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  • Lawrence Kohlberg's theory claims that our development of moral reasoning happens in six stages.

  • The stages themselves are structured in three levels:

  • pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional

  • To understand this better, imagine a conflict at school

  • There is a fight in the schoolyard, two ninth-graders are beating up Tom

  • Those who watch the fight are at different stages of moral development

  • Let's see what they do and how they justify their behavior

  • At stage one, we make moral judgments based on obedience and punishment

  • Finn's sense of good or bad is directly linked to whether he gets punished or not

  • Finn sees what is happening to his friend and wants to help, but

  • he doesn't because he is afraid the teacher may punish him if he gets caught fighting

  • He asks himself, how can I avoid punishment?

  • At stage two, we are motivated by self-interest

  • Mary decides to intervene and help Tom

  • She knows that she might get punished,

  • but she also knows that she could become a victim herself someday

  • If she helps Tom now, he might help her in the future

  • She is asking herself: What's in it for me?

  • At stage three, interpersonal accord and conformity guide our moral judgment

  • Betty sees the fight and wants to intervene

  • But when she realizes that all the others are just watching, she decides not to get involved

  • She wants others to see that she is a good girl who is conforming with the ethics of the community

  • She asks herself: What do others think of me?

  • At stage four, we value authority and want to maintain social order

  • When the teacher sees the group fighting he immediately steps in and shouts: Stop! Fighting at school is forbidden!

  • He feels that, above all, it is important to follow the rules, otherwise chaos breaks out

  • He feels it is his duty to uphold the rules that sustain a functioning society

  • He asks himself: How can I maintain law and order?

  • At stage five, we understand rules as a social contract as opposed to a strict order

  • Jessie who watches from afar is not sure how she feels about this

  • To her, rules make sense only if they serve the right purpose

  • Obviously, the school rules prohibit fighting. But maybe Tom deserves to finally learn his lesson

  • Just yesterday he punched a young girl from grade one

  • She asks herself: Does a rule truly serve all members of the community?

  • At stage six, we are guided by universal ethical principles

  • All those involved now have to face the headmaster

  • He first explains the school rules and why they exist

  • He then clarifies that rules are valid only if they are grounded in justice

  • The commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust rules

  • The headmaster's highest moral principle is compassion

  • He believes that all people should learn to understand each other's viewpoints and that they don't feel alone with their feelings

  • He asks: What are the abstract ethical principles that serve my understandings of justice?

  • At the pre-conventional level, Finn is driven by fear and Mary by self-interest

  • Both judge what is right or wrong by the direct consequences they expect for themselves, and not by social norms

  • This form of reasoning is common among children

  • At the conventional level,

  • Betty responds to peer pressure and the teacher follows the rules

  • Their morality is centered around what society regards as right

  • At this level, the fairness of rules is seldom questioned

  • It is common to think like this during adolescence and adulthood

  • At the post-conventional level, Jesse knows that things are complicated because individuals may disobey rules inconsistent with their own morality

  • The headmaster follows a universal ethical idea at complete disconnect with what society thinks or the rules say

  • To him, everything is solved through compassion

  • The right behavior in his opinion is therefore never a means to an end, but always an end in itself

  • Not every person reaches this level

  • The American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg based his work on Piaget's theory of cognitive development

  • In order to confirm his theory of stages of moral development

  • Kohlberg interviewed boys between the ages of 10 and 16

  • He analyzed how they would justify their decision when confronted with different hypothetical moral dilemmas

  • We will now present to you the most famous moral dilemma Kohlberg presented to his students

  • Let's see what you would do

  • The Heinz dilemma: A woman was on her deathbed

  • There was only one drug that the doctors thought might save her

  • The druggist that made that particular medicine sold it for ten times the price of the production costs

  • The sick woman's husband, Heinz, was poor and could not afford to buy the drug

  • not even with the financial help of his friends

  • Heinz then asked the pharmacist to sell it to him for half the price

  • But he refused

  • To save the life of his wife, Heinz broke into the man's laboratory and stole the medicine

  • Now tell us:

  • Should Heinz have stolen the drug?

  • Would it change anything if Heinz didn't love his wife?

  • What if the person dying was not his wife but a stranger?

  • Should the police arrest the druggist for murder if the wife had died?

  • Please write your answers and their justifications in the comments below

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Lawrence Kohlberg's theory claims that our development of moral reasoning happens in six stages.

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