Moral Self-Identity and the Social-Cognitive Theory of Virtue Daniel Lapsley University of Notre Dame Contact Information Department of Psychology 118 Haggar Hall University of Notre Dame Notre Dame IN 46656 Email: danlapsley@nd.edu Ph. 574-631-4515 Annas, J., Narvaez, D. & Snow, N.E. (Eds). Developing the Virtues: Integrating Perspectives. New York. Oxford University Press. Abstract This chapter describes a social cognitive theory of moral identity. It trades on important themes in ethical theory that emphasize the importance of second-order desires and strong evaluation. After placing moral identity within an historical context of moral development research, and describing Blasi’s pioneering work in reaction to it, I outline the key elements of the social cognitive alternative that emphasizes the accessibility and centrality of moral identity within the working self-concept; and the role of situations in activating or deactivating its accessibility. The empirical warrant for this approach is reviewed. A claim is made that social cognitive moral identity theory is a progressive research program; and has implications for current debates about the situationism and the stability of moral dispositions. Moral Self-Identity and the Social-Cognitive Theory of Virtue “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down.” --Robert Frost (The Mending Wall) I. An Historical Introduction There is a discernible historical arc to the shifting boundary between ethical theory and empirical psychology. For much of the twentieth century American psychology, bound in the grip of behaviorism, was only too ready to shield empirical investigation from the intrusions of speculative metaphysics. The behaviorist stance on morality deemed ordinary moral language unsuitable for empirical inquiry without operational translation into the constructs of behavioral science. What was “good” and “right” or what one “ought” to do was behavior bound up with proper reinforcement schedules or else the product of reinforcement history. A shared problematic and shared language was hard to find, and so the boundary between philosophy and behavioral psychology was fenced, guarded and rarely breached. But all of this changed with the rise of the cognitive developmental paradigm associated with Piaget and Kohlberg (and the cognitive revolution more generally). Piaget’s (1971) genetic epistemology attempted to show how investigations into the stage properties of children’s understanding of logic, mathematical and scientific concepts could yield criteria for discerning progress in these disciplines. The facts of child development made suspect commitments to both tabula rasa empiricism and Cartesian rationalism. Similarly, Kohlberg attempted to show how the ontogenesis of justice reasoning could yield grounds for rejecting ethical relativism. He argued that “empirical evidence could nullify or undermine the plausibility of our normative claims” (Kohlberg et al., 1983, p. 165). Just as Piaget appealed to developmental criteria to discern progress in science and philosophy, so too did Kohlberg (1969) press developmental claims against inadequate meta-theoretical positions in psychology (e.g., associationism, maturationism) and to appraise the adequacy of different forms of moral reasoning (as represented by stages of moral judgment).