| Colby and Damon have authored a classic in the field of Moral development. They tell the stories of many "moral exemplars" and draw from those stories a theory of moral development in adulthood. Carol Gilligan was one of the first psychologists to present evidence that the development of the self was central to moral thought and action (though she borrowed the idea from Freud). Colby and Damon here present useful qualitative data to make this point strongly. Of course retrospective data like this is not conclusive, but it is a good piece of work to inspire more detailed data collection in the future. This work is not only a strong contribution to the psychology of moral reasoning, it is a readable book of inspirational tales of true moral exemplars. |
