IN THE NAME OF GOD

Kohlberg’s Theory of

Moral Development Arash Mani, PhD.

Cognitive Neuroscientist

Assistance professor of Shiraz University of

Medical Science(SUMS).

Psychiatry Department

Hafez Hospital

mania@sums.ac.ir

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پیاژه، سنت طبق پژوهش های نمونه ترین برجسته از یکی مورد در ای مرحله تئوری یک است، کولبرگ لارنس کار

.است نموده مطرح اخلاقی رشد

Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-87)

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سطوح و مراحل خصوص در دیدگاه اساس بر اخلاقی استدلال .کرد خواهیم بحث کولبرگ

....در این جلسه

به دستیابی جهت کولبرگ داستان اخلاقی، رشد مراحل

می مطرح افراد برای را هایی پاسخ نحوه اساس بر و کرده های دسته در افراد دهی

.گرفتند می قرار گوناگون

بحث نئوکولبرگ مطرح های نظریه خصوص در ادامه در .شد خواهد

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SAMPLE of

Kohlberg Dilemmas

Joe is a fourteen-year-old boy who wanted to go to camp

very much. His father promised him he could go if he saved up

the money for it himself. So Joe worked hard at his paper route

and saved up the forty dollars it cost to go to camp, and a little

more besides. But just before camp was going to start, his

father changed his mind. Some of his friends decided to go on a

special fishing trip, and Joe's father was short of the money it

would cost. So he told Joe to give him the money he had saved

from the paper route. Joe didn't want to give up going to camp,

so he thinks of refusing to give his father the money.

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SAMPLE of

Kohlberg Dilemmas

Judy was a twelve-year-old girl. Her mother promised her that she

could go to a special rock concert coming to their town if she saved

up from baby-sitting and lunch money to buy a ticket to the

concert. She managed to save up the fifteen dollars the ticket cost

plus another five dollars. But then her mother changed her mind

and told Judy that she had to spend the money on new clothes for

school. Judy was disappointed and decided to go to the concert

anyway. She bought a ticket and told her mother that she had only

been able to save five dollars. That Saturday she went to the

performance and told her mother that she was spending the day

with a friend. A week passed without her mother finding out. Judy

then told her older sister, Louise, that she had gone to the

performance and had lied to her mother about it. Louise wonders

whether to tell their mother what Judy did. 5

SAMPLE of

Kohlberg Dilemmas

Heinz's wife was near death, and her only hope was

a drug that had been discovered by a pharmacist

who was selling it for an exorbitant price. The drug

cost $20,000 to make, and the pharmacist was selling

it for $200,000. Heinz could only raise $50,000 and

insurance wouldn't make up the difference. He

offered what he had to the pharmacist, and when his

offer was rejected, Heinz said he would pay the rest

later. Still the pharmacist refused. In desperation,

Heinz considered stealing the drug. Would it be

wrong for him to do that? 6

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Kohlberg proposed that moral reasoning, which he

thought to be the basis for ethical behavior, develops

through stages.

Kohlberg’s stages of moral development

MORAL STAGES

Level 1: PRE-CONVENTIONAL

Level 2: CONVENTIONAL

Level 3: POST-CONVENTIONAL 9

Level 1 (Pre-conventional) Reasoners judge the morality of an action by

its direct consequences

Stage One: Obedience and Punishment

Stage Two: Individualism, Instrumentalism,

and Exchange

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PRE-CONVENTIONAL LEVEL

Stage One (obedience orientation)

Individuals focus on the direct consequences that

their actions will have for themselves.

HEINZ DILEMMA

Stage One (obedience): Heinz should not steal the

medicine, because otherwise he will be put in prison.

تنبیه و اطاعت براساس سوگیری :1 مرحله

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PRE-CONVENTIONAL LEVEL

Stage Two (self-interest orientation):

what's in it for me position. Right behavior is defined by

what is in one's own best interest.

نسبی گرایی لذت :2 مرحله

HEINZ DILEMMA

Stage Two (self-interest): Heinz should steal the medicine,

because he will be much happier if he saves his wife, even

if he will have to serve a prison sentence. 12

Level 2 (Conventional) People who reason in a conventional way

judge the morality of actions by comparing these

actions to social rules and expectations.

Stage Three: Interpersonal Concordance ("Good

boy/girl")

Stage Four: Law and Order

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CONVENTIONAL LEVEL

Stage Three (conformity orientation)

Individuals seek approval from other people. They judge

the morality of actions by evaluating the consequences of

these actions for a person's relationships.

دخترخوب /پسرخوب سوگیری :3 مرحله

HEINZ DILEMMA

Stage Three (conformity) : Heinz should steal the

medicine, because his wife expects it.

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CONVENTIONAL LEVEL

Stage Four (law-and-order mentality).

In stage four, individuals think it is important to obey

the law and conventions of society.

(نظم و قانون ناپذیری انعطاف) قدرت و اجتماعی نظم پایداری :4 مرحله

HEINZ DILEMMA

Stage Four (law-and-order): Heinz should not steal the

medicine, because the law prohibits stealing.

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Level 3 (Post-conventional)

(Most people do not reach this level of moral reasoning)

Stage Five: Human Rights

Stage Six: Universal Ethical Principles (Principled

Conscience)

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POST-CONVENTIONAL LEVEL

Stage Five (human rights orientation)

People have certain principles to which they attach

more value than laws, such as human rights.

An action is wrong if it violates certain ethical

principles.

Laws that do not promote general social welfare

should be changed.

HEINZ DILEMMA

Stage five (human rights): Heinz should steal

the medicine because saving his wife is more

important than obeying the law.

.اند شده پذیرفته دموکراتیک صورت به که قانونی :5 مرحله

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POST-CONVENTIONAL LEVEL

Stage Six (ethical principle orientation).

Moral reasoning is based on the use of abstract

reasoning using universal principles.

(People rarely, if ever, reach stage 6 of Kohlberg's model)

HEINZ DILEMMA

Stage six (universal human ethics):

Heinz should steal the medicine, because saving a

human life is a more fundamental value than respecting

the property of another person.

جهانی و فراگیر اصول :6 مرحله

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MEAN PERCENTAGE OF MORAL

REASONING BY AGE GROUP

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CRITIQUES OF KOHLBERG’S THEORY

• Critique 1: Too much emphasis on moral thought and not enough on moral behavior

• Critique 2: Underestimated the contribution of family relationships

• Critique 3: Does not adequately reflect relationships and concern for others

• Critique 4: His theory is culturally biased/not universal

• Critique 5: Stage theories in general are not adequate to explain moral development

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A NEO-KOHLBERGIAN APPROACH

• Stems from Kohlberg’s ideas

• Focus on the individual’s attempt to make

sense of his/her own social experience

• Generated from results using the Defining

Issues Test from the University of Minnesota

• DIT measure is a device for activating moral

schemas

• DIT is group-administered, multiple-choice, and

mechanically scored (Rest, Narvaez, Thoma & Bebeau, 2000)

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A NEO-KOHLBERGIAN APPROACH

Some notable adjustments :

• Use schemas instead of stages – shifting distributions rather than as a staircase

• Schema = top-down, fill in information where information is ambiguous

• Universality – regards cross-cultural similarity as a question rather than a characteristic of these stages

• Postconventional thinking is not as rare with this measure.

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STRUCTURES IN MORAL THINKING

DEVELOPMENT

Personal Interest Schema (analogous to Kohlberg’s stages 2 and 3) until age 12

does not yet use a sociocentric perspective

DIT research does not cover this schema

Maintaining Norms Schema (stage 4)

perceived need for generally accepted social norms to govern a

collective, necessity that the norms apply society-wide, the need

for the norms to be clear, uniform, and categorical, the

establishment of hierarchical role structures

Post conventional schema (stages 5+6)

Moral obligations are to be based on shared ideals, are fully

reciprocal, and open to scrutiny (Rest et. al, 2000) 23

The End

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