Lawrence Kohlberg’s cognitivistic theory of moral development has become a paradigm in a psychology of education. Student teachers and students of education in many countries have been thought that his theory empirically verified fact verified by Kohlberg and his followers in hundreds of studies. Nevertheless one might ask can there be an empirical proof on transcendental (philosophical) theory of morality and its development. In his first study Kohlberg interviewed 72 10-16 years old boys living in Chicago suburban areas. He used three different dilemmas (later on there was 10 dilemmas) which do not have any right answers. The famous Heinz dilemma was one moral problem that Kohlberg used in his very first studies. A friend and a colleague of Kohlberg called Carol Gilligan familiarize herself very deeply with Kohlberg’s research method and moral thinking. Based on her research Gilligan wrote a book In a Different Voice. The other voice is women’s voice in the book and that voice must be listened attentively. Gilligan asserted that women have differing moral and psychological tendencies than men. After Gilligan’s book ethics of care received a feministic label. This label facilitated many interesting and important researches, but also this label orientated Gilligan’s care ethic as women’s ethic which is an alternative for men’s ethic of justice. This was not Gilligan’s intention. Gilligan in his books speaks about necessity of recognizing the dual context of justice and care. Gilligan´s one of the most striking critic to Kohlberg and development theories is, that they have adopted the male form of life as norm. The norm of the human being is man and men’s experience stands for human experience. Gilligan argues against Kohlberg’s study, because he has first interviewed only boys in his study. Kohlberg’s highest form of morality as reflective understanding of right is according Gilligan one sided. There is no room for taking care and human relationships, which are one part of maturity. Maturity is for Gilligan the stage, where adult human being recognizes the dual context of justice and care. In this paper we want further develop this dual context of justice and care by lessening Kohlberg’s Kantian transcendentalism and cognitivism (with the help Honneth’s ethics of recognition) and re-orientating Gilligan’s care ethic to phenomenological direction (with the help of Benner’s version of care ethic) in order achieve more comprehensive view on the development (Bildung) of human morality.

Philosophical method

In this paper we want further develop this dual context of justice and care by lessening Kohlberg’s Kantian transcendentalism and cognitivism (with the help Honneth’s ethics of recognition) and re-orientating Gilligan’s care ethic to phenomenological direction (with the help of Benner’s version of care ethic) in order achieve more comprehensive view on the development (Bildung) of human morality.