Pochodzenie i zmienność norm moralnych w świadomości dzieci niewidomych i widzących
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Date
1981
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Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II
Abstract
The author discusses the results of the study made on 103 blind children and 97 children with sight, aged 8, 12, and 15, in the light of the cognitive theory. The children were interrogated with the questionnaire constructed by the author, which contained 3 problems: 1. the origin of moral norms in the individual consciousness of the child (Where does he know from what is good or wrong?) and in the social consciousness (What is the source of people’s knowledge of good and wrong?); 2. the time of the existence of moral norms (Since when is it so that people are obliged to do certain things but are forbidden to do some other things?); 3. the possibility to modify moral norms (Is it possible to modify them, why, who can do that, is the child himself able to do that, will the new standards be better, and when can they be regarded as better than the previous ones?). On the basis of the investigations the following regularities have been found out: 1. Between the ages 8 and 12 the role of the direct personal influence (family, school-teachers) and the role of the supernatural influence, as a source of moral norms, diminish in the consciousness of children, whereas the role of the non-personal influences, especially children’s own activity, increases. 2. The age of 12 is characterized by the intellectual growth of the moral consciousness of blind children and children with sight, and by the increase of a sense of autonomy in creating standards. 12-year-old children discover “the power” of mind, the possibility of forming principles based on experience and on predicting the effectiveness and consequence of social activities, and the possibility of checking the sense of norms in practice. 3. Blind children in distinction to those with sight, develop more quickly and more intensely the conviction that people (the developmental leap between the ages 8 and 12) as well as the child himself (the developmental leap between the ages 12 and 15), have the possibility of using their own intellectual activity and experience in recognizing and formulating moral standards. 4. Irrespective of age 80 per cent of children with sight regarded the standards as “old”, whereas in the group of blind children the conviction of a very distant beginning of the normative dimension of human life was steadily growing with the age, and all 15-year-old blind children accepted the view that moral norms and standards existed since long ago. 5. The war is a critical point for 13 per cent of the examined children and they relate the origin of the present norms of behaviour with the war. 6. The number of children who consider moral norms to be so closely connected with the fact of the existence of the world and people that they relate the origin of. the norms to the genesis of human race, significantly increases between the ages 8 and 15. The conviction that moral norms make a necessary, constituent element of human existence and exist as long as human life on earth, develops more quickly and stepwise among the blind between the ages 8 and 12, while among children with sight the development of that conviction is harmonious and gradual. 7. While growing up, the children start to differentiate between the eternity of norms and their unchangeability. In their consciousness norms become eternal, but at the same time, according to 'the opinion of the half of subjects, it is possible to' modify them in their concrete form. 8. More than 40 per cent of 15-year-old subjects, both blind and with sight, regard the present norms as invariable which means that a sense of autonomy with respect to operational thought is reached by the child earlier than with respect to moral judgement [cf. Piaget 1932]. 9. Blind children felt less free to modify the norms of behaviour than those with sight. 10. Children with sight had a greater knowledge as regards the possibilities of making changes in the present system of moral norms and standards, whereas the blind ones displayed greater ability of understanding the depth and richness of moral situations and the conditioning of human interference in the functioning of the norms. The frequent use of “conditional” type of answers by the blind, indicates their ability to take into consideration various points of view on moral issues, their objective attitude towards socio-moral reality, and their quicker development of hypothetical and deductive thinking. 11. Among children with sight the development of moral consciousness is harmonious, while among the blind the acceleration of development is often noticed between the ages 8 and 12, after placing them in new educational environment i.e. the institution for blind children.
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Keywords
rozwój moralny, normy moralne, świadomość moralna, rozumowanie moralne, rozwój dziecka niewidomego, rozwój moralny, rozwój moralności dzieci niewidomych i widzących, tyflopsychologia, moral development, moral norms, moral consciousness, moral reasoning, development of a blind child, moral development, moral development of blind and sighted children, tyflopsychology
Citation
"Roczniki Filozoficzne", 1981, Vol. 29, nr 4, s. 75-121