Moral Reasoning
A.P. Psychology
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**What is morality?
 Morality implies an ability:
o To know right from wrong (cognitive)
o To be able to act on this distinction (behavioral)
o To feel good about doing right and feel guilt about doing wrong (affective)
o ABCs – Affective, Behavior, Cognitive
Moral Action vs. Moral Reasoning
 Piaget’s final cognitive stage – formal operations – includes development of
reasoning ability
o New ability to deduce consequences of hypothetical behaviors
o New ability to detect inconsistency and/or hypocrisy
 What is the difference between moral acts and moral thoughts?
 Can 1 be the same and the other different?
 Can an act be moral without moral reasoning or inverse?
o Acting in a way to be perceived as moral
o Bystander Effect
**Piaget’s Views on Morality
 Premoral (to age 4)
o No moral sense
o If it hurts it’s wrong, if not, it’s right.
 Heteronomous Morality (4-7 years)
o Rules are universal and unchangeable, not controlled by people
o Characteristic: “Immanent Justice” – punishment immediately follows
transgression
o Ex: child can not accept playing a game differently than it was learned
 Autonomous Morality (10 – older)
o Awareness that rules and laws are created by people
o Realization that in judging action, one considers intentions and
consequences
o Opposite Ex: child now creates his/her own rules to games
Lawrence Kohlberg
 Piagetian – sought to describe moral reasoning (developmentally)
 Studies: posed moral dilemmas to children, adolescents, and adults and analyzed
answers for evidence of stages of moral reasoning.
Kohlberg’s Moral Ladder
Preconventional Level (4- 9 or 10)
 Obey to avoid punishment or attain rewards.
 Key: Self interest
Conventional Level (10 - ?)
 Uphold laws and rules because they are the laws and rules.
 Key: Social approval
Postconventional Level (adulthood or never)
 Attainment of this level is controversial – see criticisms of Kohlberg
 Person follows what they personally perceive as ethical principles.
 Key: ethical principles
Criticisms of Kohlberg
 Cultural Bias? – Western societies more individualistic
o Studies of Postconventional level show it is most common in America and
Western Europe – possible difference in ideology not morality.
 Carol Gilligan
o Especially critical of “Postconventional Stage” – maintains that the focus
on the individual and impersonal principles is biased against women,
whose view of morality is more based on caring relationships.
Morality as an Intuition
 Jonathan Haidt – “Social Intuitionist” account of morality
o Challenges idea that moral action comes from moral reasoning
o Rather, it is a “gut-feeling” which triggers moral reasoning mostly to
convince others of what we intuitively feel.
 Moral Dilemma (Moral Paradoxes provide support here)
o A Runaway trolley is headed for 5 people. All will be killed unless you
throw a switch that diverts the trolley onto another track, where it will kill
1 person. Should you throw the switch?
o Now imagine the same dilemma – except now to save the 5, you are
required to push a large stranger onto the tracks to stop the trolley.
 Same logic (save 5, kill 1), different answers
 Brain imaging shows only 2nd instance utilizes emotional centers
Looking at it “Backwards”
 Moral action feeds moral attitudes
 Helping neighbors, tutoring, assisting the elderly, etc increases sense of
competence and desire to serve.
 Become more productive, socially responsible, and academically successful