Moral Development: Kohlberg

Moral Development: Kohlberg

1. Moral Development refers to how a set of values become inbuilt and determine our sense of right and wrong. It is believed that by the age of 10 children clearly know the difference between right and wrong hence the criminal justice system sets the age of criminal responsibility at this point.

   • Some theories see moral development as occuring in stages for example Piaget proposed the idea our moral thinking develops as we get older, arguing that children start off in the pre-moral stage with children having little understanding of morality under the age of five. Then they progress through the moral realism stage (taking rules seriously) through to the moral relativity stage where they develop their own personal notions of what is right and wrong.

2. SAMPLE: 72 boys from middle and lower class families in Chicago aged 10, 13 and 16.

   • METHODOLOGY: Each boy was given a 2 hour interview with ten dilemmas to solve. Some of the boys were followed up at 3 yearly intervals up to the age of 30-36 making it a longitudinal study.
     • 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 was not interested so much in the answer to the question of whether Heinz was wrong or right, but in the reasoning
     • From the analysis of the answers Kohlberg identified 30 aspects which were developed into Kohlberg's 6 stages of moral development.
       • Level 1: PRECONVENTIONAL MORALITY. Stage 1: Punishment and obedience orientation rules are kept in order to avoid punishment; there is no internalisation of moral standards. Stage 2: Instrumental relativist and naive hedonistic orientation - the right action is performed to gain rewards for the self. (During stage 1 goodness/badness is determined by consequences and stage 2 the children conform to rules to gain rewards, morality is external.)
         • Level 2: CONVENTIONAL MORALITY. Stage 3: 'good boy/nice girl' orientation - winning the approval of others dominates moral thinking. Stage 4: 'law and order' orientation - respect for authority and the values of society are important. (An increased understanding of others intentions, a decrease in egocentrism and a desire to win praise from others.)
           • Level 3: POST-CONVENTIONAL MORALITY. Stage 5: Social-contract legalistic orientation - the majority opinion of society is important - 'the greatest good for the greatest number'. Stage 6: Universal principles of convenience - self chosen ethical guidelines based on equality and respect for all. (marked by an internal commitment to a set of values transcending laws/rules.)
             • More hypothetical.