The moral justification scale: Reliability and validity of a new measure of care and justice orientations

Research increasingly suggests that there are limitations to Kohlberg's the ory of moral development. Gilligan in particular has observed that Kohlberg 's theory considers abstract principled reasoning as the highest level of m oral judgment, and penalizes those who focus on the interpersonal ramificat ions of a moral decision. Gilligan calls these justice and care orientation s. The present paper describes the development of the Moral Justification S cale, an objective measure of the two orientations. The scale consists of s ix vignettes, of which two are justice oriented, two are care oriented, and two are mixed, incorporating both orientations. Construct validity was eva luated by expert judges and, overall, was high. Cronbach's alpha was .75 fo r the Care subscale and .64 for the Justice subscale, indicating adequate i nternal consistency. Split-half reliabilities were as follows: Care, r = .7 2, p < .01, and Justice, r = .60, p < .05. Regarding test-retest reliabilit y (approximately two weeks), r = .61, p < .05, for Care; r = .69, p < .05, for Justice. Neither subscale correlated significantly with the Marlowe-Cro wne Social Desirability Scale. Thus, the Moral Justification Scale shows pr omise as an easily administered, objectively scored measure of Gilligan's c onstructs of care and justice.