Moral Development - Lawrence Kohlberg PDF

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Moral Development -- Lawrence Kohlberg ● Parents think how to avoid hurting others when talking to children ○ Instill prosocial concerns ○ Personal commit to abide by rules ● Psychologist ○ Emotional or effective issues ○ Feelings, guilt ○ Those effective thing motivate moral thoughts ○ Cognitive and behavioral aspects of moral development ● Kohlberg was interested in the cognitive reasoning process of moral development Historical Context ● Born 1927 in New York (died in 1987) ● Early Years ● Later life experiences ● Attended University of Chicago 1948 ● Finished his doctoral degree in 1958 (in psychology) ● Encountered work of Piaget ● Taught in Yale, University of Chicago (as visiting appointment) ● Committed suicide in 1987 Piaget’s Theory ● Focused on three moral reasoning issues: ○ Children’s understanding of rules ○ Children’s understanding of moral responsibility ○ Children’s understanding of justice Vignettes to Assess Reasoning (Piaget) ● Played marbles with children aged between 5 and 13 ● A little boy who is called John is in his room. He is called to dinner. He goes into the dinning room. But behind the door is a chair, and on the chair there was a tray with 15 cups on it. John couldn’t have known that there was all this behind that door. He goes in, the door knocks against the tray, bangs go the 15 cups and they all get broken. ● Once there was a little boy named Henry. One day when his mother was out he tried to get some jam out of the cupboard. He climbed onto a chair and stretched out his arm. But the jam was too high up, and he couldn’t reach it… While trying to get it, he knocked over a cup. The cup fell down and broke Piaget’s Stages of Moral Development ● The Premoral Period (0-5)

● Heteronomous Morality (5-10) ○ Under the rule of another ○ Expiatory punishment ○ Immanent justice ● Autonomous Morality (10 or 11+) ● Moving from Heteronomous to Autonomous Morality ○ Cognitive maturation & social experience ○ Decline in egocentrism ○ Development of role-taking skills Vignette to Assess Moral Reasoning (Kohlberg) ● Heinz DIlemma ● Less interested in decision made ● Interested in the child’s ability to provide a rationale Kohlberg’s Theory - Assessment of Moral Development Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Reasoning ● Level 1 - Preconventional Morality ○ Stage 1: Punishment and Obedience Orientation ○ Stage 2: Naive Hedonism ● Level 2 - Conventional Morality ○ Stage 3: “Good Boy” or “Good Girl” Orientation ○ Stage 4: Social Order Maintaining Morality ● Level 3 - Postconventional Morality ○ Stage 5: The Social Contract Orientation ○ Stage 6: Morality of Individual Principles of Conscience Stage

Pro-Theft Answer

Anti-Theft Answer

1. Punishment and Obedience Orientation

It really isn’t bad to take the drug - he did as to pay for it first. He wouldn’t do any other damage or take anything else, and the drug he’d take is only worth $200, not $2,000

Heinz doesn’t have permission to take the drug. He just can’t break through a window. He’d be a bad criminal doing all that damage… and stealing anything would be a big crime

2. Naive Hedonism

Heinz isn’t really doing any harm to the druggist, and he can always pay him back. If he doesn’t want to lose his wife, he should take the drug

Hey, the druggist isn’t wrong; he just wants to make a profit like everybody else. That’s what you’re in business for - to make money

3. “Good Boy” or “Good girl”

Stealing is bad, but Heinz is only doing something that is natural for a good

If Heinz’s wife dies, he can’t be blamed. You can’t say he’s heartless

Orientation

husband to do. You can’t blame him for doing something out of love for his wife. You’d blame him if he didn’t save her

for failing to commit a crime. The druggist is the selfish and heartless one. Heinz really tried to everything he could

4. Social Order Maintaining Morality

The druggist is leading the wrong kind of life if he just lets somebody die, so it’s Heinz’s duty to save his wife. But Heinz can’t just go around breaking laws - he must pay the druggist back and take his punishment for stealing

It’s natural for Heinz to want to save his wife, but it’s still always wrong to steal. You have to follow feelings or special circumstances.

5. The Social Contract Orientation

Before you say stealing is morally wrong, you have to consider the whole situation. Of course, the laws are quite clear about breaking into a store. And Heinz would know that there are no legal grounds for his actions. Yet it would be reasonable for anybody, in that kind of situation, to steal the drug

I can see the good that would come from illegally taking the drug. But the ends do not justify the means. The law represents a consensus of how people have agreed to live together, and Heinz has an obligation to respect these agreements. You can’t say Heinz would be completely wrong to steal the drug, but even these circumstances don’t make it right

6. Morality of Individual When a person must choose between Principles of disobeying a law and saving a human life, the higher principle of reserving life Conscience makes it morally right to steal the drug

With many cases of cancer and the scarcity of the drug, there may not be enough to go around for everybody who needs it. The correct course of action can only be the one that is “right” for all people concerne. Heinz ought to act not on emotion or the law, but according to what he thinks an ideally just person would do in this case...