The Development of Moral Reasoning Moral reasoning also called moral developing, which is the process of distinguish right from wrong in different situation. In terms of Kohlberg’s stage moral development theory, which devised three main levels of moral reasoning: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional, and each level includes two stages. The Pre-conventional level is especially common in children of early school age, which is closely tied to personal concerns. In Stage 1, children focus on the fear of getting caught and punishment, while people in Stage 2 express “What’s in it for me” position, which means they think right action is what is instrumental in satisfying the self’s needs and occasionally other’s needs. Additionally, adolescents and adults play an important role in the Conventional level, at this level, people’s actions conform to rules of law and order or focus on society’s view. In Stage 3, people try to be a “good boy” or “good girl”, which means orientation towards approval, to pleasing and helping others. Also, people in Stage 4 more prefer to maintain a functional society by obeying law drive behaviors. Finally, at the Post-conventional level, the highest level of moral reasoning, individual judgment is based on …show more content…
In Stage 1, children are concerned with obedience and punishment. A child in this stage might say that the public have a right to know all the facts about all candidates for office and candidate Thompson may get punish if he do not say truth. In Stage 2, children are concerned with what benefits them. Children in this stage might say that Reporter Dayton ought to publish the story, which help Dayton’s reputation for investigative reporting. On the other hand, they might say even if Dayton do not publish the story, another reporter get the story anyway and get the credit for investigative reporting, which is not benefit
Friedrich Nietzsche’s “On the Genealogy of Morality” includes his theory on man’s development of “bad conscience.” Nietzsche believes that when transitioning from a free-roaming individual to a member of a community, man had to suppress his “will to power,” his natural “instinct of freedom”(59). The governing community threatened its members with punishment for violation of its laws, its “morality of customs,” thereby creating a uniform and predictable man (36). With fear of punishment curtailing his behavior, man was no longer allowed the freedom to indulge his every instinct. He turned his aggressive focus inward, became ashamed of his natural animal instincts, judged himself as inherently evil, and developed a bad conscience (46). Throughout the work, Nietzsche uses decidedly negative terms to describe “bad conscience,” calling it ugly (59), a sickness (60), or an illness (56); leading some to assume that he views “bad conscience” as a bad thing. However, Nietzsche hints at a different view when calling bad conscience a “sickness rather like pregnancy” (60). This analogy equates the pain and suffering of a pregnant woman to the suffering of man when his instincts are repressed. Therefore, just as the pain of pregnancy gives birth to something joyful, Nietzsche’s analogy implies that the negative state of bad conscience may also “give birth” to something positive. Nietzsche hopes for the birth of the “sovereign individual” – a man who is autonomous, not indebted to the morality of custom, and who has regained his free will. An examination of Nietzsche’s theory on the evolution of man’s bad conscience will reveal: even though bad conscience has caused man to turn against himself and has resulted in the stagnation of his will, Ni...
moral development. In these stages, Kohlberg concentrates on the reasons why people act the way they do; not the way they think about their actions or what action they take, but the reasoning behind their actions.
In Kohlbergs moral stages five & six people begin to understand morals and social good then moral reasoning. Basic human rights become important as well as principles.
I noticed in Piaget stages of moral development Kevin is in the autonomous morality stage. Kevin has realized the rules at school and standards can be negotiated and or changed because his parents can get the school to change the rules or policies for his benefit. On Kohlberg’s stage Kevin, his behaviors can be related to the conventional level stage 4. Broderick and Blewitt describes Kohlberg’s conventional morality as “what is right depends on other’s approval or on the need to maintain social order” (pg. 261). Kevin’s peers react to his negative behaviors is effecting his moral
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development is three levels consisting of two stages in each. Kohlberg’s Theory explains how a human’s mind morally develops. Level one is typically common in younger children. The two stages in level one are pre-conventional stages. Stage one is obedience and punishment driven; one will judge an action by the consequences given. Stage two is out of self interest. Level two is mostly common in teenagers. The stages in this level
They are able of solving problems using reasoning and logic. They can organize facts and events in mature fashion and figure out possible moves and their outcomes. They can also deal with proportions and analogies and reflect on their own thinking. One of the major themes of development is moral development. The most influential research on development was done by Lawrence Kohlberg. It was influenced by Piaget’s cognitive developmental approach. Kohlberg divided Moral development into 6 stages. The first stage is called Preconventional level. During this stage individuals recognize labels of “good” and “bad”, right and wrong, but do not interpret these labels in terms of social standards. The next stage is called Conventional level. During this level individuals make moral judgments based on expectations, whether the expectations are coming from family or society. This level of morality is shown mainly by adolescents and adults. The next level is the post conventional level. During this stage individuals accept and stand by society’s rules and laws but tend to view them in terms of the underlying principles. Individuals may also follow personal ethical principles. This is where they take into account human rights or life and
Lawrence Kohlberg theorized that morality has more to do with decisions than fixed behaviors. After studying several groups of people and their responses to certain moral problems, he was able to identify “three main levels of moral reasoning, with two substages within each level” (Passer & Smith, 2011). Prior to coming to West Point, my moral decisions were made along the lines of conventional moral reasoning, the second level, by conforming to the expectations of society. Within this level, I reasoned at stage three where morality is based on winning approval from parents, authority figures, and peers. During my first year of high school, I remember taking the AP World History exam and finding myself wanting to cheat on
Lawrence Kohlberg is known for his Theory of Moral Development. The method that Kohlberg used was that of “moral dilemmas”. Kohlberg studied Piaget but developed his own theory. He would give individuals of different ages these dilemmas and survey their answers to see what the reasoning behind their answers were. An example of a dilemma is the “Heinz Dilemma”. In this dilemma there is a man whose wife is very sick and needs a certain type of medication. There is only one man who sells this drug in the area and he is charging more than the man can pay for. The husband of the wife decided to steal the drug in order to save his wife. At the end of this scenario, it asks if the husband should’ve stolen the medicine. This provides an example of how he went about creating these moral dilemmas. They are situations in which there are multiple answers and reasoning that could be provided. There was no “right” answer in the moral dilemma questions (as the answer to each question was solely based off of the individual’s opinion and moral reasoning). The reasoning that the individuals presented help develop levels of reasoning. These levels are also known as stages. In Kohlberg’s stages, sub stages are also included. The stages are: Preconventional, Conventional, and Postconventional. Each stages had two sub stages that helped determine what level of moral reasoning a person was at. In the preconvnetional stage the two sub stages are: Reward and punishment orientation and Naive reciprocity orientation. The preconventional stage begins at about age five and decreases with age. The sub stages in the conventional stage are: Good boy/girl Orientation and Authority and social order maintenance orientation. This stage increases ...
Kohlberg’s theory of the stages of moral development has gained some popularity despite being controversial. The claim that the levels form a “ladder,” the bottom being the immature child with a pre-conventional level and the top being a post conventional ethical individual. The sequence is unvarying and the subject must begin at the bottom with aspirations to reach the top, possibly doing so. (7) Research confirms that individuals from different cultures actually progress according to Kohlbergs theory, at least to the conventional level. Kohlberg’s stages of moral development continue to provide a foundation for psychology studies of moral reasoning. (6)
The moral development of children can depend on many factors. Parenting and upbringing of the child, their environment, social environment, gender, and race are all aspects that can contribute to how a child develops their moral standards and expectations. Many psychologist have tried for several years to develop a theory to how morality is developed. One in particular is Lawrence Kohlberg (1958), his moral development theory is based on the cognitive development of children and it is thought that moral development proceeds and changes as cognitive development occurs (Arnett, 2012). Kohlberg’s moral development theory consist of 3 different levels each containing 2 stages altogether making 6 stages of moral development, as Kohlberg conducted
Carol Gilligan is one of the first to address gender differences in psychology. She argued that the sexes think differently, notably when dealing with moral problems.Her most popular addition to modern psychology was her rework of Lawrence Kohlberg 's theory of moral development. Gilligan challenged that differences were based on social influences and gender attitude, this often disesteemed women 's way of thinking. With her theories of female moral development and decision-making, she focused on studies in both children and college students. While there has been criticism of her works, Carol Gilligan has changed the modern psychology with her feminist views. She has paved the women in the field and the research of psychology
What is moral development? In a nutshell, it’s the progression of morality throughout one’s lifetime by means of different stages. There are six of these stages, developed by Lawrence Kohlberg, that help to explain our moral choices and cognitive skills relative to our approximate age. Furthermore, as Kohlberg suggests, everyone reaches stages one through four: Punishment and Obedience, Instrumental Purpose and Exchange, Interpersonal Expectations and Conformity, and Law and order, respectively. Stage1 is characterized by the threat of punishment and the promise of reward. Stage 2 actions are
Kohlberg, L. (1984). The psychology of moral development: the nature and validity of moral stages. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Part One:The criticisms of Kohlberg's moral development stages seem to center around three major points, his research methods, the "regression" of stage four, and finally his goals.The first criticism that I would like to address is that of his research methods. Kohlberg is often criticized for not only his subject selection, but also the methods by which he tries to extricate data from those subjects. His initial study consisted of school boys from a private institution in Chicago. The problem with this is fairly obvious, that this does not represent a significant portion of the population to allow for generalized conclusions. In other words, how can we test some boys from Chicago and ascertain that this is how all people develop worldwide?I believe that the answer to this criticism comes from the theory that it relates to.
According to Kohlberg, individuals progress through a series of stages in the evolution of their sense of justice and in the kind of reasoning that they utilize to make moral judgments (Feldman, R., 2013, p. 426). His work modified and expanded from Jean Piaget’s previous work to form a theory of cognitive development that explained how pre-adolescent children develop moral reasoning (Cherry, K., 2014, October 12). Kohlberg’s theory of moral development focuses on children’s ability to distinguish right from wrong based on their perception. His theory claims that individuals progress through the levels morality in a fixed order and