Reason: Developmental Ladders and the Question of Universality

Piaget, Kohlberg, and the interplay of fact, value, and assumption

Author’s Preface

Decades ago, when I was young, I studied experimental developmental psychology. I examined the developmental stage theories Piaget and Kohlberg in my coursework.

I did an essay or two on Kohlberg and think I may have taken a course on moral development. I was very influenced by Kohlberg’s thought because it aligned with my values. Only now, five more decades later, do I reflect on issues arising from both of these theories and find them to be inadequate, to say the least. So I’m looking at them now with a fresh perspective to try to see where they might be right and where they might be wrong.

Note: I am trying out different ways of “tightening up” arguments, acknowledging that arguments consist of language designed to persuade, not Platonic truths. I am still working through how to do this, with AI assistance of course.

Introduction

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget argued that children’s thinking develops through a series of universal, invariant stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. Each stage represents a qualitatively different way of reasoning, with later stages reorganizing and expanding earlier ones. Piaget emphasized that development was primarily maturational, unfolding according to biological timetables, though experience and interaction scaffolded the process. His work positioned childhood cognition as something to be studied systematically rather than seen as a miniature version of adult thought.

Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development
Lawrence Kohlberg, drawing directly on Piaget’s framework, extended the stage model into the moral domain. He proposed that moral reasoning advances through three broad levels—preconventional, conventional, and postconventional—divided into six stages. Progression moves from self-interest and obedience to authority, through conformity and law-and-order thinking, and ultimately toward universal ethical principles grounded in abstract justice. Like Piaget, Kohlberg held that these stages were universal and sequential, with each new stage representing a qualitatively superior form of reasoning. His work placed moral justification, rather than mere behavior, at the center of psychological inquiry.

There are two ideas which require discussion. First, the descriptive thesis: cognitive and moral reasoning develop in universal, invariant stages that reflect maturation. Second, the evaluative thesis: later stages are not only different but superior, culminating in abstract, impartial principles. The method here is to reconstruct each theorist’s argument in the form assumptions → assertions → evidence → evaluation, followed by analysis of measurement, fact–value slippage, cultural variation, and viable alternatives that preserve what is strongest while discarding what overreaches.

Both frameworks share the conviction that development unfolds in a predictable sequence and that later stages represent more advanced, even superior, reasoning. This structural similarity, with Kohlberg explicitly indebted to Piaget, makes them natural to examine together. Yet it also means that the same vulnerabilities—assumptions of universality, reliance on rigid stages, and the conflation of descriptive change with evaluative judgment—run through both, and these will be the focus of the critique that follows.

Discussion

I. Nature–Nurture: Learning Scaffolded on Biology

Assumptions. (a) Individuals differ in biological endowment (attention, working memory, processing speed, temperament). (b) Cultural and individual learning build upon these endowments.
Assertions. Reasoning generally improves with maturation and experience; capacities broaden (more information integrated, longer horizons considered, finer counterfactuals¹ entertained).
Evidence contours. Gains in planning, inhibition, and abstraction correlate with age, schooling, and practice; extreme biological constraints (e.g., profound neurodevelopmental disorders) limit learning; enriched contexts accelerate skill acquisition.
Evaluation. The improvement claim holds in a loose, statistical sense. What it does not establish is a single, universal sequence of discrete stages across all domains and cultures.

II. Piaget Reconstructed

Assumptions. (1) Cognitive development is primarily maturational; (2) it proceeds through discrete, universal stages; (3) later structures reorganize earlier ones.
Assertions. Children pass (in order) through sensorimotor → preoperational → concrete operational → formal operational thought.
Evidence. Clinical interviews and tasks (object permanence, conservation, class inclusion) supplied qualitative patterns suggestive of stage-like change.
Counter-evidence and reinterpretation.

• Competence vs performance. “Earlier” competencies emerge when linguistic and memory loads are reduced; failures often reflect task demands, not incapacity.

• Domain specificity. Individuals show “formal” reasoning in some domains (e.g., algebra) and “concrete” reasoning in others (e.g., social conflict).

• Cross-cultural variability. Timing, prevalence, and even presence of “formal operations” vary with schooling and practice.
  Evaluation. Piaget successfully foregrounded developmental change and task analysis, but the claims of discreteness and universality overstate what the evidence can bear.

III. Kohlberg Reconstructed (and his debt to Piaget)

Intellectual lineage. Kohlberg explicitly extended Piaget’s genetic epistemology from cognition to moral judgment, adopting the idea of qualitative reorganizations over time.
Assumptions. (1) Moral reasoning can be ordered; (2) development is invariant and universal; (3) later stages are normatively higher.
Canonical structure.

• Three levels: Preconventional, Conventional, Postconventional.

• Six stages (often taught as five because Stage 6—universal ethical principles—was rarely observed and hard to score; some sources note a transitional Stage 4½ and an aspirational Stage 7).
  Evidence. Longitudinal studies showed movement across years; Moral Judgment Interviews (e.g., Heinz dilemma) were scored via detailed manuals.
  Counter-evidence and reinterpretation.

• Measurement fragility. Heavy reliance on interpretive coding of verbal justifications; sensitivity to framing, literacy, and interview context.

• Cultural parochialism. Highest stage mirrors Kantian universalism; alternative moral ecologies (duty, harmony, sanctity, loyalty) are not lower by empirical fiat.

• Sequence noise. Individuals exhibit mixtures; order is not always invariant; Stage 6 is seldom evidenced.
  Evaluation. Kohlberg recentered moral psychology on reasoning and justification and gave education a vocabulary for growth, but the strong universal ladder and its normative apex outrun the data.

IV. Fact and Value: Keeping the Ledgers Separate

Matters of fact. Age-related gains in reasoning do occur; profiles differ by domain, task, and culture; instruments often capture ordinal distinctions at best.
Matters of value. Ranking “impartial universalism” over loyalty, piety, or care is a philosophical stance, not an empirical discovery.
Where they mix. Words like “maturity” equivocate between descriptive (broader integration) and evaluative (morally better). Treating evaluative commitments as if they were natural facts is normative smuggling.

V. Language, Inference, and the Temptations of Reification

Reification. Turning fluid performances into fixed stages grants false concreteness.
Category mistakes. Treating moral change as if it were akin to growth of bone density conflates biological maturation with culturally mediated learning.
Spurious quantification. Coding rich narrative justifications into stage scores risks treating ordinal categories as if they had equal intervals and robust predictive power.
Endless regress. If “higher” means “more abstract,” there is no principled ceiling; abstraction alone is not a self-validating moral criterion.

VI. Real Regularities Without a Single Ladder

Tacit distinctions. Ordinary experience distinguishes “all-about-me” reasoning from broadly considerate or principled reasoning.
Cross-cultural kernel and divergence. Most traditions constrain raw egoism and praise forms of self-restraint or generosity; what counts as the highest expression differs (rights, care, harmony, sanctity, loyalty).
Character pathologies. Narcissistic or manipulative orientations align, intuitively, with “lower” patterns of justification; this intuition does not validate a universal stage sequence or a singular apex.

VII. Ethics and Morality: A Dubious Divide

Scholarly treatments often divide “ethics” (reflection) from “morality” (practice). In lived life, moral life is simultaneously reflective and enacted: judgments before acting, control during acting, and justification after acting. The sharp divide is more scholastic convenience than descriptive truth.

VIII. Why Stage Ladders Persist

• Narrative clarity. Simple stories travel through classrooms and policy memos.

• Pedagogical utility. Age-sensitive instruction benefited from Piagetian framing; discussions of justification benefited from Kohlberg’s prompts.

• Institutional inertia. Curricula, exams, and training embed frameworks long after evidential enthusiasm fades.

• Intuitive resonance. Recognizable differences in reasoning lend the appearance of a ladder, even where profiles are mixed and context-bound.

IX. A More Persuasive Alternative

Repertoires, not rungs. Treat development as growth in a toolkit: perspective-taking, counterfactual reasoning, rule-based analysis, principle-based evaluation, care-based deliberation, loyalty reasoning, sensitivity to sacred/profane boundaries.
Profiles, not totals. Map where and when tools are deployed (domain, stakes, audience), rather than collapsing to a single “stage.”
Methods. Use ecologically valid tasks; vary framings and linguistic load; separate competence from performance; combine quantitative summaries with qualitative analysis; sample across cultures.
Norms made explicit. When ranking moral orientations, state the philosophical commitments openly instead of embedding them as “higher” stages.

Summary

Piaget and Kohlberg advanced ambitious claims: that reasoning develops through universal, invariant reorganizations, and that later forms are normatively superior. Their programs correctly emphasized that reasoning changes with maturation and learning, and that justification is central to moral life. The strongest parts of their legacies are those emphases. The weak claims are the universal, discrete stage sequences and the unacknowledged elevation of a particular moral ideal as developmental destiny. The evidence supports improvement and heterogeneity, not a single ladder. A more defensible picture treats moral–cognitive growth as learning scaffolded on biology, expressed as repertoires that vary by domain, culture, and context, with evaluative rankings argued as philosophy rather than smuggled in as science.

Appendix A: Methods Used

This essay reconstructs, rather than presupposes, the claims of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg. It makes assumptions explicit, separates matters of fact from matters of value, and examines where measurement, inference, and language may mislead. A central clarification is the nature–nurture point: reasoning growth is learning scaffolded upon biological capabilities. Biological differences exist and constrain what can be learned, yet, outside of extremes, the two are difficult to disentangle in practice. A second clarification concerns Kohlberg’s framework. The canonical presentation has three levels and six stages (with occasional mention of a transitional “4½” and a rarely adopted seventh), although many curricula teach a five-stage simplification because Stage 6 was seldom observed and difficult to score. Kohlberg’s project was historically and intellectually indebted to Piaget’s; that linkage is acknowledged throughout.

Readings (APA with brief annotations)

Box, G. E. P., & Draper, N. R. (1987). Empirical model-building and response surfaces. Wiley. — Clear reminder that models are tools, not truths; guards against reification.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Harvard University Press. — Demonstrates that care-based moral reasoning is not “lower” but differently organized.
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2–3), 61–83. — Documents cultural narrowness of much psychological evidence.
Kohlberg, L. (1981). Essays on moral development, Vol. 1: The philosophy of moral development. Harper & Row. — Primary source for the three-level, six-stage architecture and its Kantian leanings; also clarifies why many presentations collapse or omit Stage 6.
Piaget, J. (1970). Psychology and pedagogy. Viking Press. — Overview tying maturational claims to pedagogy and task analysis.
Shweder, R. A., Much, N. C., Mahapatra, M., & Park, L. (1997). The “big three” of morality (autonomy, community, divinity). In A. Brandt & P. Rozin (Eds.), Morality and health (pp. 119–169). Routledge. — Lays out plural moral ecologies that resist one-axis rankings.
Turiel, E. (1983). The development of social knowledge: Morality and convention. Cambridge University Press. — Argues for domain-specific development and the moral–conventional distinction.

1. Counterfactual reasoning is thinking about what could have happened but did not. It means imagining an alternative to reality and then reasoning from it.

For example:

• Fact: She missed the bus.

• Counterfactual: If she had left the house five minutes earlier, she would have caught the bus.

In this way, counterfactual reasoning asks “What if…?” and explores outcomes under different conditions. It is used in everyday life (regret, planning), in science (causal inference), and in law (assigning responsibility).

The key is that counterfactuals are not statements of fact but hypothetical alternatives that help us understand cause and effect.