What Is Kohlbergs Stages of Moral Development a Peer Review

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Philosophy

Kohlberg's stages of moral evolution are planes of moral adequacy conceived by Lawrence Kohlberg to explicate the development of moral reasoning. Created while studying psychology at the University of Chicago, the theory was inspired by the work of Jean Piaget and a fascination with children's reactions to moral dilemmas. He wrote his doctoral dissertation at the academy in 1958, outlining what are now known equally his stages of moral evolution.

This theory holds that moral reasoning, which is the basis for upstanding behaviour, has half dozen identifiable developmental stages. He followed the development of moral judgment beyond the ages originally studied past Piaget, who claimed that logic and morality develop through effective stages. Kohlberg expanded considerably on this groundwork, determining that the process of moral development was principally concerned with justice and that its development continued throughout the lifespan, even spawning dialogue of philosophical implications of his enquiry.

Kohlberg used stories about moral dilemmas in his studies, and was interested in how people would justify their actions if they were put in a like moral crux. He would then categorize and allocate evoked responses into 1 of six distinct stages. These six stages where broken into three levels: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional. His theory is based on constructive developmental stages; each phase and level is more adequate at responding to moral dilemmas than the terminal.

Stages

Kohlberg's six stages were grouped into 3 levels: pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional. Following Piaget'due south constructivist requirements for a phase model (see his theory of cognitive development), it is extremely rare to regress backward in stages. Fifty-fifty still, no one functions at their highest stage at all times. It is as well not possible to 'bound' stages; each stage provides a new yet necessary perspective, and is more comprehensive, differentiated, and integrated than its predecessors.

Level ane (Pre-Conventional)

1. Obedience and penalization orientation

2. Self-involvement orientation

( What's in it for me?)

Level 2 (Conventional)

three. Interpersonal accord and conformity

( The good boy/adept daughter mental attitude)

4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation

( Law and order morality)

Level 3 (Post-Conventional)

5. Social contract orientation

half-dozen. Universal ethical principles

( Principled conscience)

Pre-Conventional

The pre-conventional level of moral reasoning is peculiarly common in children, although adults can also exhibit this level of reasoning. Reasoners in the pre-conventional level gauge the morality of an activity by its direct consequences. The pre-conventional level consists of the outset and 2nd stages of moral evolution, and are purely concerned with the cocky in an egocentric mode.

In stage i, individuals focus on the direct consequences that their actions will have for themselves. For case, an action is perceived equally morally wrong if the person who commits information technology gets punished. The worse the penalisation for the act is, the more 'bad' the act is perceived to be. In addition, there is no recognition that others' points of view are whatever dissimilar from one's ain view. This stage may be viewed every bit a kind of authoritarianism.

Stage two espouses the what's in it for me position, correct behaviour being defined by what is in i's ain best involvement. Stage two reasoning shows a limited interest in the needs of others, but only to a point where it might further one's own interests, such every bit you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours. In stage two concern for others is not based on loyalty or intrinsic respect. Lacking a perspective of society in the pre-conventional level, this should not exist confused with social contract (stage five), as all actions are performed to serve one's own needs or interests. For the stage two theorist, the perspective of the world is frequently seen as morally relative.

Conventional

The conventional level of moral reasoning is typical of adolescents and adults. Persons who reason in a conventional way guess the morality of actions by comparison these deportment to societal views and expectations. The conventional level consists of the third and fourth stages of moral development.

In Phase three, the self enters society past filling social roles. Individuals are receptive of approval or disapproval from other people equally information technology reflects society's accordance with the perceived role. They attempt to be a good boy or skilful daughter to live up to these expectations, having learned that in that location is inherent value in doing so. Stage three reasoning may judge the morality of an action past evaluating its consequences in terms of a person'southward relationships, which now begin to include things like respect, gratitude and the ' golden rule'. Desire to maintain rules and authority exists only to further support these stereotypical social roles. The intentions of actions play a more pregnant office in reasoning at this stage; 'they mean well...'.

In Stage four, information technology is important to obey laws, dictums and social conventions because of their importance in maintaining a performance society. Moral reasoning in phase four is thus beyond the need for individual approval exhibited in stage 3; society must larn to transcend private needs. A central ideal or ideals frequently prescribe what is correct and wrong, such as in the case of fundamentalism. If ane person violates a law, mayhap everyone would - thus there is an obligation and a duty to uphold laws and rules. When someone does violate a law, information technology is morally wrong; culpability is thus a significant cistron in this phase every bit it separates the bad domains from the skillful ones.

Post-Conventional

The mail-conventional level, also known as the principled level, consists of stages five and 6 of moral development. Realization that individuals are dissever entities from order now becomes salient. One's own perspective should be viewed before the club's. It is due to this 'nature of self earlier others' that the post-conventional level, especially stage vi, is sometimes mistaken for pre-conventional behaviors.

In Phase v, individuals are viewed as holding unlike opinions and values, and information technology is paramount that they be respected and honored impartially. Bug that are non regarded as relative like life and choice should never be withheld or inhibited. In fact, no single pick is correct or absolute – 'who are you to judge if they are or non'? Along a similar vein, laws are regarded as social contracts rather than rigid dictums. Those that do non promote general social welfare should exist changed when necessary to come across the greatest good for the greatest number of people. This is attained through bulk determination, and inevitably compromise. In this way autonomous authorities is ostensibly based on stage five reasoning.

In Stage six, moral reasoning is based on abstruse reasoning using universal ethical principles. Laws are valid only insofar as they are grounded in justice, and that a commitment to justice carries with information technology an obligation to disobey unjust laws. Rights are unnecessary as social contracts are non essential for deontic moral activeness. Decisions are met categorically in an absolute fashion rather than hypothetically in a conditional way (see Immanuel Kant'due south ' categorical imperative'). This can be washed past imagining what one would practise being in anyone'due south shoes, who imagined what anyone would practise thinking the same (see John Rawls's ' veil of ignorance'). The resulting consensus is the action taken. In this manner action is never a means merely always an terminate in itself; ane acts because it is right, and not because information technology is instrumental, expected, legal or previously agreed upon. While Kohlberg insisted that stage six exists, he had difficulty finding participants who consistently used it. It appears that people rarely if e'er reach stage half dozen of Kohlberg's model.

Further stages

In his empirical studies of persons across their life-span, Kohlberg came to notice that some people plain had undergone moral stage regression. He was faced with the pick of either conceding that moral regression could occur, or revise his theory. Kohlberg chose the latter, postulating the existence of sub-stages wherein the emerging stage has not withal been adequately integrated into the personality. In detail Kohlberg noted of a phase 4½ or 4+, which is a transition from stage four to stage five, sharing characteristics of both. In this stage the individual has become disaffected with the arbitrary nature of police force and order reasoning. Culpability is frequently turned from being divers past lodge to having guild itself exist culpable. This stage is often mistaken for the moral relativism of phase ii as the private considers society's conflicting interests with their own choices relatively and morally wrong. Kohlberg noted that this was often seen in students entering college.

Kohlberg further speculated that a seventh stage may exist (Transcendental Morality or Morality of Cosmic Orientation) which would link religion with moral reasoning (see James West. Fowler'due south stages of faith evolution). All the same, because of Kohlberg'southward trouble providing empirical evidence for even a sixth phase, he emphasized that most of his conjecture towards a seventh phase was theoretical.

Theoretical assumptions (philosophy)

Kohlberg'due south theory is not value-neutral. It begins with a stake in certain perspectives in meta-ethics. This includes for instance a view of man nature, and a certain understanding of the grade and content of moral reasoning. It holds conceptions of the right and the telescopic of moral reasoning beyond societies. Furthermore information technology includes the relationship between morality and the globe, between morality and logical expression, and the role of reason in morality. Finally, it takes a view of the social and mental processes involved in moral reasoning.

The picture of human nature which Kohlberg begins with is the view that humans are inherently communicative and capable of reason, and they possess a desire to understand others and the world around them. The stages of Kohlberg'south model refer to the qualitative moral reasonings that people adopt, and thus do not translate directly into praise or blame of the actions or characters of persons. In society to fence that his theory measures moral reasoning and non item moral conclusions, Kohlberg insists that the form and structure of moral arguments is contained of the content of the arguments, a position he calls " formalism".

Kohlberg's theory revolves around the notion that justice is the essential feature of moral reasoning. Past the aforementioned token, justice relies heavily upon the notion of sound reasoning upon principles. Despite being a justice-centered theory of morality, Kohlberg considered it to exist compatible with plausible formulations of deontology and eudaimonia.

Kohlberg'due south theory understands values as a disquisitional component of the correct. Whatever the right is, for Kohlberg, it must be universally valid across societies (a position known as " moral universalism"): at that place can be no relativism. Moreover, morals are not natural features of the world; they are prescriptive. Nevertheless, moral judgments tin be evaluated in logical terms of true and falsity.

According to Kohlberg, a person who progresses to a higher phase of moral reasoning cannot skip stages. For instance, one cannot leap from being concerned mostly with peer judgments (stage three) to being a proponent of social contracts (stage v). Nevertheless, when ane encounters a moral dilemma and finds their current level of moral reasoning unsatisfactory, they will look to the next level. Discovery of the limitations of the current phase of thinking drives moral development as each progressive stage is more than acceptable than the last. This process is constructive; it arises through the conscious construction of the role player, and is neither in any meaningful sense a component of the thespian's innate dispositions, nor a effect of past inductions.

Formal elements

Progress along the stages of development occurs because of the actor'south increased competence in both psychologically and socially balancing alien value-claims. The proper name of " justice functioning" is given to the process which resolves the dispute betwixt conflicting claims and strikes an equilibrium between them. Kohlberg identifies two of these operations in " equality" and " reciprocity", which respectively involve an impartial regard for persons (i.e., irrespective of who the private persons are), and a regard for the function of personal merit. For Kohlberg, the most adequate result of both operations is " reversibility", where a moral or dutiful deed within a detail situation is evaluated in terms of whether or not the deed would be satisfactory even if particular persons were to switch roles within the situation (besides known colloquially as " moral musical chairs").

Knowledge and learning contribute to moral development. Specifically important are the thespian's view of persons and their social perspective level, each of which becomes more complex and mature with each advancing stage. The view of persons can exist understood equally the role player's grasp of the psychology of other persons; it may be pictured as a spectrum, with stage i having no view of other persons at all, and stage six being entirely sociocentric. Similarly, the social perspective level involves the agreement of the social universe, differing from the view of persons in that it involves a grasp of norms.

Examples of practical moral dilemmas

To exercise this, Kohlberg established the Moral Sentence Interview in his original 1958 dissertation. During the roughly 45 minute tape recorded semi-structured interview, the interviewer uses moral dilemmas to decide which stage of moral reasoning a person uses. The dilemmas are fictional brusque stories that draw situations in which a person has to brand a moral decision. The participant is asked a systemic series of open-concluded questions, like what they recall the right course of action is, besides as justifications as to why sure deportment are right or wrong. The class and construction of these replies are scored and non the content; over a set of multiple moral dilemmas an overall score is derived.

Heinz dilemma

A dilemma that Kohlberg used in his original research was the druggist's dilemma: Heinz Steals the Drug In Europe.

A woman was nearly death from a special kind of cancer. In that location was ane drug that the doctors thought might save her. Information technology was a form of radium that a druggist in the aforementioned boondocks had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug toll 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 anybody he knew to borrow the coin, but he could only assemble most $ 1,000 which is half of what it toll. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay afterwards. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it." Then Heinz got desperate and broke into the man'due south shop to steal the drug-for his married woman.

Should Heinz have cleaved into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?

From a theoretical point of view, it is not of import what the participant thinks that Heinz should practice. Kohlberg's theory holds that the justification the participant offers is what is pregnant, the class of their response. Below are some of many examples of possible arguments that belong to the half-dozen stages:

Stage one (obedience): Heinz should not steal the medicine because he will consequently be put in prison which means y'all are really terrible. Or: Heinz should steal the medicine because it only worth $200 and not how much the druggist wanted for it; Heinz had even offered to pay for information technology and was not stealing anything else likewise.

Stage ii (cocky-interest): Heinz should steal the medicine because he will be much happier if he saves his wife, even if he volition accept to serve a prison judgement. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine because prison house is a awful place, and he would probably languish over a cell more his wife's death.

Stage iii (conformity): Heinz should steal the medicine because his wife expects information technology; he wants to be a good hubby. Or: Heinz should not steal the drug because stealing is bad and he is not a criminal; he tried to do everything he could without breaking the police force, yous cannot blame him.

Phase four (law-and-order): Heinz should non steal the medicine because the law prohibits stealing making it illegal. Or: Heinz should steal the drug for his married woman merely besides accept the prescribed penalisation for the crime equally well as paying the druggist what he is owed. Criminals cannot merely run effectually without regard to the law; actions take consequences.

Stage 5 (human rights): Heinz should steal the medicine because everyone has a right to choose life, regardless of the police force. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine because the scientist has a correct to fair compensation. Even if his married woman is ill it does not make his deportment right.

Stage vi (universal human ethics): Heinz should steal the medicine, because saving a man life is a more than fundamental value than the holding rights of another person. Or: Heinz should not steal the medicine, because others may need the medicine just as desperately, and their lives are equally significant.

Criticisms

1 criticism of Kohlberg's theory is that it emphasizes justice to the exclusion of other values. Equally a result of this, it may not adequately address the arguments of people who value other moral aspects of actions. Carol Gilligan has argued that Kohlberg's theory is overly androcentric. Kohlberg'southward theory was initially developed based on empirical enquiry using but male person participants; Gilligan argued that it did not adequately depict the concerns of women. Although inquiry has more often than not found no significant design of differences in moral development betwixt sexes, Gilligan'south theory of moral development does non focus on the value of justice. She developed an alternative theory of moral reasoning that is based on the ethics of caring.

Other psychologists have questioned the supposition that moral action is primarily reached by formal reasoning. One such group, the social intuitionists, state people often make moral judgments without weighing concerns such as fairness, police force, human rights and abstract upstanding values. Given this, the arguments that Kohlberg and other rationalist psychologists have analyzed could exist considered post hoc rationalizations of intuitive decisions. This would mean that moral reasoning is less relevant to moral action than Kohlberg'due south theory suggests.

Continued relevance

Theory and enquiry of Kohlberg's stages of moral development take been utilized past others in academia. I such instance, the Defining Issues Test or DIT, was created by James Rest in 1979 originally every bit a pencil-and-paper alternative to the Moral Sentence Interview. Heavily influenced by the six-phase model, it made efforts to improve validity criteria by using a quantitative examination of a likert calibration to charge per unit moral dilemmas similar to Kohlberg's. Information technology also used a big body of Kohlbergian theory such as the idea of 'post-conventional thinking'. In 1999 the DIT was revised as the DIT-2; the exam persists in many areas that require moral testing and in varied cohorts.

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Source: https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/k/Kohlberg%2527s_stages_of_moral_development.htm

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