Moral Development

Lawrence Kohlberg

Warm Up What would you do in the following situation: 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, 1963, p. 19)

Introduction Harvard Professor 1970’s Research Moral Development:

3 Levels of ethical thinking

Broken down into six stages with two stages at each level

Pre-Conventional Stage 1Obedience & Punishment Orientation

Childhood Obey authority

without question Fear Punishment

“It’s bad to steal”

Pre-Conventional Stage 2Individualism & Exchange

Believe that people have different viewpoints

Pursue individual interests

“Everything is relative” “Do what you want”

Conventional Stage 3Good Interpersonal Relationships

Seeking the approval of others

Community based expectations

“Steal for the love of your wife” & “Don’t be selfish”

Conventional Stage 4Maintaining Social Order

Abiding by the law and respecting authority

Concerned with the individual’s society as a whole

“We cannot condone theft because what if everyone started stealing?”

Post- Conventional Stage 5Social Contract & Individual Rights

A smooth functioning society is not always a just society

Social Mutuality: Care for the welfare of

others Unjust laws may be changed

democratically

“Life transcends property in any society”

Post- Conventional Stage 6Universal Principles

Very rare to achieve level Equal respect for all Civil Disobedience A commitment to justice

requires us to disobey unjust laws

“Consistently see yourself through someone else’s eyes”

Movement Through Stages

Move through stages 1 at a time

Can only comprehend 1 stage above present stage

Social interaction promotes movement

WWKD (What would Kohlberg do?) Use the information from this lecture to

analyze the hypothetical situations from your worksheet

What level would your decision be for each situation (according to Kohlberg)?