In Chapter 2, we saw how Piaget's adolescent fascination with the problem of how
to reconcile science and values led him to pursue a life's work devoted to the artic-
ulation of a biologically based epistemology ( Chapman, 1988 ). Similarly, one can
point to important formative experiences in Kohlberg's youth that directed him to
the study of moral development and the practice of moral education. Indeed, as
Augusto Blasi remarked in a memorial tribute, Kohlberg was "a mind concen-
trated on an idea" to such an extent that his very life became the "obsessive per-
sonification" of this idea. What was this idea? What were these early formative
experiences that gave rise to it? Simply put, the idea was bound up with the possi-
bility of articulating a conception of moral development that was adequate to the
task of defending moral universality and defeating moral relativism. The formative
experience that gave rise to this project was Kohlberg's firsthand experience of
brutality and injustice ( Reed, 1991 ; Power, 1991a ; Noam & Wolf, 1991)

Kohlberg ( 1927-1987) was profoundly moved by the horrors of the
Holocaust. Indeed, he viewed his own theory as a response to the Nazi ethos that
could sanction the murder of millions of Jews and as a response to the prevailing
social science systems (behaviorism, psychoanalysis) that could provide no
resources by which to combat genocidal ideologies. Indeed, positivist social sci-
ence and Freudian psychoanalysis, each in its own way, assumed the relativity of
moral values and were hence inadequate for responding to the sort of Nazi justifi-
cations that made genocide possible.

As a young man just out of high school, Kohlberg put his idealism in practice
by joining the American merchant marine for a two-year tour of duty in the
European theater. Upon his discharge, at age 20, he again took direct action against
injustice, this time signing on as a second engineer on an old navy icebreaker
called the Paducah. The Paducah was bought by the Jewish defense force (the
Haganah) for the purposes of smuggling Jewish refugees from war-ravaged Europe
to Palestine. This activity was forbidden by Allied, especially British, policy, and
consequently, the Paducah was required to run a British blockade of Palestine -
which it failed to do. The ship was intercepted by the British navy, and the crew
and passengers, including Kohlberg, were subsequently interred in a British con-
centration camp in Cyprus. With the help of the Haganah, however, Kohlberg and
others escaped from the camp and took refuge on a kibbutz in Israel. From there
Kohlberg eventually made his way back to the United States. Kohlberg's .( 1948)
first published article, entitled "Beds for Bananas," was a wry account of this
episode. The title of the article was taken from a headline that appeared in a French

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