Lawrence Kohlberg's theory holds that moral reasoning, a necessary but insufficient condition for ethical behavior, has six developmental stages, each more adequate at responding to moral dilemmas than its predecessor. His six stages of moral development elaborate upon psychologist Jean Piaget's theory of child development. In Kohlberg's view, the process of moral development principally concerns "justice". This psychological theory has philosophical implications.

Since part of our mission is to reeducate society on moral and ethical values that have become partially degraded or lost, we need to educate ourselves too, and figure out how to talk about morality to folks who may initially have no grasp of the ideas.

We can start here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development

This is a GENERAL THREAD. Posts should remain on topic or risk removal without warning.

Graphic courtesy of Lawrence Kohlberg, Em Griffin, cmglee - Kohlberg Model of Moral Development.png, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74374453

Graphic attribution CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4834108

Wanted to write about Principled Leadership and Moral Authority. The problem is that a Kohlberg stage 6 argument about morality would probably fly past many heads, making no impact.

So here is what I was starting to assemble as potential ingredients for an article. But got derailed when considering how to refute moral relativism in a normie-digestible way. Because I would make a stage 6 argument.

The article concept is basically that a longtime, continuous adherence to truth can put someone into a position to be a credible authority. That's moral authority. It's not something someone (a church!) claims to have. Rather, it's a type of authority that is conferred on a leader by followers who see the leader as principled and truthful. And being perceived as truthful just a few times does not get it. To develop that much trustworthiness takes sustained, uninterrupted embrace of truth with few or no departures from it.

Truth is what we try to do here. Truth is how we shine the light. So I kind of wanted to show how truth-telling is a litmus paper that can sort the wheat from the chaff. Wanted to remind myself why truth is so very important.

Just a sketch, a partial outline.

• • • • • • -

Moral authority is authority based on fundamental truths that are independent of society's laws.

Without a steady adherence to truth, there can be no moral authority.

Moral authority and truth go hand in hand.

"Children who go to college are told by professors, many of whom may be the age of their parents, about ‘moral relativism,’ which is the belief that all cultures and all moral codes are equal (except Western Culture and the moral code around it – which they are taught to revile), and that we are free to choose whatever moral code we wish. Morals, we are told, are a construct of mankind, and nothing more. One set is just as good as another. If an adult does not snap back to the moral teachings of their parents, and does not believe in God, then they have no higher authority than themselves to draw morality from, and it is their own wants and desires that will drive their moral compass. Moral relativism becomes the morality of the least common denominator, which is the same as not having any sense of morality at all. A society based on moral relativism cannot long survive." [1]

Historian Will Durant wrote in ‘The History of Civilization, Vol.I: Our Oriental Heritage’ that a society needs two of three things to survive: a shared language, a shared culture, and a shared religion.

What is principled leadership?

How does a leader get moral authority?

How do you evaluate someone's moral authority?

1. "Moral Authority" by Wallace Garneau. http://thedailylibertarian.com/moral-authority/

Well this thought process proved way too intellectual for what is needed. Instead, what resulted was an editorial of short, urgent phrases, pitched at a general audience. >>6665