Piaget, And Kohlberg's Stages Of Moral Development

From when we were young, we were always told what is right from what is wrong when facing moral issues. Through our adulthood we started to learn how to act in such stringent situations. As human beings, we tend to rely on our emotions as a basis of our reasoning. Blaise Pascal, a Christian philosopher, once said “We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.”

For decades moral judgment was regarded to be a process based on reasoning. This was called the rationalist position. Psychologists such as Jean Piaget, and Lawrence Kohlberg believed that reason was what distinguished between the right from wrong. In 1958, Kohlberg wrote Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, which attempted to study the development of moral reasoning in children. Kohlberg’s view was that as children mature so does their ability to reason in moral issues. Another psychologist who had similar views was Jean Piaget. He developed 2 phases of moral development, one for children and another for adults. The phase for children, known as the Heteronomous Phase, which “was characterized by the idea that rules come from authority figures in one’s life such as parents.” For example, when my sister was 8 years old she stole 5 dirhams from my cousin’s piggy bank. She was a child so she didn’t know what it meant or that it was morally wrong to steal. However, my parents explained to her that stealing is not a good thing to do. Through my parents’ actions my sister was able to distinguish between what is morally right and wrong. As kids we don’t realize the consequences for our behaviors because we still don’t understand the intentions behind our actions. The second phase was called the Autonomous Phase, which comes from the word autonomy, self-go...

... middle of paper ...

...both of these dilemmas that they need to save as many lives as possible. The operation of this system is more controlled and requires reasoning. On the other hand, the second system responds differently in these 2 dilemmas. The system responded with emotions to the footbridge dilemma but not to that of the trolley dilemma. When this emotional, deontological system is activated its response dominates people’s judgments.

At the end of the day, both emotion and reason are needed in justifying moral decisions. It is as if you can’t have reason without emotion and vice versa. Both have their limitations in moral decision however, both are needed equally. The scale represents Libras. Just like how Libras are considered very fair, emotion and reason should be balanced in that way, because over reliance on emotion will lead to poor choices and pure logic has its flaws.