Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development

Your level of moral reasoning may impact how you assess certain situations. If society deems something as abhorrent, and you grew up in this society, your morality is likely shaped around what they deem is right or wrong, and you too shall view the act as abhorrent.

Piaget provided a set of stages a child goes through during cognitive development, and Kohlberg expanded on that, suggesting moral reasoning also progresses in stages. Kohlberg's stages apply from childhood until adulthood.

Hands below a scale, flaticon.com/freepik

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development Overview

Kohlberg suggested there are three levels of moral development. Each level has two of its own ‘stages’ within it, which expands on the areas of moral understanding the person is going through or has reached. So, we can say that Kohlberg has six stages of moral development overall.

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development, Tyler Smith, StudySmarter Originals

These levels are:

1. Preconventional Reasoning
2. Conventional Reasoning
3. Postconventional Reasoning

As we mentioned above, each level has its own stages within it, which we will expand upon later.

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development Theory: the study behind it

Kohlberg developed this idea from his study (based on Piaget's initial theories), where he used a sample of 75 American children, specifically, boys aged between 10 and 16. He also collected data from boys from Britain, Mexico, Turkey, Canada and Taiwan.

It was a cross-cultural, longitudinal study, occurring over a period of 12 years (they were interviewed every three years up until they were 22 and 28) where the boys were given ten moral dilemmas in the form of stories. These dilemmas varied and were used to engage the boys in philosophical debates, asking them to think about their morals and how they would approach the situation.

A famous example of one of the stories is the Heinz dilemma.

Kohlberg would then ask the boys in an interview if Heinz was right or wrong in stealing the drug (so the data is qualitative), framing the question differently. He asked if Heinz was justified in his decision or if Heinz should be punished for it. Alternatively, should the pharmacist be punished for willingly letting a woman die and refusing to give medication that could save her life?

The answers were more than just a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Kohlberg was interested in the moral reasoning behind their decisions.

A syringe and bottle of pills, flaticon.com/max.icons

From this, Kohlberg developed his stages of moral development.

Level 1: Preconventional Reasoning

Usually, children aged 4 to 10 revolve around this level, and moral reasoning is based on the following two stages:

1. Punishment and obedience orientation - an act is wrong because the person who did it was punished. To avoid punishment is the goal here.

2. Self-interest - an act that gets the best outcome for you is the right choice. If you do it you may be rewarded.

Level 2: Conventional Reasoning

At this level, moral reasoning is based on the next two stages:

3. Good boy/girl orientation - an act that causes others to think positively of you is the right choice. You may receive praise for doing it, and will be known as someone who is nice/good.

4. Authority orientation - an act is right or wrong according to the rules or the law.

Level 3: Postconventional Reasoning

At this level, moral reasoning is based on the final two stages:

5. Social contract orientation - an act is right because it creates the greatest amount of good for the most number of people. Laws are still important, but ethical values become factors in moral dilemmas, and laws can and should be changed if necessary.

6. Conscience and ethical principle orientation - an act is now governed by abstract, universal concepts and justice, equality and human life are the most important things. Judgements are made on an individual basis, and laws should be more of a guideline that can be subverted when necessary.

If we were to apply the sixth stage ‘conscience and ethical principle orientation’ to Heinz's dilemma, would it be the correct choice for Heinz to steal the medication for his wife? Is it morally justified?

Interestingly, in his study, he found that children of different cultures all pass through the same stages; however, they do so at different rates.

• Taiwanese boys who were aged around 10 to 13 gave stage 2 responses.
• In American boys, those aged 16 had rarely progressed to stage 6. Also, they had not reached stage 3 at age 13.
• 16-year-old American boys gave more stage 5 oriented thinking than Mexico and Taiwan.
• Middle-class children went through the stages more quickly and were more advanced in moral reasoning compared to working-class children.
• There were no differences in the moral development of children of different religious backgrounds such as Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Buddhists, or atheists.

Conclusion

People go through the stages of moral development one by one in a fixed order. The order of the stages is universal for all cultures. Middle-class children progress through the stages faster compared to working-class children. The stages are not affected by religious beliefs.

Not many people manage to reach stages five and six in this model, and most land somewhere in the conventional reasoning stage.

Issues with Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development study

As with all studies, we need to assess their reliability and validity.

One major issue with Kohlberg’s study is that it was gender-biased. It was performed on boys, and thus the results cannot be generalised to girls, significantly reducing the applicability and generalizability of the results! Thus, it also has issues with being androcentric.

However, when this theory is applied to criminals, it supports the idea that criminals have not gone through all the required stages of moral development, suggesting a cause behind their delinquent behaviours. Kennedy and Grubin (1992) found that convicted sex offenders tended to blame the victim for the assault, and did not have much remorse for their actions.

The model also has issues with ecological validity in that these hypothetical scenarios are just that - hypothetical. How the boys would actually respond when facing the scenarios in real life could differ. It brings into question self-reflection, and social desirability bias is a real concern here. The boys may have answered in a way that makes them appear more morally correct to the researcher.