological realm, an example
would be the stages of classical psychoanalytic
theory, psychosexual stages, defined by the bio-
logical activation of a new organ. Such a direct
biological model of stages is unlikely to postulate
adult stages. After early adulthood, biological
notions of development are notions of either
stabilization or decrement in biological function-
ing, rather than of new biological activation of
a structure or qualitative biological change in
a structure. The notion of biological decrement
can be combined with the sociocultural role con-
ception of stage to define distinctive aging roles
and tasks, but this does not come to grips with
the problem of development as posed by struc-
tural theories.
The cognitive-developmental or structural
model of stages involves both different theoreti-
cal postulates and a different research strategy
498
than do sociocultural and maturational concepts
of stages. The cognitive structural model starts
with the distinction between quality and quantity
in age-related change. Most age-related changes
are changes in qualitative (structural-organiza-
tional) aspects of responses. A related distinc-
tion to quantity-quality is competence-perform-
ance. Structural theories treat most quantitative
changes as changes in performance rather than
changes in structural competence. As an exam-
ple, there are decrements in speed and efficiency
of immediate memory and information process-
ing with age, but such changes do not imply a
regression in the logical structure of the aging in-
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dividual's reasoning process. In general, structural
theory does not treat any change as a change in
structural competence unless the change is evi-
dent in a qualitatively new pattern of response.
Qualitative novelty involves the distinction be-
tween form and content. A really new kind of
experience, a really new mode of response, is
one that is different in its form or organization,
not simply in the element or the information it
contains.
In summary, the kinds of age change relevant
to a stage model are restricted to those implied
by the distinctions between quality and quantity,
competence and performance, and form and con-
tent. In addition to focusing upon quality, form,
competence, a cognitive-developmental stage
concept has the following additional general
characteristics (Piaget, I960):
1I) Stages imply distinct or qualitative differences in
structures (modes of thinking) which still serve the
same basic function (e.g., intelligence) at various
points in development.
(2) These different structures form an invariant se-
quence, order or succession in individual develop-
ment. While cultural factors may speed up, slow
down, or stop development, they do not change
its sequence.
(3) Each of these different and sequential modes of
thought forms a "structured whole." A given
stage-response on a task does not just represent
a specific response determined by knowledge and
familiarity with that task or tasks similar to it;
rather, it represents an underlying thought-organi-
zation.
(4) Stages are hierarchical integrations. Accordingly,
higher stages displace (or, rather, reintegrate)
the structures found at lower stages.
The characteristics of stages just mentioned
while defined by structural theory, are amenable
to research examination. We can ask,
Are there qualitative changes in adulthood forming an
invariant sequence in any sociocultural environment,
which form a generalized structured whole and which
hierarchically relate to earlier qualitative developmental
change?
The Gerontologist
 The research strategies used to answer these
questions are very different from those usually
entailed in the study of aging. The questions
entail little in the way of establishing age norms
for different populations or disentangling age
from cohort from time from testing effects,
Rather, they require the careful analysis of a
small number of longitudinal cases. The number
of cases required is not large. Piaget's three in-
fants defined an invariant sequence of sensori-
motor intellectual stages which has since been
shown to hold for the development of large num-
bers of infants in very different environments,
Stages are not established by longitudinal analy-
theory if it is not a manifest case of measurement
error,
Moral Stage Development in Adulthood
As an example of research proof of adulthood
stage-development, we may take our own work
on moral stages. That adult moral stages might
exist is suggested by the fact that moral change
is clearly a focal point for adult life in a way
cognitive change is not. We do not need Erik-
son's studies of Martin Luther and Mahatma
Ghandi to know that the crises and turning points
of adult identity are often moral. From Saint
Paul to Tolstoy, the classic autobiographies tell

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sis of one's own children, but they are established us the dramas of maturity are the transformations
by fairly small numbers of cases testing the limits of the moral ideologies of men.
of a universal sequence by longitudinal study of While dramatic moral change occurs in adult-
a variety of types of people in a variety of en- hood, the question is whether such change is
vironmental settings. A single case of longitudi- structural stage-change. We do know that there
nal inversion of sequence disproves the stage are structural moral stages in childhood and ado-
Table I. Definition of Kohlberg's Moral Stages.
I. Preconventional level
A t this level the child is responsive to cultural rules and labels of good and bad, right or wrong, but interprets
these labels in terms of either the physical or the hedonistic consequences of action (punishment, reward, exchange of
favors), or in terms of the physical power of those who enunciate rules and labels. The level is divided into the fol-
lowing two stages:
Stage I: The punishment and obedience orientation. The physical consequences of action determine its goodness
or badness regardless of the human meaning or value of these consequences. Avoidance of punishment and unques-
tioning deference to power are valued in their own right, not in terms of respect for an underlying moral order sup-
ported by punishment and authority (the latter being stage 4).
Stage 2: The instrumental relativist orientation. Right action consists of that which instrumentally satisfies one's own
needs and occasionally the needs of others. Human relations are viewed in terms like those of the market place. Ele-
ments of fairness, of reciprocity, and of equal sharing are present, but they are always interpreted in a physical
pragmatic way. Reciprocity is a matter of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours," not of loyalty, gratitude, or
justice.
II. Conventional level
A t this level, maintaining the expectations of the individual's family, group, or nation is perceived as valuable in
its own right, regardless of immediate and obvious consequences. The attitude is not only one of conformity to per-
sonal expectations and social order, but of loyalty to it, of actively maintaining, supporting, and justifying the order,
and of identifying with the persons or group involved in it. A t this level, there are the following two stages:
Stage 3: The interpersonal concordance or "good boynice girl" orientation. Good behavior is that which pleases
or helps others and is approved by them. There is much conformity to stereotypical images of what is majority or
"natural" behavior. Behavior is frequently judged by intention"he means well" becomes important for the first time.
One earns approval by being "nice."
Stage 4: The "law and order" orientation. There is orientation toward authority, fixed rules, and the maintenance
of the social order. Right behavior consists of doing one's duty, showing respect for authority, and maintaining the
given social order for it's own sake.
III. Postconventional, autonomous, or principled level
At this level, there is a clear effort to define moral values and principles which have validity and application apart
from the authority of the groups or persons holding these principles, and apart from the individual's own identification
with these groups. This level again has two stages:
Stage 5: The social-contract legalistic orientation, generally with utilitarian overtones. Right action tends to be de-
fined in terms of general individual rights, and standards which have been critically examined and agreed upon
by the whole society. There is a clear awareness of the relativism of personal values and opinions and a correspond-
ing emphasis upon procedural rules for reaching consensus. Aside from what is constitutionally and democratically
agreed upon, the right is a matter of personal "values" and "opinion." The result is an emphasis upon the "legal
point of view," but with an emphasis upon the possibility of changing law in terms of rational considerations of social
utility (rather than freezing it in terms of stage 4 "law and order"). Outside the legal realm, free agreement and
contract is the binding element of obligation. This is the "official" morality of the American government and constitu-
tion.
Stage 6: The universal ethical principle orientation. Right is defined by the decision of conscience in accord with
self-chosen ethical principles appealing to logical comprehensiveness, universality, and consistency. These principles
are abstract and ethical (the Golden Rule, the categorical imperative); they are not concrete moral rules like the
Ten Commandments. At heart, these are universal principles of justice, of the reciprocity and equality of human
rights, and of respect for the dignity of human beings as individual persons.

Adapted from Table I. Moral and Religious Education and the Public Schools, by Lawrence Kohlberg, in Religion and Public
Education, edited by Theodore R. Sizer. by Houghton Mifflin Co. Used by permission.

Winter 1973 499

lescence. These moral stages are defined in
Table I. The stages have been demonstrated to
meet the requirements of structural stages in the
following ways:
(1) They are qualitatively different modes of thought
rather than increased knowledge of, or internaliza-
tion of, adult moral beliefs and standards.
(2) They form an invariant order or sequence of de-
velopment. Fifteen-year longitudinal data on 50
American males in the age periods 10-15 to 25-30
demonstrate movement is always forward and al-
ways step-by-step. More limited 6-year longitudi-
nal data on Turkish boys also indicate invariant
sequence as does cross-sectional age-data in many
cultures (Kohlberg & Turiel, 1974).
(3) The stages form a clustered whole. There is a gen-
eral factor of moral stage cross-cutting all dilem-
mas, verbal or behavioral, with which an individual
is confronted (Kohlberg & Turiel, 1974).
(4) The stages are hierarchical integrations. Subjects
comprehend all stages below their own and not
more than one above their own. They prefer the
highest stage they comprehend (Rest, 1974).
With regard to adulthood stage-change, our
own longitudinal work does not extend beyond
the age of 32. However, the work does demon-
strate the existence of new stages developing
only in adulthood. None of our longitudinal
subjects attained Stage 5 before the age of 23
(Kohlberg, 1973; Kohlberg & Turiel, 1974). For
some, movement to this stage occurred later and
seemed to depend upon: (a) experiences of sus-
tained responsibility for the welfare of others;
and (b) under conditions where the basis of this
responsibility can be both questioned and af-
firmed on a universal human basis. An example
was Case 67, who was Stage 4 when interviewed
just after receiving his PhD at age 25. Four
years later he was reinterviewed and was scored
Stage 5. In the meantime he had served as a
captain in Vietnam and had the sort of experi-
ences of moral conflict around responsibility just
mentioned. None of the young adults in our lon-
gitudinal sample has yet reached our rare Stage
6, whose definition is based on data from other
adult samples. Presumably, however, it is a stage
attained, if at all, at a later age than Stage 5.
Toward Adulthood Stage 7
When we turn to the possibility of a positive
new stage in the aging, we must go beyond the
notion of moral stages. Our notions start from
pilot empirical work by Fowler (1973) suggesting
the existence of stages of "faith" or of "world
outlook" which parallel the moral stages. We
hypothesize that attainment of a given moral
stage is a necessary but not sufficient condition
for attainment of a parallel religious or ontolog-
ical stage. As an example, our moral Stage 3 is
500
the first stage at which experiences of mutual
affection, trust, and altruism are genuinely under-
stood. These attitudes and ideas are first elabo-
rated in the interpersonal and moral realm and
only later used to structure relations of man to
God, life, or the universe.
We have said that post-conventional or princi-
pled morality is probably attainable only in early
adulthood and requires some experiences of
moral responsibility and independent moral
choice. We would expect that attainment of a
post-conventional faith would be an even later
construction. In this we see a parallel to Erik-
son's schema (see also Kohlberg, 1973). Erikson's
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ideal man has passed through his seventh stage
of generativity and becomes an ethical man, an
ideal corresponding to our State 6. There re-
mains for Erikson's man a task which is partly
ethical, but more basically religious (in the broad-
est sense of the term, "religious"), a task de-
fining an eighth stage whose outcomes are a
sense of integrity versus a sense of despair. The
problem of integrity is not the problem of moral
integrity but of the integrity of meaning of the
individual's life. Its negative side, despair, hovers
around the awareness of death. The concept of
the self's integrity is psychological, but the con-
cept of the integrity of the meaning of the self's
life is philosophical or religious.
With regard to moral stages, our stages of
moral principle, even Stage 6, offers only an
imperfect integration or resolution of the prob-
lem of life's meaning. Even after attainment of
a Stage 6 awareness of rational universal human
principles of justice, there remains the questions,
"Why be moral?", "Why be just in a universe
full of injustice?" Such a question, Job's ques-
tion, cannot arise on a psychologically serious
level until a man has attained moral principles
and lived a life in terms of these principles for
a considerable length of time. The problem of
why be moral, of theodicy, is only one of the
questions of meaning. Ultimately the answer to
the question, "Why be moral?" entails the ques-
tion, "Why live?" (and the parallel question,
"How face death?"). This, in turn, is hardly a
moral question per se; it is an ontological or a
religious one. Not only is the question not a
moral question, but it is not a question resolvable
on purely logical or rational grounds as moral
questions are. Nevertheless, I have used a purely
metaphorical notion of a Stage 7 as pointing to
some meaningful solutions to this question which
are compatible with rational science and princi-
pled ethics (Kohlberg, 1971). The characteristics
of all these Stage 7 solutions is that they involve
The Gerontologist
contemplative experience of nonegoistic or non- sists that: (a) the nature of each new stage had
dualistic variety. The logic of such experience is a definitely definable structure, a structure de-
sometimes expressed in theistic terms but it need fined by a logical system, and (b) each higher
not be. Its essential is the sense of being a part stage is logically, cognitively, or philosophically
of the whole of life and the adoption of a cosmic more adequate than the preceding stage and
as opposed to a universal humanistic (Stage 6) logically includes it. In contrast, Eriksonian the-
perspective. ory relies on psychological rather than on logical
The concept of such a Stage 7 is familiar, of or moral philosophical accounts of the way in
course, both in religious writing and in the classi- which each stage brings new "strength" or "wis-
cal metaphysical tradition from Plato to Spinoza. dom" to the individual. As a result, in its moral
In most accounts the movement starts with de- and religious aspects, Erikson's account is more
spair. Such despair involves the beginning of a culturally relative (and relative to individual life
cosmic perspective. It is when we begin to see history) than the structural account.
our lives as finite from some more infinite per-
spective that we feel despair. The meaningless- Concluding Perspectives

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ness of our lives in the face of death is the mean- We need to leave any structural stage claim
inglessness of the finite from the perspective of for Stage 7 ambiguous in the absence of both
the infinite. The resolution of the despair which empirical data and clear philosophic guidelines.
we call Stage 7 represents a continuation of the Its relevance for students of aging lies in the fact
process of taking a more cosmic perspective that two different approaches to stages, the
whose first phase is despair. It represents, in a Eriksonian and the structural, converge in sug-
sense, a shift from figure to ground. In despair gesting the possibility of an area of positive de-
we are the self seen from the distance of the velopment among the aging. A t the moment, we
cosmic or infinite. In the state of mind we meta- can only point to biographies and writings of the
phorically term Stage 7, we identify ourselves great for indications of this possibility. John
with the cosmic or infinite perspective, itself; we Dewey in his 70s wrote, Art and Experience, an
value life from its standpoint. analysis of contemplative experience. Around
Spinoza, a believer in principled ethics and the same time he wrote, A Common Faith. Both
in a science of natural laws, could still achieve suggest, if not movement to Stage 7, a qualita-
this state of mind, which he termed "the union tive broadening of vision beyond his earlier log-
of the mind with the whole of nature." Even ical, moral, and political concerns, conceptions,
most persons who are not "religious" temporarily and writings.
achieve this state of mind when on the moun- We do not know whether the sort of growth
taintop or before the ocean. A t such a time, Dewey showed in age was universal. The thing
what is ordinarily background becomes fore- that is most striking about aging is how some
ground, and the self is no longer figure to the aging people grow while others regress. In con-
ground. We sense the unity of the whole and trast to growth such as John Dewey's in some ag-
ourselves as part of that unity. This experience ing people, is the phenomena of regression in
of unity, often treated as a mere rush of mystic others. A pilot cross-sectional study of moral
feelings, is also associated with a structure of judgment in the aged (unpublished) suggested
conviction. The reversal of figure and ground that some, but far from all, aging people re-
felt in the contemplative moment has its analogy gressed to childish pre-conventional patterns of
in the development of belief. One may argue moral thought. Others, we might presume, were
that the crisis of despair, when thoroughly and growing in this period. The area of aging has
courageously explored, leads to a figure-ground the fascinating problem of sorting out the wisdom
shift which reveals the positive validity of the of age from all its counterfeits among the aging.
cosmic perspective implicit in the felt despair. The problem is rendered complex because if an
Such a claim is, of course, philosophically du- aging person has developed some wisdom we do
bious since the cognitive structure of this con- not have, it is hard for younger researchers to
viction are multiform. There is no single Stage detect it. If, however, some aging persons do
7 ontological-religious structure, no universal re- attain a greater wisdom, then among the most
ligion, as there is in some sense a single Stage 6 important things a student of aging could do is
structure of universal ethical principle. to clarify and communicate that wisdom to
Because of this, our notion of Stage 7 does others.
not quite fit the notion of a stage in the rigid Underlying the apparently arid formalism of
structural sense. The rigid structural model in- the Piaget-structural approach to stages is a

Winter 1973 501

warmer insight, the discovery that a child is a
philosopher who constructs reality and its basic
categories, space, time, causality, good, and evil.
Such an approach could hardly fail to find the
aging are philosophers, at least insofar as they
are developing. If this is the case, perhaps the
field of aging could find some of its own most
unique and deepest problems emerging from
philosophic concepts rather than from the more
usual concepts of biology and social science.
References
Fowler, J . Toward a theory of faith development. Un-
published paper, Harvard Univ. Divinity School, 1973.
Handbook of socialization theory and research. Chi-
cago: McNally, 1969.
Kohlberg, L Notes toward stage 7. Unpublished lecture,
Harvard Univ., 1971.
Kohlberg, L Continuities in childhood and adult moral
development revisited. In P. B. Baltes & K. W . Schaie
(Eds.), Life-span developmental psychology: Personality
and socialization. New York: Academic Press, 1973.
Kohlberg, L, & Turiel, E. (Eds.), Recent research in moral
development. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston,
1974. (in press)
Piaget, J . The general problem of the psychobiological
development of the child. In J . M. Tanner & B. In-
helder (Eds.), Discussion on child development. Vol. 4.
New York: International Universities Press, I960.
Rest, J . The hierarchical nature of moral judgment: Pat-
terns of comprehension and preference of moral stages.
In L. Kohlberg & E. Turiel (Eds.), Recent research

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Kohlberg, L. Stage and sequence: The cognitive-develop- in moral development. New York: Holt, Rinehart &
mental approach to socialization. In D. A. Goslin (Ed.), Winston, 1974. (in press)

Models which postulate psychiatric disorders among the aging to be developmental products of
various antecedents in the life-histories of individuals are reviewed in comparison with alternate mod-
els of analysis on the one hand, and in relation to confirmatory evidence on the other. It is con-
cluded that such life-history oriented models constitute a popular but unsubstantiated point of view,
and that different analytic models may be suitable for explicating different kinds of conditions. A
developmental, contextual, and behavioral framework for analysis is proposed to guide the collection
of data, and to permit the discovery of those combinations of factors which result in the develop-
ment of differing psychiatric conditions. It is argued that availability of such data will facilitate the
test of the various models of pathogenesis proposed.

Life-History Antecedents in Psychiatric

Disorders of the Aging
Hugh B. Urban, PhD,1 and Daniel J. Lago, MA 2

A proposition commonly endorsed throughout
the geriatric literature holds that behavioral
disorders among the aging are significantly de-
termined by established premorbid patterns of
behavior which have been laid down earlier in
the person's life. From this vantage point any
effort to analyze and to explain the occurrence
of such dysfunctional patterns among the aging
would require an analysis in terms of the per-
son's developmental background, an historical
approach which conceivably might have to be
accomplished within a life-span frame. A num-
ber of writers state such a principle explicitly;
Wolff (1970), for example, asserts that
1. Professor of Human Development & Psychology, Division of
Individual and Family Studies, College of Human Development,
Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park 16802.
2. Division of Individual & Family Studies, College of Human
Development, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park 16802.
it is now generally recognized that mental disturbances
such as involutional psychosis and senile dementia have
their roots in childhood experiences.
Others such as Rockwell (1956) profess a gen-
eral recognition of the continuity between a
person's "life-experiences" and the occurrence
of behavioral disorders in late life. If such a
proposition were to become substantiated and
confirmed, it would be of significant import for
interventive programs of both a rehabilitative
and preventive sort.
Alternate Models of Analysis
Linear continuity models.The form in which
the general proposal has been made can be
categorized into several different types. There
is first the possibility, as suggested by Roth-
schild (1956), that at least certain instances of

502 The Gerontologist