Lawrence Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development
This is the final installation of the three-part series regarding childhood developmental stages. First, we took a look at childhood development through an emotional lens with the theory from Erik Erickson. That theory provided 8 stages from birth to death and the conflict that an individual must endure to successfully progress to the next stage in life. It was theorized that any difficulty in reaching the appropriate stage for the proper age range would lead the individual to not be on the same emotional playing field as their peers. Next, we took a look at childhood development through the lens of cognitive development with Jean Piaget. In this theory, in contrast to the previous, what was looked at was cognitive functioning. How an individual begins to process different external factors throughout their life as they continue to grow. In this last post, we look at childhood development through the moral lens as theorized by Lawrence Kohlberg. Like the previous posts, the main resource for this post comes from VeryWellMind.
Like each of the theories discussed in this blog beforehand, this theory is broken into stages. However, it is further broken down into levels as well. Each level has two stages and there are 3 levels in this theory.
Level 1: Preconventional Morality
Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment
Stage 2: Individualism and Exchange
Level 2: Conventional Morality
Stage 3: Developing Good Interpersonal Relationships
Stage 4: Maintaining Social Order
Level 3: Postconventional morality
Stage 5: Social Contract and Individual Rights
Stage 6: Universal Principles.
Level 1: Preconventional Morality
The age range for this level is 0-9 years old. Looking at the name of the level, conventional is defined as “based on or in accordance with what is generally done or believed”. However, due to children still learning about the world around them, they have no reference point to do things by what the consensus is. All actions in this stage are directly in response to the consequences of their actions provided by their current caregivers.
Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment
As stated previously, due to young children not having a current reference point on what is acceptable, all their actions are based on the response that they are given. For example, a young child may find throwing their crayons enjoyable. They cause a mess and they are verbally reprimanded, which leads them to start crying. They may not fully understand the scope of their emotions at this time however they understand that the emotion wasn’t a good one. To reduce this effect in the future they may not throw the crayons again. Kohlberg believed that in this stage the children see the rules set by caregivers as absolute and that could solely be because they are just learning about the world around them.
Stage2: Individualism and Exchange
At this stage, the main focus is serving one’s individual needs. An example provided is the Heinz dilemma. For those who don’t know what it is, it is a moral problem where a person must judge the actions of an individual who committed a crime with solely good intentions. A man’s wife has a rare form of cancer that can only be cured and managed with an expensive drug. The man borrows as much money as he can and only can gather half of the money available. He asks the doctor to sell the drug for cheaper however he refused. This leads the man to break into the doctor’s office to steal the drug solely to aid in curing his wife. The question asked is “Should the man have broken into the home for the drug, why/why not”. In reference to the current theory, when children were provided with this same dilemma, they would have agreed that the man should have broken in and stolen the drug because it would have helped his wife. As opposed to an adult who may argue different moral points of view, for children because, again they are still learning the world around them, their main concern would be things that solely serve them.
Level 2: Conventional Morality
There is no listed age range for this level but a general time frame. Due to the previous level ending at 9 years of age, it would make sense to assume that this level is immediately after this. The general time frame for this level is early adolescence to adulthood. In the previous stage, the individual was learning from the world around them. They didn’t have a moral reference point to use when it came time to make decisions however during this stage they begin to internalize the moral lessons that they had learned thus far.
Stage 3: Developing Good Interpersonal Relationships
I would argue that at any point in your life, having good friends is very important. In reference to this stage, there is more of a focus on creating good interpersonal relationships based on societal norms. Using the moral skills that were gained in the previous stages an individual starts to create friendships/relationships with that moral standpoint in mind. In early adolescence, these are the friends that you may make during school activities, after-school activities, or sports teams. When I was younger I was a very shy child however my parents made me play baseball for a local youth team. I can say that I didn’t know how to make friends however with the understanding of being generally a “good person” I was able to create friendships on the team as I played in the league for roughly 7 years. In adulthood, the same way you would make friends as a child, you would make it in the environments you frequent heavily; mainly at work and whatever hobby/interest that you have. Keeping the same thought process of being a “good person” and succumbing to societal norms, there is the ability to create good interpersonal relationships.
Stage 4: Maintaining Social Order
Just as the title of this stage suggests, this is the part of moral development when you begin to consider those outside of yourself, mainly the general society. Think about your current life. Do you do anything that if it were blasted on all the televisions in your community you would be vilified? And if you do is it something that you boast about regularly? This is the stage when we consider various factors before making any decisions. Some people theorize that religious individuals have a higher level of morality during this stage due to the tenets they are taught during their religious observances however I would argue that while religion may play a role, your environment plays an even bigger one. Without having the right people around you during this crucial level of development would lead you down a path of skewed morality.
Level 3: Postconventional Morality
In my opinion, this may be the most interesting level of the theory. The way I understand it is that this is a level of morality that people reach once they understand the world around them. It is said that Kohlberg believes that this is a rare stage for people to reach, roughly 10-15% of people in the world reach this level. That being said once you look at those individuals who seem to put other people or situations ahead of their well-being for a strong moral standpoint you could say these are the people who have reached this level of morality. However one could also argue that it could be a general state of mind where someone understands the complex world that we live in and they also understand that there is rarely ever one correct answer to any given moral problem.
Stage 5: Social Contract and Individual Rights
As I briefly stated in this paragraph before, this is when a person begins to understand the complex nature of the world around them. If we take a look at the Heinz dilemma once again, one may say that the man should have stolen the drug to help his wife because she is dying and the price is too high. Others may argue that no one should ever resort to illegal means regardless of their problems. Some may say that the issue is not with the man but with the pharmaceutical company that allows the price of the drug to be so expensive. The main point though for this stage is that the law of the land is still taken into consideration for any moral dilemma. So even though some may think that the man should have stolen the drug for his wife, he still shouldn’t have broken the law to help her. Someone at this stage may try to change the rules around so that it suits everyone’s needs and doesn’t lead someone to move towards illegal means for their wellbeing.
Stage 6: Universal Principles
This is the stage I believe I was trying to touch on in the intro of this level. These are the people who have moved past the societal norms of “justice” and “order” and follow the universal principle of morality, whatever that means to them. Think of any form of a protestor that you may think is taking things “too far”. For example, think of environmentalists who are going against the logging industry due to their unethical practice of falling trees that shouldn’t be touched (i.e. legacy trees). Some in the group may go as far as chaining themselves to a tree, consequences be damned, so that their point that these trees need to be protected will be understood. These are the people who would put their well-being in jeopardy so that their moral obligation to the world around them is met. My main critique of this last stage is that everyone may not agree on what these universal principles are and how they should be approached when challenged. This could attest to why there is a small percentage of people that get to this point because it can be viewed as a level of extremism to some.
I hope that you were able to gain a level of understanding from this blog post and I apologize (like always) for how long it took me to write it. Let me know if there are any questions or concerns about the information presented. Leave a comment, share it with friends and family, and have a great day.
SOURCES
https://www.verywellmind.com/kohlbergs-theory-of-moral-development-2795071
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/54170556/the-heinz-dilemma