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This is the fifth volume of this gifted author's studies of the development of the child mind and it considers the evolution of The Moral Judgment of the Child.
It is important to realize that this series of volumes really constitutes what amounts to an effort to define the developmental stages of the child mind, and this effort is made with respect to divers and sundry aspects of the mind, such as the language and thought, judgment and reasoning of the child, the child's conception of the world and of causality, and, in this particular instance, the development of the moral judgment.
The method of approach to this problem is an exceedingly interesting and ingenious one. Piaget took for the object of his study a certain game of marbles that was played by the children about Geneva, and undertook to find out how the children regarded the rules of the game from various points of view. Inasmuch as this game was not only played by the children but had been played by their fathers before them, it had a certain traditional cultural aspect, and the rules had certain significances which can be seen to ally them very definitely with moral judgments in a more serious sphere of conduct.
Roughly speaking, the author finds that there is a steady development in the character of the child's regard for the rules, the way in which they are used, and that these stages correspond in a general way to the stages of development of the child mind which he has elucidated with reference to other aspects. The principles that are involved are rather simple although their philosophical discussion at the end of the book can hardly be said to be such. They are, briefly