PSychoanalytical And Genetic-Structuralistic Approaches of Moral Development: Incompatible Views?

Freud was mainly interested in the development of the human psyche and in its sickness and its health, not in the development of morality. Quite the reverse: In most of his writings his attitude toward morality is rather hostile, seeing morality-and its location in the superego-as a potential threat to sanity. Nevertheless, Freud's views on morality and on the development of the superego have had a major influence on theorists working in the field of moral development and moral education. Authors in this field (e. g., in recent years, Richard Wollheim) have built their theories on Freudian foundations. Usually the psychoanalytical approach of moral development and moral education is placed over and against another major approach, namely, genetic-structuralism as developed mainly by Piaget and Kohlberg. These two paradigms are seen as mutually incompatible, that is, genetic-structuralistic approaches are seen as radically different from psychoanalytical approaches (Crittenden, 1990). Both paradigms have been criticized for being incomplete, inconsistent, limited, or simply mistaken (see, e. g., Blasi, 1980; Crittenden, 1990; Dilman, 1983; Peters, 1981). There have been several attempts to (partially) integrate them (see e. g., Berkowitz, ; Crittenden, 1990). However, this effort turned out to be highly problematic because the basic assumptions of the two approaches are so strongly divergent