Transcript Kohlberg`s Theories of Moral Development

HRE 4M1 – Grade 12M Religion
Chapter 10 – Free to be Fully Alive
Stages of Moral Reasoning
LEVEL 1 (Pre-Conventional) – FOCUS ON THE SELF
 Stage 1: Punishment and Obedience
 Stage 2: Personal Usefulness
LEVEL 2 (Conventional) – FOCUS ON OTHERS
 Stage 3: Conforming to the Will of the Group
 Stage 4: Authority and Social Order (Law and Order)
LEVEL 3 (Post-Conventional) – FOCUS ON PRINCIPLES
 Stage 5: Social Contract and Human Rights
 Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principles (Personal Conscience)
Kohlberg’s Heinz Dilemma Example
A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There
was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was
a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had
recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the
druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to
produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for
a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz,
went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could
only get together about $ 1,000, which is half of what it cost.
He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to
sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, "No,
I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it."
So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to
steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have broken into the
laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?
Pre-Conventional Examples
STAGE
DESCRIPTION
Examples of Moral Reasoning
Favouring Heinz’s Theft
Examples of Moral Reasoning
Opposing Heinz’s Theft
Punishment and - He should steal the drug,
Obedience
because he offered to pay for it
and because it is only worth $200,
not the $2000 the druggist was
charging
- He should steal it because if he
let’s his wife die, he would get in
trouble
-He shouldn’t steal because it is a
big crime
- He shouldn’t steal the drug,
because he might get caught and
sent to jail
Personal
Usefulness
- He shouldn’t steal the drug,
because he might get caught and
his wife would probably die
before he gets out of jail – it
wouldn’t do much good
- He shouldn’t steal, because the
druggist was not doing a bad
thing by wanting to make a
prophet
- It is alright to steal the drug,
becasue his wife needs it to live
and he needs her companionship
- He should steal the drug,
because his wife needs it and he
isn’t doing any harm to the
druggist because he can pay him
back later
Conventional Examples
STAGE
DESCRIPTION
Examples of Moral Reasoning
Favouring Heinz’s Theft
Examples of Moral Reasoning
Opposing Heinz’s Theft
Conforming to
the Will of the
Group
- He should steal the drug, because
society expects a loving husband to
help his wife regardless of the
consequences
- He should steal the drug, because if
he didn’t his family would think he
was an uncaring human
- He shouldn’t steal the drug, because
he will bring dishonour on his family
and they will be ashamed of him
- He shouldn’t steal the drug, because
no one would blame him for doing all
he could legally (The druggist would
be the heartless one)
Law and Order
- He should steal the drug, because if
he did nothing, he would be
responsible for his wife’s death. He
should take it with the idea of paying
the druggist back
- He should steal the drug, because if
people like the druggist are allowed to
get away with being greedy and
selfish, society would eventually
break down
- He should not steal the drug,
because if people are allowed to take
the law into their own hands,
regardless of how they justify it, social
order would break down
- He shouldn’t steal the drug, because
it’s still always wrong to steal and his
law-breaking would cause him to feel
guilty
Post-Conventional Examples
STAGE
DESCRIPTION
Examples of Moral Reasoning
Favouring Heinz’s Theft
Examples of Moral Reasoning
Opposing Heinz’s Theft
Social Contract
and Human
Rights
- The theft is justified, because the law is
not set up to deal with the
circumstances in which obeying it
would cost a human life.
- It is not reasonable to say that stealing
is wrong, because the law should not
allow the druggist to deny someone
access to a life saving treatment
- You can’t really blame him for stealing
the drug, but even such extreme
circumstances do not justify a person
taking the law into their own hands
- He shouldn’t steal the drug, because
eventually he would pay the price of loss
of self-respect for disregarding the rules
of society
Universal
Ethical
Principles
- He must steal the drug, because when
a choice must be made between
disobeying a law and saving a life, one
must act in accordance with the higher
principle of preserving and respecting
life
- He is justified in stealing the drug,
because if he had failed in this action to
save his wife, he would not have lived up
to his own standards of conscience
- Heinz must consider the other
principle who need the drug just as
much as his wife. By stealing the drug
he would be acting in accordance with
his own particular feelings with utter
disregard for the value of all the lives
involved
- He should not steal the drug, because
though he would probably not be
blamed by others, he would have to deal
with his own self-condemnation,
because he did not live up to his own
conscience and standards of honesty.