Transcript Kohlberg`s Stages of Moral Development

MORALITY
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What are morals?
What are your morals?
Where did you get your morals?
Why does morality fit with Adolescent
Development? (Why didn’t we talk about
this with child development?)
1
Piaget’s 2 Stage Theory
• Children younger than 10-12 make
judgments on consequences
– Billy broke 15 cups trying to help his mom.
– Joey broke 1 cup trying to steal a cookie.
– Billy did a worse thing, because he broke
MORE.
• Older children consider dilemmas based on
intentions.
– Joey did a worse thing because Billy was trying
to help
2
Kohlberg’s
Stages of
Moral
Development
Heinz Steals the Drug
In Europe, 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 make. 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 the husband have done that? (Kohlberg, 1963)
Should the husband
have done that?
• Why? Explain your answer!
• Kohlberg didn’t really care if you said yes
or no… he was most interested in the
reasoning behind the answer.
Level 1: (Ages 0-9)
Preconventional Morality
Stage 1: Obedience & Punishment Orientation
• Morality is obeying rules and avoiding negative
consequences. Children see rules set, typically
by parents, as defining moral law.
– “Heinz was wrong to steal the drug because it is
bad to steal; it is against the law.”
• Why is it bad? Because you will be punished.
– “Heinz can steal it because he asked first and it’s
not like he stole something big, he won’t get
punished. “
Level 1: (Ages 0-9)
Preconventional Morality
Stage 2: Individualism and Exchange
• Children recognize that there is not just ONE right
view handed down by authorities, but still consider
punishment and don’t view it as a member of society
– “Heinz might think its right to take the drug, the
druggist would not.’
– “Heinz might steal the drug if he had children and
needed someone at home to look after them. But
maybe he shouldn’t steal it because they might put
him in prison for more years than he can stand”
Level 2: (Ages 9-adolescence)
Conventional Morality
Stage 3: Good Interpersonal Relationships
• Believe people should live up to the expectations of
the family and community. Good behavior means
having good motives.
– “Heinz was right to steal the drug because he was a
good man for wanting to save her.”
– “His intentions were good, that of saving someone
he loves”
– “The druggist was selfish, greedy. It was his fault for
trying to overcharge and letting someone die. He
should be in jail.”
Level 2: (Ages 9-adolescence)
Conventional Morality
Stage 4: Maintaining the Social Order
• Young teenagers emphasize obeying laws,
respecting authority, and performing one’s
duties so that the social order is maintained.
– “If everybody did as he wanted to do, set up his own
beliefs as to right and wrong, then I think you would
have chaos. The only thing I think we have in
civilization nowadays is some sort of legal structure
which people are sort of bound to follow. [Society
needs] a centralized framework.”
Level 3: (Adulthood)
Postconventional Morality
Stage 5: Social Contract and Individual Rights
• Believe a good society is best conceived as a social
contract into which people freely enter to work toward
the benefit of all. Different social groups have different
values
– “It is the husband’s duty to save his wife. The fact that her
life is in danger transcends every other standard you might
use to judge his action. Life is more important… Usually the
moral and legal standpoints coincide. Here they conflict. The
judge should weight the moral standpoint more heavily but
preserve the legal law in punishing Heinz lightly.”
Level 3: (Adulthood)
Postconventional Morality
Stage 6: Universal Principles
• The principles of justice require us to make
decisions based on an equal respect for all.
– This would require all parties to view the situation
from all perspectives, in which (ideally), the druggist
would realize that life should be valued over
property.
– Kohlberg no longer scores responses at this stage
because subjects would not consistently respond at
stage 6.
Sounds good… BUT
• People who can talk at a high moral level
may not behave accordingly..
• Kohlberg proposes that moral behavior is
more consistent, predictable, and
responsible at the higher stages.
– Research supports this, but evidence is not
clear-cut.