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Dear Sir,
The paper ‘Preschoolers face moral dilemmas …’ issued in the recent IJPA (Vol. 78, Part 5) has attracted my attention because it deals with a very well known subject studied in Cognitive Psychology from whose frame of reference most of my colleagues at the Madrid University are working.
In my opinion, to deal from the psychoanalytical point of view with a field so much studied by cognitive psychologists, truly original conclusions should be contributed; but this is not the case in that paper, in my opinion.
Since the first of Piaget's studies (1932) there have been many works on the subject by such psychologists (Colby, 1983; Damon, 1998; Kagan & Lamb, 1987).
It seems to me that the paper only repeats conclusions that are quite old and well known, whereas the really analytical items—such as the role of one's earliest experiences, leading to the resolution of dilemmas—are not approached.
As regards the differences that are found in the resolution of dilemmas, it seems to me very weak and quite evident, concluding that ‘the ability to acknowledge dilemmas and resolve them improved with age’ (of course!). Moreover, to solve them earlier or better cannot be due only to the subject—as the