Hermeneutics and moral development: Interpreting narrative representations of moral experience

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Hermeneutics and Moral Development: Interpreting Narrative Representations Moral Experience MARK Harvard

of

B. TAPPAN University

This paper sketches the preliminary outlines of a hermeneutic approach to the study of moral development that focuses on interpreting narrative representations of real-life moral experience. This approach assumes that lived moral experience entails three fundamentally interdependent and indissociable psychological dimensions: cognitive, affective, and conative. It also assumes that individuals’ representations of their lived moral experiences, in the narratives they tell in open-ended, semiclinical interviews, can be interpreted in ways that highlight the complex interplay between these three dimensions. This paper explores some of the methodological and theoretical implications of this approach, and provides a brief example of an interpretive analysis of an interview narrative. D 1990 Academic Press, Inc.

Hermeneutics, argues Wilhelm Dilthey (1900/1976), is the methodology most appropriate for understanding “recorded expressions of human experience. ’ ’ It is, in other words, the art and practice of exegesis or interpretation that is most likely to reveal the meaning of a particular human text: Since it is only in language that human life finds complete and exhaustive expression, and hence expression which can be apprehended objectively, exegesis is accordingly carried out in the interpretation of that residue of human existence which is contained in the literary [text]. This art is the basis of philology, and the [“science”] of this art is hermeneutics. (Dilthey, 1910/1977, p. 135)

Historically, as Dihhey’s argument would suggest, hermeneutics has focused almost exclusively on interpreting literary and religious texts (see Bleicher, 1980; Howard, 1982; Palmer, 1969); in recent years, however, there has been a significant turn toward what has been called “interpretive (or “hermeneutic”) social science” (see Rabinow & Sullivan, 1979). Although psychology, in general, and developmental psychology, in particular, have been somewhat slower than other disciplines (e.g., anthropology) to make their hermeneutic turn, the last decade has nevertheless

Preparation of this paper was supported, in part, by a small grant from the Spencer Foundation. Requests for reprints should be sent to Mark B. Tappan, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Roy E. Larsen Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138. 239 0273-2297190 $3.00 Copyright 8 1990 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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witnessed a growing interest in interpretive approaches to psychological inquiry (see Bruner, 1986; Campbell, 1986; Freeman, 1984, 1985; Gilligan, 1982; Honey, 1987; Messer, Saas, & Woolfolk, 1988; Mishler, 1986; Packer, 1985a; Packer & Addison, 1989a; Polkinghorne, 1988; Sarbin, 1986; Spence, 1982; Tappan, 1989b). In fact, as Bronfenbrenner, Kessel, Kessen, and White (1986) suggest, the degree to which hermeneutic ideas and insights find expression in the conduct and writing of research may serve as one measure of how well the discipline of developmental psychology is prepared to face the reality of the postpositivist/postmodern era in which we currently live. Research on moral development is perhaps the subdiscipline of developmental psychology that has been most influenced by hermeneutics. Kohlberg (1981, 1984; see also Colby & Kohlberg, 1987) was the first to acknowledge that his research on the development of justice reasoning entailed an explicitly interpretive component; Gilligan’s (1982, 1986, 1987) challenge to Kohlberg and her analysis of women’s moral development focusing on the voice of care also highlights the problem of interpretation; and, most recently, Packer (1985a, 1985b, 1987, 1989) has argued for the importance of a hermeneutic approach to the study of moral action and social interaction. Yet, while these three approaches to the study of moral development all carry the hermeneutic label, and hence bear more resemblance to each other than they do to traditional empiricist approaches, there nevertheless remain some striking differences among them. Thus, as hermeneutic approaches to developmental inquiry gain in prominence and popularity, it is important to acknowledge that there is as much heterogeneity within hermeneutics as there is within other approaches. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to sketch the preliminary outlines of one kind of hermeneutic approach to the study of moral development-an approach that focuses explicitly on interpreting individuals’ narrative representations of their real-life moral experiences. This approach assumes that lived moral experience entails three fundamentally interdependent and indissociable psychological dimensions: cognitive, affective, and conative; hence it does not seek to divorce moral cognition, emotion, and action, as has traditionally been done in the study of moral development (see Hoffman, 1979; Kohlberg, 1981, 1984; Rest, 1983), but instead focuses on the interrelationships among these three dimensions. As such, it also assumes that the ways in which individuals express and represent their own lived moral experiences, through language and in the narratives they tell in open-ended, semiclinical research interviews, can be interpreted in ways that highlight the complex interplay between these three dimensions. Consequently, as I will argue below, this approach ultimately offers a corrective both to Kohlberg’s (1981, 1984) focus on the

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rational reconstruction of the deep structure of moral cognition, and to Packer’s (1985a, 1985b, 1987) focus on moral action and social interaction defined as “practical activity.” My formulation of this approach owes much to the work of Dilthey (18940977, 1900/1976, 191011977). Although there are other figures in the history of psychology to whom I could have turned for similar theoretical insight into the three-dimensional nature of psychic life (e.g., Bain, 1868; Baldwin, 1889; Brentano, 1924), only Dilthey provides the necessary methodological insight relevant to this undertaking. Specifically, I will argue that Dilthey’s views on textual interpretation or exegesis-i.e., his hermeneutics-provide the groundwork for a very promising method for understanding the complex interrelationships among the psychological dimensions of moral experience, both as it is lived and as it is represented. I begin by examining Dilthey’s thoughts on “psychic life” and “lived experience,” in order to flesh out a three-dimensional view of the psychological complexity of lived moral experience. I then explore how Dilthey’s hermeneutic methodology can be used to interpret narrative representations of lived moral experience in interview texts, and I provide a brief example of this approach. I conclude, finally, with a consideration of some of the implications of this approach for future research on moral development across the life-span. In addition, I compare and contrast this approach to other current approaches to the study of moral development, particularly other hermeneutic approaches. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL

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Although Dilthey’s status as one of the founders of the hermeneutic approach to the “human sciences” (Geisteswissenschaften) is well known in certain disciplines, such as history and literary criticism, his specific thoughts on psychology as a human science are much less so. Thus, my purpose in this section is simply to outline Dilthey’s (18940977) psychology, focusing specifically on his ideas on what he called “psychic life” and “lived experience,” in order to set the foundation for an understanding of what I will call “lived moral experience.” In his 1894 essay entitled “Ideas Concerning Descriptive and Analytic Psychology,” Dilthey’s main concern is to establish what he calls “descriptive psychology” as one of the primary foundations of the human sciences. Descriptive psychology derives its units and laws from empirical analysis and a close examination of what actually takes place in the lived experience of individual human beings. Only such a psychology, that describes “the potent reality of the soul . . . from its more humble to its highest possibilities,” argues Dilthey, can serve as the proper foundation for the human sciences: “Psychology will then become the instrument of the historian, the economist, the politician, the theologian, and

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can serve to guide practical men as well as those who observe men [sic]” (PP. 4Ml). In arguing that descriptive psychology can, and should, be true to the lived experience of individual human beings, Dilthey offers his analysis of what he calls the “psychic nexus.“’ Every mental state or state of consciousness, and thus the whole of psychic life, he argues, is aprocess. But each state of consciousness can be shown through description and analysis to consist simultaneously of three different dimensions: thinking, feeling, and willing. The thinking dimension is the dimension that enables the individual to cognitively process the particular experience or event at hand. It consists of the perceptions, ideas, and knowledge that is often referred to as “intelligence.” It is with respect to this dimension, Dilthey argues, that analysis has progressed farthest, because the “products” of this dimension are easily observed and studied. The proliferation of research in modern-day cognitive psychology-focusing on sensation, perception, learning, memory, thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, and language use-attests to this fact. The feeling dimension consists of the individual’s affective response to the experience or event. Dilthey includes within this dimension the instincts or drives (Treiben), in addition to feelings, and he argues that in many respects this dimension lies at the center of the psychic nexus: It is in [the system of instincts and feelings] that we find the authentic center of psychic life; it is this which forms the theme of the poetry of all times. Man’s interest constantly moves to this emotional life; on it depends the happiness and unhappiness of the human existence. (p. 67)

In contrast to the cognitive dimension, however, the affective dimension “obstinately resists analysis.” This is because, according to Dilthey, feelings and instincts can not be easily reproduced and repeated, because they can not always be brought into consciousness at will. Thus “our definitions of such [affective] states do not analyze their content but only indicate the conditions under which each is produced” (p. 67).* The willing or volitional dimension entails both what the individual wants to do, and what s/he actually does, in response to the experience or ’ The German word translated here as “nexus” is Zusammenhang. It can also be translated as “connection,” “relation,” or “system.” ’ It is interesting to note the historical connection between Dilthey’s ideas here and Freud’s. While Dilthey was writing about the problem of analyzing feelings and instincts, Freud was attempting to solve it, via the development of psychoanalysis. And, subsequently, it has been the psychoanalytic approach that has had the most success in studying and analyzing the affective dimension of psychic life.

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event at hand. Dilthey also calls this “volitional activity,” and he argues that is is very closely related to the other two dimensions: Every feeling tends to be transformed into desire or aversion. Every perceptual state . . . is accompanied by activities of attentiveness through which I unite and apperceive impressions. . . . Every process of thought which occurs in me is guided by an intention and an orientation of attentiveness. (p. 84)

Furthermore, the conative dimension, like the cognitive dimension, is amenable to analysis-by distinguishing motive, means, and end. This can be done both through what Dilthey calls “inner perception,” because actions involving choice or preference can be objects of self-reflection, and through “objective” analysis, because “goal-directed actions occur partially in the external world”: The analysis of human volitions, [however], must not remain content with the particular volition. Just as association or the particular act of thinking is not the principal object of analysis in the intellectual sphere, the individual volition is not the main theme in the practical domain. The meticulous analysis of these volitions leads us precisely to confirm their dependence on the acquired nexus of psychic life which encompasses our enduring value determinations, habits of our will and our dominant ideas of goal, as well as the fundamental relationships of our ideas, and which thus includes the rules which govern our action, often even without our being conscious of it. It is therefore this nexus which continually influences our particular volitions and forms the principal object of psychological analysis of the human will. (p. 71; emphasis added)

The “structure of psychic life” (i.e., the “psychic nexus”), consists, therefore, of the articulated organization of, and the relationship between, these three inseparable psychological dimensions+ognition, emotion, and action. This structure can be revealed, argues Dilthey, by analyzing a “cross-section” of any given “state of consciousness” (p. 82). Such an approach will illuminate a complex and complicated pattern of relationships between these three dimensions, because “psychic life-process is originally and above all, from its most elementary forms to the highest, a unify” (p. 92). Thus, it is a mistake to view these three dimensions as individual elements out of which the psychic nexus is “built,” and it is impossible to analyze and understand one apart from the other two. I have devoted considerable attention to outlining Dilthey’s view of the three-dimensional nature of psychic life because it is key to his understanding of “lived experience” (Erlebnis). Erlebnis, for Dilthey, is a primary, first-order category that captures an individual’s prereflexive “experience as such”-i.e., it represents that direct encounter with the world that might be called “immediate” experience (see Palmer, 1969). It is, in other words, an act of consciousness itself; it is something that is lived in

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and lived through; it is the very attitude taken toward life as it is lived in the moment. As such, it also consists of a primary unity of thinking, feeling, and acting. For it is in the context of an immediate lived experience that these three psychological dimensions engage and interact-as the individual simultaneously thinks, feels, and acts.3 This, finally, highlights the implications of Dilthey’s view of lived experience for understanding what I will call lived moral experience. This term captures the lived experience of an individual faced with a situation, conflict, or dilemma that requires a moral decision and a moral action in response to that situation- i.e., a situation in which an individual is faced with the question “What is the ‘right’ or the ‘moral’ thing to do?” Such a situation may be as straightforward as deciding whether or not to give money to a homeless person on a street-comer, or as complex and complicated as deciding whether or not to have an abortion. In any event, I would argue, following Dilthey, that the immediate moral experience in such a situation will necessarily consist of an interrelated psychological unity of cognitive, affective, and conative dimensions. That is, such a real-life moral situation will demand than an individual not only think and feel, but also act. It is, ultimately, this real-life demand for moral action that points to the power of Dilthey’s analysis. For, as Dilthey suggests, it is the “psychic nexus” that continually influences and affects an individual’s volitions and actions, and therefore it is the nexus itself that “forms the principal object of psychological analysis” (p. 71). Consequently I would argue, following Dilthey, that any analysis of moral experience must necessarily focus on the primary unity of thought, feeling, and action in that nexus, in order to understand fully the psychological complexity of that experience. It is not enough simply to assume either that moral thinking and judgment lead to moral action (see Blasi, 1980, 1983; Kohlberg & Candee, 1984; Locke, 1983), or that moral emotions, like empathy, lead to moral action (see Hoffman, 1982). Rather, Dilthey’s work suggests not only that moral thinking and moral feeling both influence moral action, but also that moral action influences both moral thinking and moral feeling. This leads, therefore, to a multidimensional view of the relationship between cognition, emotion, and action in the context of moral experience (see Fig. 1).4 3 It is important to note that it is precisely Dilthey’s conception of lived experience as a realm of prereflexive consciousness that motivated the detailed exploration of the phenomenology of experience by both Husserl and Heidegger (see Palmer, 1969; also Eagleton, 1983). 4 Blum’s (1980a, 1980b) analysis of compassion provides an example of the interrelationships between cognition, emotion, and action in the context of a particular kind of moral experience: ‘Compassion . . is a complex emotional attitude toward another, characteristically involving imaginative dwelling on the condition of the other [thinking], an

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1. The interrelationship moral experience. FIG.

between the cognitive, affective, and conative dimensions of

It is important to acknowledge, however, that this view of lived moral experience provides only the starting-point for further analysis. Dilthey clearly assumes that lived experience is a private, subjective phenomenon that in and of itself, in its primary and unitary form, can not be described or analyzed from the “outside.” Consequently, if an experience is to be described and understood, it first must be expressed (i.e., represented), and then it must be interpreted (see Palmer, 1969). INTERPRETING NARRATIVE REPRESENTATIONS MORAL EXPERIENCE

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“Expression” (Ausdruck) is the term Dilthey (1910/1977) uses to capture the move from lived experience to the symbolic representation of that experience, in the form of language (either spoken or written), music, or visual images. Such a move is necessary, he claims, because others can not gain access to an individual’s subjective lived experience unless it is expressed in some way. An “expression,” however, is not simply a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. Rather, according to Dilthey, it is something far more encompassing-an “expression of life” (Lebensausserungen) or, more specifically, an “expression of lived experience” (Erlebnisausdruck). An expression, therefore, can be a story, a poem, a painting, a film, a dance, a piece of music, an idea-anything that expresses the lived experience of human beings. Dilthey’s ultimate goal was to find a way to interpret such expressions in order to understand other persons. This, in fact, was Dilthey’s dream for hermeneutics as the foundation for the human studies: “to study individual human beings and particular forms of human existence scientifically” at the same time acknowledging that “while the systematic human studies derive general laws and comprehensive patterns from the active regard for his own good [action], a view of him as a fellow human being, and emotional responses of a certain degree of intensity” (Blum, 198Oa, p. 509).

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objective apprehension of the unique they still rest on understanding and interpretation” (Dilthey, 1900/1976, p. 247). Consequently, Dilthey wanted to develop a method for obtaining “objectively valid” interpretations of unique expressions of human experience. I would argue that lived moral experience is expressed-when it is expressed-by and large through stories or narratives (see Tappan & Brown, 1989; also MacIntyre, 1981; Tappan, 1989b; White, 1981). Simply put, people tend to tell stories-either orally or in written form-about their real-life moral conflicts and dilemmas. It is important to acknowledge, however, (and here I begin to diverge somewhat from Dilthey’s view) that such narrativizing necessarily transforms the original “immediate” experience to such an extent that it is impossible to claim that a narrative an individual tells about a real-life moral experience corresponds in any precise way to what “really happened” (see Carr, 1985; Spence, 1982; Walsh, 1958; White, 1981). For, as Ricoeur (1986) argues, “to narrate a story is already to reflect upon the event narrated” (p. 61). We can not assume, therefore, when an individual, in a research interview, is asked to talk about an experience of real-life moral conflict and choice (see, for example, Brown, Tappan, Gilligan, Miller, & Argyris, 1989) that we can gain any direct access to her original experience, or even that she can “accurately” express the historical reality of that experience. Thus, the most we can say about the original moral experience is that is provides the starting point for a particular kind of symbolic (i.e., narrative) representation.5 It is, of course, this narrative representation that is ultimately of most interest to the interpreter anyway. For while it may not be a direct expression of the original moral experience, this narrative representation, as a form of “symbolic action” that gives meaning to experience (see Burke, 1941, 1966; also Barthes, 1977; MacIntyre, 1981; Polkinghorne, 1988; Tappan & Brown, 1989), nevertheless has cognitive, affective, and conative dimensions in and of itself. In other words, the language used to construct the narrative of moral contlict represents thought, feeling, and action in action-that is, in the telling of the story. The activating event is the original moral experience; the psychological reality of interest, however, is manifest via the symbolic action that represents the original ’ Note. I prefer to use the term representation, instead of Dilthey’s term expression, to refer to the process by which a lived moral experience is “made public” in narrative form. This switch in terminology reflects my concern that Dilthey believed, by and large, that lived experience could be directly expressed through language, and that such an expression captured all of the relevant dimensions of that experience. As should be clear here and below, I do not make such an assumption; instead, I would claim only that lived experience can be indirectly and incompletely represented through language, and that such a symbolic representation can never begin to capture all the relevant dimensions of the original experience.

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experience in narrative form. Moreover, as Bruner (1986) suggests, one of the primary functions of narrative is to hold cognition, emotion, and action together. Thus, Dilthey’s insights return once again to the fore, highlighting the way in which narratives of lived moral experience represent these three psychological dimensions in the symbolic act of narrativizing. Consequently, such narratives provide symbolic textual representations of lived moral experience--i.e., interview “texts’‘-that must be interpreted to provide some insight into the psychological complexity of moral experience (see also Honey, 1987). “Understanding” (Verstehen) is the term Dilthey uses to refer to this process of interpretation; it designates the process by which the interpreter grasps or gains access to the “mind” or “spirit” (Geist) of the other person (Palmer, 1969). More specifically, for Dilthey, it is the cognitive, affective, and conative dimensions of the other’s “psychic life” that are grasped, as they are revealed in a particular representation of lived experience: There is a special connection between [the expression of lived experience], the life from which it sprang, and the understanding which it brings about. The expression can indeed contain more of the psychic nexus than any introspection can reveal. It raises life out of depths which are unilluminated by consciousness; but at the same time it lies in the nature of lived experience that the relationship between this expression and the spiritual or human meaning which is expressed in it can only very approximately be taken as a basis for understanding. (Dilthey, 1910/1977, p. 124)

Because of their complexity, therefore, understanding the meaning of such representations is quite difficult. Consequently, says Dilthey, we must turn to systematic methods of interpretation (i.e., hermeneutics) in order to understand the meaning of representations of lived experience. “Interpretation” (Auslegung) thus begins with a fixed, nontransitory, textual representation of lived experience. Once such a text is fixed, in order that it can be carefully studied and explored, it can then be interpreted. Although, for Dilthey, this process of interpretation and exegesis clearly entails turning a “special personal giftedness” for understanding into a permanent “technique” that can serve as the foundation of the human studies, it nevertheless is also a process based on common sense: Exegesis or interpretation would be impossible if the expressions of life were utterly alien. It would be unnecessary if there were nothing alien in them. Thus exegesis lies between these two extreme opposites. It is requisite in every case where there is something alien which the art of understanding is to assimilate. (p. 143)

Furthermore, Dilthey argues, the process of understanding is fundamentally inductive. That is, it is not a process by which a general law is deduced from an incomplete series of instances. Rather, it is a process by

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which a particular interpretation is derived from a series of instances, which then serves to unify those instances as parts of a larger whole. As such, the interpreter necessarily enters what Dilthey (following Schleiermacher) calls the “hermeneutic circle”: Here we encounter the general ditficulty of all interpretation. The whole of a work must be understood from individual words and their combination, but full understanding of an individual part presupposes understanding of the whole. . . . [Thus] the whole must be understood in terms of its individual parts, individual parts in terms of the whole. . . Such a comparative procedure allows one to understand every individual work, indeed, every individual sentence, more profoundly than we did before. So understanding of the whole, and of the parts, are interdependent. (Dihhey, 190011976, pp. 259-262)

Thus, returning once again to the case of the narrative representation of a particular lived moral experience captured in an interview text, I would argue, following Dilthey, that the interpreter, in order to fully understand that narrative, and its psychological complexity, must engage the reciprocal whole-to-part and part-to-whole dynamics of the hermeneutic circle. In other words, the “meaning” of a particular text can not be determined from some objective, value-neutral, Archimedian point. Rather, not only must a text be engaged in its own personal and historical context, but the interpreter must also acknowledge his own perspective and point-of-view. Then, and only then, can the reciprocal dynamics of interpretation proceed. This suggests, therefore, that interpretation must take as its starting point the historical and psychological reality of the lived experience of both the interviewee and the interpreter. For an interpreter who ignores the historicality of the interviewee’s lived experience, and thus applies atemporal categories to a particular experience, can only with irony claim to be “objective,” because she has from the start distorted the experience she is trying to understand. And, furthermore, the interpreter must acknowledge that the reality of the hermeneutic circle means there is no such thing as nonpositional understanding. An interpreter understands by constant reference to her own perspective-to her “projective forestructure” that shapes her understanding of the world based on her expectations, preconceptions, biases, and assumptions that rest, fundamentally, on her life-style, life-experiences, culture, and tradition (Packer & Addison, 1989~; also Heidegger, 1927/1962). Her methodological task, therefore, is not to immerse herself completely in the experience of the interviewee (which, needless to say, is impossible). Rather, it is to search for ways in which she can interact with the text in order to increase her understanding of the interviewee’s experience, based, at least in part, on her own experience (see Palmer, 1969; also Fish, 1980; Gadamer, 1975). At this point, let me briefly compare this approach to interpreting nar-

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rative representations of lived moral experience to three other contemporary hermeneutic approaches to the study of moral development-i.e., the work of Kohlberg, Packer, and Gilligan-in order to highlight more clearly the unique contributions of my approach. Kohlberg’s (1981; 1984; also Colby & Kohlberg, 1987) approach is perhaps the one that is most at odds with the approach I have outlined above. Kohlberg studies moral development by using a standard set of hypothetical “justice” dilemmas, by abstracting cognition from both emotion and action, and by looking for evidence of “deep structures” that define a universal sequence of stages of justice reasoning. As such, Kohlberg’s hermeneutics, explicitly borrowed from Habermas (1979, 1983), entails a “rational reconstruction of the ontogenesis of justice reasoning” (Kohlberg, 1984, p. 221). Rational reconstruction, according to Habermas (1979), is essentially a set of procedures used by investigators to give an explicit account of the structures and rules that underlie “practically mastered pretheoretical knowledge (know-how) of competent subjects” in a given domain of activity (p. 15; see also McCarthy, 1982). Habermas (1979, 1983) thus points to the cognitive-developmental theories of Piaget and Kohlberg as prime examples of how rational reconstruction as an interpretive approach is used in contemporary psychology: Piaget has rationally reconstructed the deep structures and rules that govern human performance on logico-mathematical tasks, while Kohlberg has rationally reconstructed the deep structures and rules that govern the ways in which human beings think about issues of justice and fairness. There are three primary differences between my approach and Kohlberg’s: First, while Kohlberg uses a standard set of hypothetical dilemmas to elicit moral reasoning, my approach focuses exclusively on individuals’ real-life experience of moral conflict and choice. I would argue that the use of “unrealistic” hypothetical dilemmas in moral development research is problematic, because they do not enable researchers to understand the real-life situations and experiences individuals face, and in which virtually all significant moral decisions are made. Second, while Kohlberg abstracts moral cognition (in the form of justice reasoning), from emotion and action, my approach assumes that moral cognition, emotion, and action constitute a fundamental psychological unity. I would argue that the artificial separation of these three psychological dimensions in the service of clarity and parsimony has led to an impoverished understanding of the psychological complexity of human moral experience (see also Brunei-, 1986; Rest, 1983). Finally, while Kohlberg focuses on revealing the deep structures and rules that define “justice operations” and stages of moral judgment, I focus on describing and understanding lived moral experience, as that experience is represented and given meaning in personal narratives. If moral development in the

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complex and complicated world in which we live is to be facilitated and fostered by parents, schools, churches, and other institutions, the focus must not be on understanding tacit structures and abstract rules of moral judgment; rather, it must be on the psychological reality of explicit thoughts, feelings, and actions that are expressed and shared, Packer’s (1985a, 1985b, 1987, 1989) hermeneutic approach to the study of moral development also differs from the approach I have outlined above in several important ways. Packer studies moral development by focusing on videotape recordings of conflicts and confrontations among individuals playing a zero-sum competitive game, and by analyzing moral action and social interaction as forms of “practical activity.” Packer’s hermeneutics is thus based on Heidegger’s (192711962) distinction between three modes of engagement people have with the world: the readyto-hand, the unready-to-hand, and the present-at-hand. Highlighting the semantic and textual character of practical activity, following Heidegger’s analysis of the ready-to-hand mode as providing the most primordial and direct access to human phenomenon (e.g., emotions, habitual practices, and skills), Packer’s (1985a) interpretation of moral conflict focuses on three different aspects of social interaction: “the moral status people ascribed to themselves and others as they acted, the kind of interpersonal intimacy their actions produced or maintained, and the ‘mythology’ of their talk-what it was about” (p. 1090). The distinctions I would draw between Packer’s approach and my approach focus primarily on questions of method. Specifically, Packer (1989) claims he has chosen to eschew interview discussions of morality in favor of studying actual moral conflicts arising in social interaction, because interview based methods falsely assume a kind of engagement common to both speculative thought (captured in interviews) and practical action. Although I take this to be another helpful criticism of Kohlberg’s exclusive reliance on hypothetical dilemmas, it can also be taken to reject the use of interviews designed to elicit narratives of lived moral experience. I would clearly disagree with this latter view, on the grounds that while we can not assume that narratives of lived moral experience capture the explicit behavioral dimensions of that experience with the same kind of accuracy that a videocamera would, such narratives nevertheless provide important information about the ways in which individuals reflect on and represent their own real-life experience-information that can never be captured on videotape. If we assume, therefore, that at least one important aspect of the study of moral development has to do with understanding individuals’ own understanding of their lived moral experience, then there must be a place for gathering and interpreting narratives of real-life moral conflict and choice. Finally, Gilligan’s (1982, 1986, 1987; Gilligan, Brown, & Rogers,

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1990) approach to the study of moral development is perhaps most similar to the approach I have outlined above. Gilligan studies moral development by asking individuals to talk about their own real-life experiences of moral conflict and choice, and then by interpreting such narratives, looking particularly for evidence of what she calls two moral “voices” or “orientations”: justice and care (see also Brown, 1988; Brown et al., 1989). A justice voice focuses on issues of equality versus inequality, oppression, reciprocity, and impartiality in the resolution of moral conflicts, while a cure voice focuses on issues of attachment versus detachment, abandonment, responsibility, and relationship. Gilligan’s hermeneutics is informed to a large extent by literature and literary criticism; thus, she pays particular attention to the ways in which individuals use language to describe themselves and their moral decisions. She is also very sensitive to issues of gender and culture, and her critique of the implicit male bias in traditional developmental theories, highlighting their concomitant failure to accurately represent and interpret the experience of women, has contributed to an important feminist “deconstruction” of developmental psychology (see also Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986; Brown, 1989; Chodorow, 1978; Miller, 1976). Clearly, Gilligan’s approach is quite compatible with my approach. In particular, both approaches share two key methodological features: 1) a focus on collecting and interpreting narrative representations of real-life moral experience; and 2) an interpretive methodology based on a sequence of “readings,” whereby a particular interview narrative is read several times, with each reading focusing on a particular aspect or dimension of interest (see below). Yet these two approaches also diverge methodologically, with respect to the ways in which these various “readings” are guided. Specifically, while Gilligan’s approach uses very well-defined “categories” or “constructs” (i.e., the voices ofjustice and care) to guide and direct the interpretation of a particular interview text, my approach uses a much more general and open-ended conception of the three psychological dimensions of interest: cognition, emotion, and action. Thus, I would argue, Gilligan’s approach may have more of a tendency to “impose” a particular interpretation on a given text, because it is constrained by a set of a priori definitions of justice and care. My approach, in contrast, is less susceptible to such a problem, because it focuses on a somewhat more global and contextual analysis of the interrelationships between the cognitive, affective, and conative dimensions of lived moral experience as they are represented in an interview text. In sum, then, I would argue that my hermeneutic approach to interpreting narrative representations of lived moral experience in interview texts contributes several key insights to the study of moral development. First of all, it suggests that important and significant aspects of real-life

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moral experience-including its cognitive, affective, and conative dimensions-are indeed expressed and represented in interview texts. This insight thus challenges both Kohlberg’s sole reliance on hypothetical dilemmas to study moral judgment, and Packer’s claim that there is little or no connection between interview reflections and actual moral experience. In addition, my approach also challenges those who argue that what people say about their own experience has no meaning, because they can not be trusted to provide an “accurate” and “truthful” representation of that experience. Although the narrative that an individual tells about her own lived experience may not, in fact, be a direct expression and representation of what really happened, it nevertheless has a psychological reality that deserves to be interpreted and understood in its own right. And finally, as will be illustrated below, my approach also suggests that the psychological dimensions of that narrative can best be understood by eschewing, by and large, the imposition of a priori categories and constructs, in favor of a close and careful engagement with, and interpretation of, the text in its own unique terms. In order to illustrate these claims, and to concretize this discussion somewhat, I now turn to a brief interpretive analysis of an interview narrative. AN INTERPRETIVE

EXAMPLE

Consider the following narrative representation of her own lived moral experience provided by Diane, a 20 year-old attending a small private college in the Northeast: CAN YOU DESCRIBE A SITUATION WHERE YOU WERE FACED WITH A MORAL CONFLICT, WHEN YOU HAD TO MAKE A DECISION, BUT YOU WEREN’T SURE WHAT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO? Okay. Let me think. I can think of one time. In my junior year of high school, I kind of cheated on a paper, an English paper that I wrote. It was on Shakespeare, and I used “Cliff Notes” for the paper, and the teacher-it was very important for me to have a good image in this teacher’s eyes-her name was Mrs. S., and I really . . . I liked her a lot and she liked me, and it was very important, you know, for me to look good to her, and to keep up a really good student image. So, I used “Cliff Notes” to write this certain paper on Shakespeare, and I don’t remember what play it was on, but, you know, something like an opinion-summary kind of paper, and after . . . when I got the paper back, it was kind of a long one, it was maybe 4 to 6 pages, and that’s pretty long when you’re in high school (RIGHT) and it said, “See me” on the bottom. And I think maybe she sensed, in fact, she told me that she sensed that this had not come from me, you know, she could tell that it was just a diierent kind of writing; it sounded too professional, too polished, and she was wondering, you know, what I had done. And I always considered myself a pretty decent writer, and I was wondering-I was really tom because I was asking myself

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. . . all right, should I just spill the beans . . . or should I just insist . . .“Yes, this did come from me, I wrote it . . .” SO WHAT WAS THE CONFLICT FOR YOU IN THIS SITUATION? WHETHER OR NOT TO CHEAT, OR WHETHER OR NOT TO ADMIT THAT YOU HAD CHEATED? Well, after I got the note it was . . I think it was an issue of upholding my image versus telling her the real truth, and after a while, I mean, it was all the same day, I broke down and I told her the truth and, you know, I said, you know, “I used Cliff Notes . . . this is what I did”. . . you know, “this is the portion of the paper that really is practically right from them”. . . and I was-1 practically died when I said it, you know, and I just could feel her whole image of me just crashing to the ground, and I felt like two inches high, and she looked at me with these big frowning eyes and said “What you did was reprehensible!” And I had never heard that word before . . . I was-1 just kind of shrunk, but in a funny way, it felt good that I was strong enough to tell her the truth, and I think she respected me for that, and we walked out of the classroom together and she was telling me how she was really glad that I did tell her the truth and she hoped that I had learned a lesson from it. And I was glad that I did it afterward because I think I did learn a lesson from it. OKAY. And I never used Clitf Notes again! DO YOU CONSIDER THE SITUATION YOU DESCRIBED A MORAL PROBLEM? For me, it was, yeah. I wanted to get away with it, but morally, I knew that telling her the truth was the right thing to do.

My purpose here is not to provide a complete interpretation of this narrative of Diane’s moral experience. Rather, my aim is simply to illustrate, briefly, the kinds of insights to which a hermeneutic focus on the psychological dimensions of moral experience represented in an interview narrative may lead. The method used to interpret this text is modeled after the method developed to read similar narratives of moral conflict and choice for the moral voices or orientations of justice and care (see Brown, 1988; Brown et al., 1989; also Gilligan, 1982, 1986, 1987). This method entails reading a narrative five separate times: The first reading is designed to provide the interpreter with an overview of the narrative, including the setting, the plot, and the characters involved. The second reading involves looking specifically for manifestations of cognition and cognitive processes-a purple pencil is used to mark or underline words and phrases that the interpreter takes as representations of the cognitive dimension of the interviewee’s moral experience. The third and fourth readings, respectively, involve a similar focus on manifestations of emotion and emotional processes (marked with an orange pencil) and action and conative processes (marked with a black pencil). The fifth and final reading, like the first, focuses on the narrative as a whole, with a particular emphasis on

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the interrelationships and connections between thought, feeling, and action. This final reading is obviously crucial to the interpreter’s overall understanding of the narrative, because it highlights the fundamental interdependence and indissociability of these three dimensions.6 Returning now to Diane’s narrative, let me highlight the kinds of insights that emerge when this interpretive method is used. Note first the clear representations of her cognitive processes in phrases that begin with “I think”: “I think it was an issue of upholding my image versus telling the real truth,” “ I think she respected me for that,” and “I think I did learn a lesson from it.” Note also the clear representations of her affective processes in phrases that often include the construction “I felt”: “I was really torn, ” “I felt like two inches high,” and “it felt good that I was strong enough to tell her the truth.” Similarly, note the clear representations of her conative processes as she describes her actions: “I kind of cheated on a paper . . . that I wrote, ” “I broke down and I told her the truth,” and “I said, you know, ‘I used Clitf Notes . . . this is what I did.’ ” Most importantly, however, note the way in which Diane’s cognitive and affective processes combine (e.g., “I could just feel her whole image of me just crashing to the ground”) and how all three dimensions intertwine in one of the final summary statements in her narrative: “I was glad that I did it afterward because I think I did learn a lesson from it.” The point of this interpretation is thus not simply to identify discrete representations of these three psychological dimensions. Rather, it is to focus on the complex interrelationships and influences among them. For example, it is important to note how Diane’s thoughts about this situation influence her feelings about it, and how her feelings about it intluence her thoughts. Moreover, it is crucial to note the degree to which her represented actions inlluence both her thoughts and her feelings. That is, if she had not acted by telling the truth she would obviously think and feel quite differently about this experience than she does now. This conception of the relationship between these three dimensions, in fact, ultimately reflects Dilthey’s understanding of the hermeneutic circle. For just as these three dimensions stand in circular relation to each other, and to the whole that is Diane’s narrative representation of her lived 6 When using this method an interpreter’s overall interpretation of a particular narrative may take several forms: It may consist of a simple paragraph that summarizes the main themes in the narrative and provides a brief interpretation of the interviewee’s representation of her lived moral experience; it may consist of more elaborate summary “worksheets” that capture the details of the cognitive, affective, and conative representations in the narrative, as well as the manifest interrelationships among these three dimensions; or, it may consist of a set of categorical answers to a series of standard summary questions that can then be tabulated to enable a relatively straightforward comparison among narratives collected from a large number of subjects.

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moral experience, so, too, must her story be interpreted and understood from the standpoint of such reciprocal whole-to-part and part-to-whole relationships. In Diane’s narrative this is finally illustrated most clearly by her final statement that “I wanted to get away with it, but morally, I knew that telling the truth was the right thing to do.” What she knows, in the end, is that she did the right thing; what she does in making such a statement, therefore, is to authorize her own moral perspective, and to claim authority for her moral thoughts, feelings, and actions in the narrative she had just told (see Tappan & Brown, 1989). Yet, while such an interpretation of the “moral” of Diane’s whole story rests strongly on this sentence-this part-such an interpretation of this part nevertheless also requires an understanding of the whole. That is, Diane’s overall narrative must be understood in light of this particular sentence, just as this particular sentence must be understood in light of her overall narrative. As such the hermeneutic circle is made manifest, highlighting the fundamental interrelationships between the cognitive, affective, and conative dimensions of Diane’s lived moral experience, and her narrative representation of that experience. At this point, it is certainly appropriate to ask both the specific question, “How can this interpretation of Diane’s narrative be evaluated?” and the more general question, “How can any interpretation based on this approach to the study of moral development be evaluated?” In other words, “What are the truth conditions that attach to this approach?” Although I can not construct a fully fleshed-out answer to these questions within the parameters of this paper, let me nevertheless sketch out an initial response to these very important concerns. Hermeneutic approaches, by and large, eschew the strict subject-object dichotomy between the knower and the known that is associated with the strive toward “objectivity” and a detached point of view that characterize traditional empiricist and rationalist approaches to psychological inquiry. As such, hermeneutic approaches also do not subscribe to a “correspondence theory of truth,” which assumes that the truth of a particular theoretical statement is determined by the degree to which it corresponds to the hard and fast “facts” of reality, and thus which understands that the ultimate goal of any science is to provide accurate (or, at the very least, “falsifiable”) descriptions and explanations of an independent reality (Packer, 1985; Packer & Addison, 1989b, 1989~). Rather, hermeneutic approaches, like the one I have outlined above, view the knower and the known as fundamentally interrelated, and thus assume that any interpretation necessarily involves an essential circularity of understanding-a hermeneutic circle in which the interpreter’s projective fore-structure initially shapes his interpretation of a given phenomenon, and yet that interpretation, as it interacts with the phenomenon in question, is open to

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revision and elaboration, as the perspective and understanding of the interpreter, including his biases and blind-spots, are revealed and evaluated (Packer & Addison, 1989~). Traditionally, questions about how an interpretive account-like the one I have offered above-can be evaluated have been addressed from the standpoint of concerns about “validity.” Although, from a hermeneutic perspective, such concerns about “validity in interpretation” (see Hirsch, 1967) often tacitly assume a correspondence theory of truth (i.e., they reflect a search for a way to evaluate a given interpretation in terms of fixed norms and standards), it is, nevertheless, possible to evaluate an interpretive account based on different assumptions and criteria (Packer & Addison, 1989b). Let me briefly sketch out one such alternative perspective on evaluation--one that focuses on “interpretive agreement” within the context of an “interpretive community” (see Tappan & Brown, in press). This perspective is informed primarily by the work of Stanley Fish (1980). Fish argues that what an interpreter does when she interprets a text is not to construe or detect its “true” meaning, but rather to construct or produce its meaning, based on her response to that text. This view that meaning is made, not found, however, does not lead inexorably to subjectivism and relativism, because the means by which meaning is made are social and conventional, and thus are limited by the institution or community of which the interpreter is a part. There is no such thing as an isolated individual, working alone, on her own, to interpret a text in some unique and idiosyncratic manner: “We do not do these things because we can not do them, because the mental operations we can perform are limited by the institutions in which we are already embedded” (p. 331). In other words, the “interpretive community” of which a particular interpreter is a member is ultimately responsible for the kinds of interpretations that she produces: If the [interpreter] is conceived of not as an independent entity but as a social construct whose operations are delimited by the systems of intelligibility that inform it, then the meanings it confers on texts are not its own but have their source in the interpretive community (or communities) of which it is a function. Moreover, these meanings will be neither subjective nor objective, at least in the terms assumed by those who argue within the traditional framework: they will not be objective because they will always have been a product of a point of view rather than having been simply “read off ‘; and they will not be subjective because that point of view will always be social or institutional. Or, by the same reasoning one could say that they are borh subjective and objective: they are subjective because they inhere in a particular point of view and are therefore not universal; and they are objective because the point of view that delivers them is public and conventional rather than individual or unique. (pp. 335-336)

The implications

of Fish’s work for evaluating

an interpretive

account

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are as follows: This perspective suggests that the effort to attain “interpretive agreement” among members of an interpretive community must replace the quest for objectively valid interpretations as the primary aim of interpretive inquiry. If a text does not have only one true meaning, but, rather, if its meaning is a function of the interpretive community that constructs it, then achieving agreement within that community is the ultimate goal: “The fact of agreement, rather than being a proof of the stability of objects, is a testimony to the power of an interpretive community to constitute the objects upon which its members (also and simultaneously constituted) can then agree” (p. 338). In other words, interpretive agreement holds the only key to evaluating the “truth” or “validity” of any given interpretation of what a text means: if the members of an interpretive community agree on what a text means, based on their jointly shared biases, assumptions, prejudices, and values, then that interpretation is considered to be “true” or “valid’‘-unless and until a new interpretation is offered that the members of that community agree is better (see Tappan & Brown, in press). With these considerations in mind, how might I answer both the specific questions,, “How can my interpretation of Diane’s narrative be evaluated?” and the more general question, “How can any interpretation based on this approach to the study of moral development be evaluated?” Such interpretations can be evaluated, ultimately, only when an interpretive community can be formed that shares my biases, assumptions, prejudices, and values regarding the importance of more fully understanding the interplay between the cognitive, affective, and conative dimensions of moral experience than is currently available in the moral development literature, and my conviction that the approach to interpreting narrative representations of moral experience that I have outlined above represents a useful guide in such an effort. When such a community is formed our interpretations-like my interpretation of Diane’s narrative above-can and must be considered, in an attempt to reach agreement. Such an attempt will necessarily involve debate, discussion, and even disagreement-how could it be otherwise in a domain in which meanings are made, not found? Yet such a process also ultimately has its own rewards: the opportunity for insight and enlightenment is increased enormously when different voices and perspectives are joined together in a common effort of understanding. In addition, although I have a number of reservations about using prediction as a criteria by which to evaluate interpretive accounts-because meaningful prediction is extremely difficult in human affairs, especially in the moral realm (see Packer & Addison, 1989b; also MacIntyre, 1981; Taylor, 1979)-I would nevertheless argue that my interpretation of Diane’s interview narrative does point to an issue that may be relevant to

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the way she responds to certain kinds of moral conflicts in the future. This is the degree to which she comes, at the end of her narrative, to authorize her moral thoughts, feelings, and actions. I would predict, therefore, based on my interpretation of her narrative, that in the future, when faced with similar kinds of conflicts or dilemmas, she will again act on behalf of her own moral perspective and convictions-i.e., she will act on behalf of what she thinks and feels is right. Her story is ultimately a story about coming to authorize, and hence to act, on her moral convictions, in spite of the costs. I suspect, in short, that because of what she learned in the story she tells above, she will be likely to act that way again. CONCLUSION

In this paper, I have sketched the preliminary outlines of a particular kind of hermeneutic approach to the study of moral development-an approach that focuses explicitly on interpreting individuals’ narrative representations of their real-life moral experience. This approach assumes that lived moral experience entails three fundamentally interdependent and indissociable psychological dimensions: cognitive, affective, and conative. As such, this approach also assumes that the ways in which individuals express and represent their own moral experiences, in the narratives they tell in open-ended, semiclinical interviews (like Diane’s, above), can provide access to the complex interplay between these three dimensions. Let me conclude, then, with a brief consideration of two additional questions: 1) How does this approach relate to other current approaches and 2) What specific directions for to the study of moral development?; future research on moral development across the life-span does this approach suggest? I have already outlined in some detail the similarities and differences between this approach and the other explicitly hermeneutic approaches to the study of moral development that are its closest kin: the work of Kohlberg, Packer, and Gilligan. There are, however, three other interpretive approaches in the moral development literature that deserve mention in this context: Shweder and his colleagues’ cross-cultural studies of moral development in the U.S. and India (Shweder, Mahapatra, & Miller, 1987; Shweder & Much, 1987), which involve an interpretive analysis of cultural differences in everyday discourse about moral and conventional issues; Selman and his colleague’s recent work on interpersonal relationships and dyadic interactions via a close interpretive analysis of videotapes of adolescents involved in pair therapy (Selman, & Yeates, 1987; Selman, Schultz, Caplan, & Schantz, 1989); and Mergendoller’s (1989) interpretive analysis of interviews with draft resistors as a context for the study of moral action. Although I can not explore these efforts in any

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detail, it would appear that Mergendoller’s approach is perhaps closest to my approach, because of his focus on interpreting narratives of real-life, moral decision-making and action. The work of Shweder and his colleagues uses Kohlberg’s hypothetical dilemmas, and tends to be constrained by a number of a priori theoretical assumptions and presuppositions (both cognitive-developmental and social-interactional), while the work of Selman and his colleagues resembles Packer’s focus on the videotaping of social interaction, although it, too, is guided to a large extent by a priori theoretical assumptions- i.e., by Selman’s (1980) structuraldevelopmental theory of social perspective-taking. It is also important to acknowledge that the idea that cognition, emotion, and action are interrelated in the context of human psychological and moral functioning is not uniquely Dilthey’s. Piaget (1954/1981), in fact, holds a position very similar to Dilthey’s, although it has not often been recognized in discussions of his work (see, however, Cowan, 1978, 1982; Decarie, 1978; Hesse, 1987; Hesse 8z Cicchetti, 1982; Kegan, 1982; Kegan, Noam, & Rogers, 1982; Tappan, 1986). In addition, among those studying moral development, in particular, there has been, and continues to be, considerable interest in the relationship between different psychological processes. Martin Hoffman (1976, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1984) has taken the lead in examining the relationship between cognition and emotion in moral development, specifically with respect to the development of empathy. As I have argued above, however, I think that Hoffman’s (1982) unidirectional hypothesis that empathy (i.e., affect) leads to moral action is susceptible to the same kind of criticism as Kohlberg’s (1984; Kohlberg & Candee, 1984; Locke, 1983) unidirectional hypothesis that moral judgment (i.e., cognition) leads to moral action. A more fruitful and interesting multidimensional hypothesis, on the other hand, is that moral action has just as much an effect on both thought and feeling as thought and feeling have on moral action, in the context of lived moral experience (see also Cowan, 1982). At this point, let me briefly highlight several different directions for future research on moral development across the life-span that are suggested by the approach to interpreting narrative representations of moral experience I have outlined above. First of all, the question of development must be explicitly addressed. In this paper I have deliberately not tackled this issue directly, except to point to the way in which Diane appears to authorize her moral thoughts, feelings, and actions at the end of her narrative as an example of a possible telos for a narrative conception of moral development (see Tappan & Brown, 1989). Dilthey (1894/ 1977), interestingly enough, discusses the development of the threedimensional character of psychic life in some detail. He claims, in fact, that the generic processes of differentiation and integration serve to de-

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fine the development of the “psychic structural nexus” (cf. Werner, 1957; Werner & Kaplan, 1956). Although such a view certainly has its merits, I am not yet prepared to follow Dilthey in this regard. The question of development is too complex, and is necessarily imbued with too many complicated and difficult value judgments (see Kaplan, 1983, 1986), to be answered quickly. It nevertheless must be answered at some point, in order to fully flesh out this approach. A second direction for future research entails studying the narrative structure of individual representations of lived moral experience as they appear in interview texts. As I have argued above and elsewhere (see Tappan & Brown, 1989), because narrative serves as one of the most powerful symbolic systems employed by persons (and cultures) to represent cognition, emotion, and action together (i.e., in the context of a story), then it makes sense to assume that the cognitive, affective, and conative dimensions of lived moral experience will also manifest themselves in the stories that individuals tell about their own real-life moral conflicts and choices-i.e., their “stories lived and stories told” (see Bruner, 1986; also Freeman, 1984; MacIntyre, 1981; Mishler, 1986; Polkinghome, 1988). I have taken a first step in this direction via an analysis of the narrative structure of late adolescents’ account of their own moral development (see Tappan, 1989b); clearly, however, there is much more work yet to be done in this emerging area of narrative moral psychology (see also Sarbin, 1986). A third direction for future research is a focus on the phenomenon of late adolescent moral relativism (see Kohlberg & Kramer, 1969; Tappan, 1987). Relativism has been, and continues to be, quite difficult to explain in the context of Kohlberg’s (1973, 1984) theory of moral development, primarily because it does not fit neatly into his hierarchical system of structural stages. I would argue, however, that if moral relativism is not seen as exclusively a “cognitive” phenomenon, but rather is seen as a particular expression or representation of the cognitive, affective, and conative dimensions of moral experience in response to a specific intersection of history and life-history-i.e., late adolescent identity development (see Erikson, 1958, 1968tit becomes much easier to interpret and understand (see Tappan, 1989a; also Perry, 1970, 1981). The fourth and final direction for future work to which this approach points is not so much a focus for research as it is an insight for practicespecifically, the practice of moral education. For if developmental theories are legitimate guides to educational practice (see Dewey, 1938; Kohlberg & Mayer, 1972), then this approach can and should, ultimately, play such a role. In particular, I would argue, its role should be to place emotion and action side-by-side with cognition as three interre-

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lated dimensions to which moral education efforts must be addressed (see Tappan & Brown, 1989). For, as Macmurray (1935) argues, The emotional life is our life, both as awareness of the world and as action in the world. . . . Its value lies in itself, not in anything beyond it which it is a means of achieving. Now, any education which is fully conscious of its function must refuse to treat human life as a means to an end. It must insist that its sole duty is to develop the inherent capacity for a full human life. All true education is education in living. (pp. 75-76; emphasis added)

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November 7, 1989.