Moral and Ethical Identity

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper begins by defining identity and morality in terms of two sets of dimensions. The eight dimensions of identity are called continuity-discontinuity, context, perspective, perspective-congruity, clarity-diffuseness, conscious-unconscious, type and differentiation. The eight dimensions of morality are labeled domain contents, universal-relative, permanent-changeable, absolute-conditional, direction, strength, conscious-unconscious, and source of evidence. These two arrays of dimensions are then combined to form a definition of moral identity.
With the multifaceted conception of moral identity as a focus, the author next proposes a theoretical model of the way an individual's moral identity develops during the early decades of the life span, with particular attention to ways one's moral identity can bear on ethnic issues. The model contains two major parts ― the individual person (personality) and the social environment ― and traces of types of interaction between the person and environment that produce one's moral identity. Principal components within the personality portion are:
1. Goals that the person seeks to reach.
2. Concepts acquired from interactions with the environment.
3. Moral values acquired from encounters with environments.
4. Emotions associated with those concept.s and values.
5. One's sense of self or of moral identity.
Principle components of the environment that influence the formation of moral identity are:
1. Fabricators of moral environments the individual is able to experience (with the chief fabricators being family members, peers, teachers, religious leaders, and mass-communication media) ,
2. Agents in the environment that reward and punish the individual for abiding by or for violating, more expectations.
How encounters with the environment can affect a person's moral, identity will be governed by both the nature of the environments and by the person's present stage of intellectual maturity.
The paper closes with suggestions about how the conception of moral identity represented in the theoretical model could influence moral-education programs, especially as moral identity relates to intergroup relations.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 1. The Nature of Identity, Moral Values, and Ethnicity
• 2. The Model of Moral-Identity Development
• Encounters with the Environment
• The Nature of Moral Environments
• Identification and Moral Identity
• 3. Educational Applications of the Model of Moral-Identity Development
• 4. Conclusion
• NOTES