Lawrence Kohlberg was such an interesting character! He was
born into money, yet took to sea and began pondering moral
reasoning. Little else has been recorded about early Kohlberg
other than his adventures as a sailor; one such example was
his involvement in smuggling Jews through a British blockade
in Palestine during World War II! Kohlberg is known for his
theory of moral development which he built on Piaget
and Dewey's theories. He believed that people progressed in
their ability to reason morally through six stages,
with three levels (see below for description) mostly
through social interaction.
Kohlberg
theorized that progression through these stages was not only
due to age, but also the result of experiencing moral
dilemmas. Only when a person was able to experience a
dilemma would they be able to advance in their own moral development.
The motivation to advance through the stages comes as a person
realizes that their current strategy for coping with moral
dilemmas is inadequate. When an individual struggles with
this internal dilemma of not being able to adequately solve
a dilemma, they experience what is called cognitive dissonance.
This dissonance provides the motivation to move to a higher
level of approaching and ultimately solvely moral dilemmas.
One of
the drawbacks to Kohlberg's theory is that all of the research
on his stages were done only with male subjects.
According to Kohlberg, women "can't" reach any stage
past the third one! Something else to take into consideration
is that people do not always act in accord with their level
of reasoning (someone who is able to reason at the postconventional
levels might behave at times in terms of preconventional levels).
Summary
KEY COMPONENTS
OF THEORY:
- Morality
is neither universal nor local. It is a process of thinking
and it occurs in six stages:
| Level |
Stage |
Description |
Preconventional |
1 |
Punishment
/ Obedience (motivated by fear of punishment - an eye
for an eye) |
2 |
Reciprocation
(motivated by what one receives for right choices - you
scratch my back, I'll scratch yours) |
Conventional |
3 |
Social
Approval (motivated by what others expect in behavior
- good boy, good girl) |
4 |
Societal
Maintenance Orientation (motivated by keeping of law and
order) |
Postconventional |
5 |
Social
Contract (laws that are wrong can be changed) |
6 |
Universal
Ethical Principle Orientation (moral responsibility to
make societal changes regardless of consequences to oneself
- Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr.) |
IMPLICATIONS
FOR LEARNING:
- Most
schools label students in stages 1 and 4 (i.e. punishment
and law / order).
- Students
must be responsible for their moral growth.
- Students
must hear a variety of views so that they may decide what
is right and wrong.
IMPLICATIONS
FOR TEACHING:
- Teachers
should offer more opportunities for debate about issues
so students can hear a variety of perspectives.
- View
issues from a global perspective-how do other cultures look
at these issues?
- Students
will begin to move into the upper stages of morality as
they look beyond existing laws to decide what is right and
wrong.
