Thread by @eriktorenberg

Research in moral psychology has found that people’s ethical understanding passes through a predictable series of stages.

Robert Keegan assigned them to six stages of moral development.

Eternalism, by promoting a reassuring illusion of ethical understanding, hinders moral development.

This is most obvious in religious fundamentalism, which denies the nebulosity of ethics, stranding you in a childish moral understanding.

Fortunately, eternalist ethical systems have become less credible, so it’s easier to advance to more sophisticated understandings.

Unfortunately, “easier” is not “easy,” and ethical anxiety—a sense of being lost at sea when it comes to ethics—is increasingly prevalent.

Research by Jonathan Haidt and others shows that ethical explanations are mostly used to justify actions we have taken or want to take.

This “social intuitionism” is a descriptive theory, about how ethics works in practice.

It’s not a good account of how ethics ought to work.

In Kegan’s framework, each developmental stage goes meta to the last, so that whatever was previously experienced as “subject” becomes “object,” and a new subject, or self, emerges to reflect on it.

Also, the stages alternate btw excesses of individuation & social embeddedness.

Most Western adults reach stage 3—the ethics of empathy—during adolescence.

However, one needs to be at stage 4—the ethics of systems—to fully meet the demands of modern society.

Unfortunately, getting to stage 4 is hard, and only a minority of ppl ever do.

We should help them

The self-interested mode (stage 2)

Here the subject (self) is a collection of short-term practical interests.

One recognizes that other people have their own interests (desires, agendas), which you have to take into account.

Ethics in this mode is “instrumental”: aimed at satisfying your own needs, while working with or around other people’s.

Relationships are “transactional”: transient alliances for mutual benefit.

An exchange is “fair” if it is of equal value (as seen from your own perspective)

The communal mode (stage 3)

Here personal interests are *relativized*, which means they move from subject to object:

In other words, you no longer are your collection of interests—you have interests.

They are subordinated to, and are organized by, relationships.

You are *in* relationships; and, tacitly, you find yourself defined by them.

Stage 3 develops a more nuanced understanding of the self/other boundary.

For stage 2, other people are meaningless unless they directly affect one’s interest.

For stage 3, “the other’s POV matters to us intrinsically, not just to satisfy our more egocentric purposes.”

Epistemologically, the communal mode develops the ability to “put oneself in the other person’s shoes,” which is cognitively impossible in the self-interested mode.

Stage 3 also becomes intensely sensitive to “what others think of me,” which stage 2 is mostly oblivious to.

From stage 2 to stage 3, there is a move from excessive separation to excessive embeddedness.

One takes on other people’s emotions, values, interests, and situational experiences without clearly identifying them as someone else’s.

The prototype relationship is the “school chum”; developing intense peer friendships is what typically drives the transition to the communal mode.

Relationships are normatively symmetrical: between equals; and reciprocal: each provides the same kind of support for the other

Because relationships have no structure, they have no defined limits; you are potentially infinitely responsible to everyone you are in relationship with.

Communal ethics seek harmony within a homogeneous social group.

That is maintained by empathically monitoring others’ needs & aligning your intentions toward them.

Equality here means that everyone’s needs deserve to be heard; unlike stage 2, it does not necessarily imply an exchange of equal value, b/c some ppl need more than others.

Decision-making is ideally by consensus, after everyone has shared their feelings.

Also, you should obey community taboos and shibboleths, even when they are unjustified and senseless.

Violating them upsets people, which is not nice.

Living up to what other members expect from you to is good by definition—because “who I am” is “how people feel about me.”

The Golden Rule is a summary of communal ethics; note its perfect symmetry!

The communal mode also recognizes asymmetrical relationships of biological necessity, i.e. family and heterosexual pair bonds.

Here the ethical imperative is to fulfill the role in the conventional prescribed way: being a “good” child, parent, or spouse.

Fulfilling the role consists largely in having the correct feelings. Throughout communal ethics, emotions dominate other considerations.

Romantic relationships tend toward fusion, eliminating any emotional separation or difference in values.

The communal mode generally rejects asymmetrical relationships other than those of biological necessity.

From its point of view, asymmetry implies that one party is failing to take the other’s experience into account, which could only be motivated by stage 2 selfishness.

Stage 3’s limitation is that it cannot resolve conflicts between responsibilities to different relationships.

If one person wants you to do something, and another person wants you to do something different, there is no good basis for decision, because relationships have no internal structure; they consist simply of sharing experience.

stage 3 failing to cope with irreconcilable expectations:

That impossible feeling of having to be in several places all at the same time, the feeling of wanting everyone you love to be happy, or even feeling you could make them all happy—if only they would cooperate.

In practice, you choose on the basis of whose feelings you feel most strongly at the moment you are forced to decide.

This is often whoever happens to be there at the time, or whoever is best at displaying intense feelings.

Social groups based in the communal mode tend to be dominated by people with personality disorders, who get their way by emoting histrionically.

People in stage 3 seem irresponsible and unreliable to people in stage 4.

They frequently fail to do what they agreed to do—because “something came up.”

From the communal point of view, that was being responsible: they were dealing with the thing that came up, which was that someone from some other part of their life wanted something else done.

Stage 4 might respond “yes, but that thing wasn’t your problem, and it just came up, whereas you had previously agreed to do what I wanted.”

This merely sounds like stage 2 selfishness to stage 3: prioritizing my wants over the third person’s.

Stage 3 cannot hear that there can be structural reasons, not just feelings, for prioritizing one responsibility over another.

“That’s not my problem” can be stage 2 language or stage 4 language; it is not stage 3 language.

Stage 3 cannot avoid taking on anything that “comes up,”

In effect, you try to be responsible for everything.

However, if you are responsible for everything, you cannot actually be responsible for anything.

You cannot be held accountable to any specific responsibility.

The communal mode is characteristic of “traditional” cultures.

It’s impossible to base a large-scale society on communal mode, b/c it’s so ineffective at coordinating complex group activities.

(If ppl frequently fail to do their specific, agreed tasks, nothing can get done.)

In modern societies, stage 3 is developmentally appropriate for adolescents.

It is not adequate to fully cope with what modern societies demand of adults.

Stage 3 adults in the West are developmentally traditional people living in a modern world—and that causes friction.

Because Western adults do all have to deal with stage 4 systems (esp in employment), everyone develops coping strategies, & everyone has some intellectual understanding of how they operate.

However, in the communal mode, systemic logic seems alien and emotionally unacceptable.

This explains a lot:

Anti-capitalism, e.g, is often motivated by a stage 3 rejection of the asymmetrical, structured relationship of employment.

(However, it can also be motivated by a stage 4 systemic understanding of how capitalism works, & why it doesn’t work well enough.)

For stage 2, you show up to work on time because if you don’t, you might be fired, and then you’d have to find another job, which would be a hassle, and you’d lose pay in the meantime. If you do show up, you’ll eventually be promoted, so you’ll get paid more.

For stage 3, you show up to work on time bc your coworkers would be upset with you if you were late; or bc your spouse would be upset with you if you got fired; or bc you might miss a pay raise that would mean a better quality of life for your kids.

For stage 4, you show up to work on time bc that’s your job.

In Stage 4, relationships are relativized again

They move from subject to object, and are subordinated to, and organized by,a system.

You no longer are in relationships that define you; you have relationships.

You no longer are just a stream of transient emotional experiences

You are a system that defines you.

Here the self is a structure of enduring principles, projects, and commitments.

You are “self-authored”: you choose your own principles, projects, and commitments.

Others are understood as having chosen their own principles, projects, and commitments.

They have experiences, so those are not your experiences.

This does not mean that you are oblivious to or ignore others’ experiences (as in stage 2).

It means that you are not flooded by them, and can evaluate whether or not to respond to them, and how best to do so.

Systematic people relate mainly on the basis of each other’s principles & commitments, rather than their feelings.

To stage 3, that sounds cold, but for stage 4, it means seeing the other person for who they really are.

Emotions are just something ppl have, from time to time.

Emotions need to be dealt with, but should not be taken too seriously.

Relating to the other person’s principles, projects, and commitments means supporting what they most care about in the longer run.

A romantic relationship btw systematic people not only tolerates, but respects, and actively supports, their differing values and projects.

That is what it means to be in a relationship with another person, rather than losing both your selves in a warm bath of shared feelings.

Social groups are also understood as systems.

Whereas stage 3 advances over stage 2 by being able to take the perspective of one other person, stage 4 can take the perspective of an entire system—different roles that have asymmetrical & structured relationships w each other.

This is a new epistemic capacity, which requires abstract reasoning skills.

A stage 4 social system is rational in at least the sense that there is a reason for the nature of each role & relationship; and the reasons together provide an interlocking structure of justification.

“Therefore,” an asymmetric relationship between ideas, is the epistemic key to stage 4.

(Communal epistemology is typically associational, with unordered lists of items forming a loose category, or sets of symmetric correspondences.)

Because there are reasons for relationships, because they are based on specific commitments to particular roles, because they give you specific responsibilities in specific situations, you can usually resolve conflicts between them in a principled way.

Kegan gives an example:

You have planned a week’s vacation with your spouse as a “second honeymoon,” and arranged childcare so just the two of you can renew your romantic relationship.

But then your parents call & express disappointment that they see so much less of you.

There’s a perfect communal mode solution:

you invite your parents along on the vacation, and bring the kids, & then everyone will be happy.

Your spouse might be a little disappointed, but you know that he or she also loves your parents, and enjoys spending time with them.

For the systematic mode, this is definitely the wrong answer.

You are responsible to your parents + to your spouse in different ways that compel prioritizing one relationship or aother in different situations, on the basis of specific reasons, not just who has stronger feelings.

Here the specific situation is the renewal of the couple relationship, which has different needs from other relationships.

A visit with your parents can include your spouse and children; sometimes a vacation with your spouse cannot include anyone else, due to its specific nature

As an additional structural reason, you have made a prior commitment to your spouse, which should typically take priority over anything new that “comes up”

Or at least bring it up before inviting them!

Stage 4 has the capacity to take the perspective of a social system as a whole, and to support its smooth functioning.

In this case, it is a multigenerational family system, with distinctive subsystems—such as the couple—that have distinctive needs, independent of any individual

It can also be a workplace, country, etc

For stage 3, complex social systems impose what seem arbitrary external demands (presumably devised by the powerful for their selfish benefit).

Lacking a systemic view, communal people take for granted all the goods of modern life.

Only at stage 4 can you understand how any life beyond subsistence farming depends on intricate social systems w complex roles & responsibilities.

In the communal mode, you can be responsible to the demands of a role (“a good son”), but you cannot be responsible for your roles.

At stage 3, you are in roles, but at stage 4 you have roles, which you can relate to each other.

Not only can you prioritize them, you recognize that your responsibility for a particular role has particular limits; and you can enter and exit roles by choice.

Systems honor boundaries and distinctions.

Stage 4 includes meeting formal responsibilities—that is, ones that are invented in order to make the system work, not ones that are biologically inherent.

This is “professionalism,” which is the understanding that the systemic role relationship btw two people is separate from the personal relationship between them (even though there always is also a personal relationship); and that the role relationship takes priority in most cases

Equality, in stage 4, means procedural justice, based on respect for individual dignity.

It does not mean that everyone’s feelings are taken into account (as in stage 3)

It means that the system treats people impartially, based on rights, principles, and procedures.

It means that feelings and personal relationships are deliberately excluded from decisions about individuals.

This protects the less powerful against the whims of the powerful, and against nepotistic (personal-relationship-based) favoritism.

Stage 4 ethics includes contributing to institutions by fulfilling your specific, defined, systemic duties.

But at stage 4, one takes responsibility not merely for personal roles, or for the needs of people you are in relationship with, but for a whole social structure.

Mastery of the mode means not only working congruently within a system, but the ability to create, or co-create, systems.

It includes the ability to enter and exit roles (not merely relationships) by choice, and to create roles for yourself (+ others) based on the system’s needs

This mode recognizes that power, authority, and control are often positive contributions to society, and not always mere self-seeking.

Effective institutional leadership is one way mastery of this stage can manifest.

Systematic ethics takes for granted your good intentions toward others (which are the essence of communal ethics).

The central issue, rather, is how to resolve conflicts between good intentions.

Stage 4 is definitional of modernity, in the sense of European culture and society over the past 250 years or so.

But not everyone can live that way.

Post-modernity was an overthrowing of systematic mode.

The fluid mode (stage 5)

Systems are relativized again:

They move from subject to object, and are subordinated to, and organized by, the process of meaning-making itself.

You are no longer defined as a system of principles, projects, and commitments.

You have several such systems, “multiple selves,” none of them entirely coherent, and which have different values—and this is no longer a problem, because you respect all of them.

Development beyond stage 4 is driven by seeing contradictions within and between systems.

For stage 4, a system is justified by an ideology that grounds out in some set of ultimate principles.

When you realize that the system doesn’t work as well as the ideology claims it should, you look for an alternative set of principles.

Which is why some ppl pursue religion

But at some point you realize that all principles are somewhat arbitrary or relative.

There is no ultimately true principle on which a correct system can be built.

It’s not just that we don’t yet know what the absolute truth is; it is that there cannot be one.

Systems re-emerge as transparent forms.

You no longer see by means of systems, but can see through systems as contingent constructions that most people mis-take as solid.

Stage 3 sees systems as unfair but unavoidable external impositions;

Stage 4 sees them as rational necessities justified by ultimate principles.

Stage 5 recognizes that they are both nebulous (intangible, transient, ambiguous) and patterned (distinct, clear, and definite).

Fluid epistemology can relate systems to each other, in a way that the systematic mode cannot.

[Systems become objects of creative play rather than constitutive of self, other, and groups. ]

Fluidity can hold contradictions between systems comfortably while respecting the specific functioning and justification-structure of each.

All ideologies are relativized as tools rather than truths.

Fluidity treats rationality as a valuable tool that is not always applicable; non-rational ambiguity and paradox become non-problematic.

People relate not to the other’s systems (although those principles, projects, and commitments have to be taken into account), but to each other’s on-going, collaborative process of meta-systematic meaning-making.

Stage 5 sees society as an assemblage of transient, contingent systems, which have relative functional value but no ultimate justification.

It sees conflicts btw groups w different values as inevitable & as ultimately non-problematic, even if sometimes harmful in the short run.

Since it sees all values as negotiable—although some are more important than others—it has the capacity to build bridges between competing groups and to help resolve their conflicts.

Fluidity recognizes that ethics can have no ultimate foundation, but that we can still often make clear judgements.

Values are neither objective nor subjective.

Fluidity understands that ethical situations are often inherently nebulous—not relative, but nebulous.

It takes ethics to be a matter of collaborative practical improvisation that is responsive to specific situations.

Lacking ultimate principles, an engineering approach to ethical mastery is impossible, but ethical skill—a toolkit of methods for ethical bricolage—can be learned.

The cutting edge of Western culture and society is currently at stage 4.5, in the transition from stage 4 to stage 5.

Postmodernnism (Modernity/systematicity has broken down, but we haven’t yet consolidated a positive new mode (personal, social, and cultural fluidity).

Postmodernism (or “poststructuralism”), in its denial of the possibility of judgement and rejection of all “metanarratives” (grounded systems), corresponds to the stage 4.5 nihilistic gap.