Sophrosyne in modern day

I found it interesting that sophrosyne, in some translations or understandings of the word, means self-restraint or chastity. This definition is very different to me then healthy mindedness or moderation. It's interesting how we confuse these concepts. Something that immediately came to mind for me was women's roles in modern society. More specifically, women are expected to acquire and maintain an ideal body through extreme forms of self-control and self-restraint. Many women completely cut out foods that they enjoy (and here I am not talking about cutting out foods for moral reasons such as animal cruelty) and restrain from eating in front of other people. These behaviors can manifest into an eating disorder. It is sophrosyne gone wrong. We value self-control in our society, but what is wrong with indulgence? On one extreme it can be bad, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with allowing yourself to do harmless things that are enjoyable. So, how do people get "self-restraint" from "moderation"? Moderation is a completely different concept. I like the "moderation" and "healthy mindedness" interpretations of the word much better, but it seems as if we often confuse self-restraint for healthy mindedness.

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development

Our discussion of Kant has reminded me of Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development. For those that are unfamiliar with this, he proposes 6 stages of moral development:

1. Obedience and punishment driven- people in this stage obey rules and laws to avoid punishment

2. Self-interest driven- people in this stage are concerned with the personal benefits they will gain from doing or not doing something

3. Conformity driven- people in this stage are concerned with societies approval of their actions

4. Authority driven- people in this stage have respect for authority and think laws should always be followed

5. Social Contract driven- people in this stage see laws as a social contract. If the majority thinks there is a law is bad, then it should be changed.

6. Universal ethical principals driven- Laws are only valid if they are fair. In this last stage, people's concepts of right are wrong are independent from law and society.

We move through these stages throughout our development, and not everyone reaches the last stage. I was going to ask you all if you thought Kohlberg was inspired by Kant, but I just read on Wikipedia that he was. Kohlberg was accused of being male-centric in his ideas about morality by Carol Gilligan. Her proposed theory of morality is based in an ethic of caring, rather than an ethic of justice. What do people think of this?