Page 179 - Communication and the Evolution of Society

156 Communication and Evolution of Society

social integration. In doing so I shall distinguish the institutions
that regulate the normal case from those special institutions,
which, in cases of conflict, re-establish the endangered intersub-
jectivity of understanding (law and morality).
To the extent that action conflicts are not regulated through
force or strategic means but on a consensual basis, there come
into play structures that mark the moral consciousness of the
individual and the legal and moral system of society. They com-
prise the core domain of the aforementioned general action struc-
tures—the representations of justice crystallizing around the
reciprocity relation that underlies all interaction. In the Piagetian
research tradition, developmental stages of moral consciousness
have been uncovered which correspond to the stages of interactive
competence.*? At the preconventional stage, at which actions,
motives, and acting subjects are still perceived on a single plane
of reality, only the consequences of action are evaluated in cases
of conflict. At the conventional stage, motives can be assessed
independently of concrete action consequences; conformity with
a certain social role or with an existing system of norms is the
standard. At the postconventional stage, these systems of norms
lose their quasi-natural validity; they require justification from
universalistic points of view.
I have distinguished between general structures of action un-
derlying the normal state (with little conflict) and those core
structures that underlie the consensual regulation of conflicts.
These structures of moral consciousness can find expression either
in simply judging action conflicts or in actively resolving them.
If at the same time we keep in mind the stages of development
according to which these structures can be ordered, we can make
intuitively plausible why there are often structural differences
between these action domains; that is, (a) between the ability to
master normal action situations and the ability to bring conflict
situations under moral-legal points of view; and (b) between
moral judgment and moral action. As in the behavior of the
individual, stage differences also appear on the level of social
systems. For example, in neolithic societies the moral and legal
systems are at the preconventional stage of arbitration and feud-
ing law; while normal situations (with little conflict) are regu-