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91 Moral Development and Ego Identity

with older superseded identities so as to organize himself and
his interactions—under the guidance of general principles and
modes of procedure—into a unique life history. So far I have
developed only the cognitive and not the motivational side of
this concept of ego identity. I have chosen the perspective in
which we can observe how the ego of the child acquires in
stages the general structures of communicative action and, through
these, interactive competence, stability, and autonomy of action.
However this perspective screens out the psychodynamics of the
formative process. It neglects the instinctual processes into which
ego development is interwoven. In the dynamics of superego
formation, we can see the instrumental role that libidinous
energies, in the form of a narcissistic attachment to the self, play
in the development of ego ideals; we can also see the function
that aggressive energies, turned against the self, assume in the
establishment of the authority of conscience.*® But above all, the
two major maturational crises—the Oedipal phase and adoles-
cence—in which sex roles are learned and the motive-forming
powers of the cultural tradition are put to the test, show that the
ego can enter into and penetrate beyond structures of interaction
only if its needs can be admitted into and adequately interpreted
within the symbolic universe. In this perspective ego develop-
ment presents itself as an extraordinarily dangerous process.
There is no need to refer to pathological developments to sub-
stantiate this fact; a less conspicuous sign, lying in the range of
the normal, are the frequent discrepancies between moral judg-
ment and moral action.
The correlation between levels of interactive competence and
stages of moral consciousness (Schema 4) means that someone
who possesses interactive competence at a particular stage will
develop a moral consciousness at the same stage, insofar as his
motivational structure does not hinder him from maintaining,
even under stress, the structures of everyday action in the con-
sensual regulation of action conflicts. In many cases, however,
the general qualifications for role behavior that are sufficient for
dealing with normal situations cannot be stabilized under the
stress of open conflicts. The party in question will then fall back
in his moral actions, or even in both his moral] actions and moral