The language we use to explore sexual offending creates and limits research, along with treatment possibilities. Although few would dispute that sexual offending is an immoral act, theories and interventions in the moral domain have not made their way into mainstream, sex offender treatment.
A review of current sex offender literature finds few references to "moral development" or the social construct "morality" (referring to a doctrine or system incorporating rules and principles of conduct), and the psychological construct "conscience" (referring to that part of the personality responsible for monitoring and directing choices in the moral domain.) The "Handbook of Antisocial Behavior" [1] has but one reference, a paragraph of only thirty-one words on morality. The four volume series "The Sex Offender" [2] has no reference in the index to "conscience" and includes only a one page reference to moral treatment. Although these are excellent resources in their own right, the role of conscience has become conspicuous by its absence in the literature.
Sex Offender treatment programs (SOTPs) assess patient deficits and functioning in many other areas (cognitions, sexual arousal, anger management, empathy, drug and alcohol, sexual knowledge, etc.) and design interventions to address what is missing. Treatment programs allude to this domain without defining the conscience, and without asserting the moral component of behavior. We focus on cognitive distortions and justifications. Victims do not care about sex offender patterns of thinking, their excuses, or their pathways to offending. In the end, what we all care about is their immoral behavior. Moral development is intrinsic to human development. It sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. And we set ourselves apart from the communities we work in by ignoring and not naming it.
Looking outside traditional sex offender literature to the child development arena, we are reminded that empathy and decision-making are separate and unique aspects of moral development. However, SOTPs seem to collapse the two, limiting intervention strategies by assuming if we address deficits in empathy we will influence pro-social (moral) behavior.
Two separate aspects of moral development are hypothesized to occur in early childhood [3]. The first is the emergence of empathy. Within sex offender work, definitions of empathy appear to have three components: 1) cognitive - demonstrated by role taking ability; 2) affective- demonstrated by emotional arousal, feeling another’s feelings; and 3) behavioral- described by Hanson as "caring" and Pithers as "compassionate behavioral responses" [4, 5]. Many cognitive-behavioral sex offender treatment programs incorporate empathy building as a component of treatment, believing that without empathy, sexual offenders are likely to re-offend [4-6]. Sex offenders are asked to understand the victim’s feelings, to stand in the victim’s shoes, to perceive their abusive behavior through the victim’s eyes and write empathy and clarification letters. Bumby states that perspective taking and emotional arousal are insufficient for management of sexual offending behavior. In the end the offender must make a decision that will guide his behavior [6].
The collapsing of moral decision making into an empathy construct may be problematic when it comes to sex offender treatment. For example, deficits in the domain of perspective taking might suggest role playing as an intervention technique, while deficits in emotional arousal might suggest focusing on one’s own victimization issues. But neither intervention addresses whether someone will be inclined to use that learning. The problem is in the definition. The behavior domain has its foundation in moral development, and rarely is directly addressed or named in SOT.
The second aspect of moral development involves how children learn to internalize social prohibitions; the process or structure we call conscience. SOTPs have not developed treatment procedures that clearly address deficits in this domain.
Defining the Five Domains of Conscience
Building on the work of Piaget, Kohlberg and others, Stilwell, Galvin and Koptka developed an empirical multi-faceted model of conscience that extends beyond moral reasoning [7-12]. Working with a sample of 132 normal children and adolescents between the ages and 5 and 17, they developed a five stage, comprehensive theory of conscience development that "conceives the conscience as a dynamic, motivational system within the personality, the function of which is to monitor and influence an individual’s pursuit of goodness and morally right actions" [7].
Dr. Stilwell developed the Stilwell Conscience Interview (SCI), an instrument composed of 15 questions sub-grouped to assess five domains of conscience functioning. Exploring each domain provides rich material for sex offender assessment and treatment.
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1. Conceptualization of conscience: Drawing from theories of moral development, the conscience is defined as "the process or structure within the individual's mental life that has to do with ethical decisions and behavior and is available to the conscience" [12]. The conscience includes notions of right and wrong, good and bad, ought and ought not, that become internalized as a belief system, guiding pro-social behavior while inhibiting antisocial behavior. We all have a general, abstract definition of conscience and a unique personal definition, that is, we develop an understanding of what others refer to as a conscience, but on a personal level, we conceptualize our own conscience congruent with our own thoughts and experiences. 2. Moral emotional responsiveness is an "awareness of the emotional arousal that occurs in response to experiences associated with the perception of oughtness; the arousal occurs when a moral judgment made by self or others disturbs the emotional equilibrium ordinarily associated with a baseline perception of basic goodness within self" [11]. Moral emotional responsiveness as a component of conscience assumes that early life experiences foster the development of a personal internal measure of goodness. This measure becomes a set point for making moral judgments. 3. Moralization of attachment: Conceptually, moralization of attachment provides the foundation for conscience building - it grounds all the other conscience domains in human relationships. Although children attach because their survival depends on it, the connection between caregiver and child will become moralized only to the extent that the child trusts in the integrity of the relationship. Attachment creates the possibility for this moral connection, and combined with empathy creates the construct moralization of attachment. Moralization of attachment is the mechanism that ties the parent/child relationship to the child's later decision-making. 4. Moral valuation is the process within our conscious awareness that develops a personal formula of goodness by defining, justifying, and modifying rules to establish a sense of ourselves as a good person who strives to do the right thing. We first learn the values of our caregivers. They are the original authors of the conscience. They teach us the rules, and purposefully or inadvertently provide moral lessons. But unless we live in isolation, life experiences place us in situations where parental values, once thought sacrosanct, conflict with new and respected authorities. Moral values develop in the context of social relationships, which act as a reference point for self-evaluation. 5. Moral volition is the act of evaluating both the external and internal standards reflecting moral values and making a conscious choice to refrain from the antisocial act and choose the pro-social behavior. The volitional domain of conscience also assesses personal moral worth. It takes stock of the sum total of our moral choices and the mechanisms through which we create complicated personal formulas for estimating our moral worth. |
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These five domains of conscience researched and delineated by Stilwell and colleagues, offer sex offender treatment providers an opportunity to assess competencies and deficits in each domain and develop treatment interventions to stimulate, and enhance conscience functioning.
Reprinted in part from: Delson, N., Using conscience as a guide: Enhancing sex offender treatment in the moral domain.
2003: NEARI Press
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