Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral
Development
 Lawrence Kohlberg was a cognitive psychologist who
applied developmental psychology specifically to
moral development. He identified three primary
stages of moral development and two sub stages
within each. The three primary stages are:
 Pre-conventional moral thinking
 Conventional moral thinking
 Post-conventional moral thinking
Background
 The theory concerns itself with the reasons
behind an action, and not the action itself
 Six people can do the same thing , but each
of them may do it for different reasons
 People are attracted to higher stages
 Encountering moral dilemmas allows for
growth
Stages of Moral Reasoning
LEVEL 1 (Pre-Conventional) – FOCUS ON THE SELF
 Stage 1: Punishment and Obedience
 Stage 2: Personal Usefulness
LEVEL 2 (Conventional) – FOCUS ON OTHERS
 Stage 3: Conforming to the Will of the Group
 Stage 4: Authority and Social Order (Law and Order)
LEVEL 3 (Post-Conventional) – FOCUS ON PRINCIPLES
 Stage 5: Social Contract and Human Rights
 Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principles (Personal Conscience)
Stage 1 – Punishment and Obedience
 This stage generally occurs from the ages of 2-6
 At this stage, children see rules as fixed and absolute
 Physical consequences determine the goodness or
badness of an act.
 Avoidance of punishment is the key motivation
 The person submits to power and authority to avoid
punishment
Example
 You do your chores because you do not
want to get grounded.
Stage 2 – Personal Usefulness
 This stage generally occurs from the ages of 7-11
 What is right is that which satisfies one’s own needs
and occasionally the needs of others.
 Human relations and fairness are interpreted in a
physical and pragmatic way – what is useful to me?
 “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” is the
basic mentality and motivation.
Example
 Volunteering at a retirement home for
community service hours
Stage 3 – Conforming to the
Will of the Group
 This stage generally occurs from the ages of 11-25
 Good behaviour is that which pleases or helps others
and gets approval from them
 One conforms to standard ideas of appropriate
behaviour
 One earns acceptance by being ‘nice’
 People in this stage have a great
desire to belong to a group
even if it means compromising
their
own individual belief
system
Example
 You allow your friend to cheat off your
test because you want him/her to
appreciate you and give you
compliments for doing so.
Stage 4 – Law and Order
 This stage generally begins around age 15 until 25
 One sees obedience to rules for their own sake as a
necessary to maintain order
 Right behaviour consists of doing one’s duty and
respecting authority
 Flaws in the system are due to failure of the individuals
to obey the system
Example
You decide not to J-walk because it
is against the law.
Stage 5 – Social Contract and
Human Rights
 This stage can be reached around ages 21-25
 The right action is described in terms of general values
that have been agreed upon by the whole society
 Laws are justified because they maintain social order
 One may work within the system
if they desire to change the law for
the betterment of society
 Right action is seen as a matter
of
respecting the democratically
accepted values of society
 Largely based on the principles of ethical relativism
Example
 Because women were resorting to back-
alley abortions you decide to encourage
the government to legalize abortion.
You work with existing social
structures to improve a situation.
Stage 6 – Personal Conscience
 This stage generally begins around age 15 until 25
 Right is a decision of personal conscience in
agreement with abstract ethical principles that apply
to all persons everywhere.
 Decisions are based upon universal principles of
justice, the reciprocity and equality of human rights,
and respect for the dignity of human beings as
individual persons
 Choices are grounded in genuine moral interest in the
well-being of others, regardless of who or where they
are.
 Largely based on the principles of ethical absolutism
Example
 Because you believe the principle that all
human life should be respected equally
regardless of the circumstance you try to
change the existing social structures
(cultural, media, religious) that make
pregnant woman believe that their only real
alternative is abortion. In this case you
will most likely be working against
existing social institutions.
The Reality
 These are natural steps
 There is no stage-skipping, but sometimes we slip back
when we are stressed
 Someone can be at different levels in various aspects of life
 One can reason one way and act another way
 Some individuals become stuck in one stage – not everyone
reaches mature morality
 15-20% of American adults continue to think at the preconventional level – ½% reach Stage 6
Biases
 Men base moral judgement on principles of impartial
justice, fairness, and equity
 Women base moral judgement on principles of caring,
nurturing and responsibility
 Women experience intimacy, care and concern at an
earlier age than men
Kohlberg’s Dilemma Example
A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was
one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of
radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered.
The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging
ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the
radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick
woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow
the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000, which is
half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying
and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the
druggist said, "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make
money from it.” Should Heinz have brake into the laboratory to
steal the drug for his wife?
Read the following moral dilemma and elaborate on what the father (you) would do
using each of Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development. For each of the six courses of
action explain the reason for choosing this action using Kohlberg’s description of that
stage.
You are on holiday in Bali with your 18 year old son and wife. You have been there for a week and
are ready to head home. All three of you are at the airport getting ready to board your plane, when
an armed officer comes around with a sniffer dog. You have all your bags on a trolley, and the dog
sniffs at both your wife and your bag, and passes over it, however when he gets to your sons bag,
he begins to get a bit more active. You look over at your son and he’s looking a little nervous. You
know he’s smoked a little marijuana in his time, but generally, he’s a good kid, and you certainly
didn’t think he’d actually be stupid enough to bring it back on the plane with him. At first you feel
angry that he would do such a thing and start planning your responsibility lecture, but then you
realize that you are in Bali, and they have a zero tolerance policy on drugs, meaning your son
could be jailed for life, or worse, executed, if he does have some illicit materials in his bag. You
look at your wife and realize she has come to the same conclusion and has gone pale with fear.
The armed officer accompanying the dog is beginning to look more stern with every sniff the dog
takes and looks directly at you and asks you to open to the bag. You do, and as the officer begins
to take things out of the bag, you see to your horror that there is a small quantity of marijuana
stashed in with your sons belongings. The officer looks at you and asks “Who’s bag is this?” You
realize you have to answer, but the answer won’t be easy. You see your wife in the corner of your
eye, and she is about to step forward and claim it as her own; what do you say?
Pre-Conventional Examples
STAGE
DESCRIPTION
Examples of Moral Reasoning
Favouring Heinz’s Theft
Examples of Moral Reasoning
Opposing Heinz’s Theft
Punishment and - He should steal the drug,
Obedience
because he offered to pay for it
and because it is only worth $200,
not the $2000 the druggist was
charging
- He should steal it because if he
let’s his wife die, he would fall
into a depressive state
-He shouldn’t steal the drug,
because he might get caught and
sent to jail
-his law-breaking would cause
him to feel guilty
Personal
Usefulness
- He shouldn’t steal the drug,
because he might get caught and
his wife would probably die
before he gets out of jail – it
wouldn’t do much good
- He shouldn’t steal, because the
druggist was not doing a bad
thing by wanting to make a profit
- It is alright to steal the drug,
because his wife needs it to live
and he needs her companionship
- He should steal the drug,
because his wife needs it and he
isn’t doing any harm to the
druggist because he can pay him
back later
Pre-Conventional Examples
STAGE
DESCRIPTION
Examples of Moral Reasoning
Favouring Heinz’s Theft
Examples of Moral Reasoning
Opposing Heinz’s Theft
Conforming to
the Will of the
Group
- He should steal the drug, because
society expects a loving husband to
help his wife regardless of the
consequences
- He should steal the drug, because if
he didn’t his family would think he
was an uncaring human
- He shouldn’t steal the drug, because
he will bring dishonour on his family
and they will be ashamed of him
- He shouldn’t steal the drug, because
no one would blame him for doing all
he could legally (The druggist would
be the heartless one)
Law and Order
- He should steal the drug, because if
he did nothing, he would be
responsible for his wife’s death. He
should take it with the idea of paying
the druggist back
- He should steal the drug, because if
people like the druggist are allowed to
get away with being greedy and
selfish, society would eventually
break down
- He should not steal the drug,
because if people are allowed to take
the law into their own hands,
regardless of how they justify it, social
order would break down
- He shouldn’t steal the drug, because
it’s still always wrong to steal
Post-Conventional Examples
STAGE
DESCRIPTION
Examples of Moral Reasoning
Favouring Heinz’s Theft
Examples of Moral Reasoning
Opposing Heinz’s Theft
Social Contract
and Human
Rights
- The theft is justified, because the law is
not set up to deal with the
circumstances in which obeying it
would cost a human life.
- It is not reasonable to say that stealing
is wrong, because the law should not
allow the druggist to deny someone
access to a life saving treatment
- You can’t really blame him for stealing
the drug, but even such extreme
circumstances do not justify a person
taking the law into their own hands
- He shouldn’t steal the drug, because
eventually he would pay the price of loss
of self-respect for disregarding the rules
of society
Universal
Ethical
Principles
- He must steal the drug, because when
a choice must be made between
disobeying a law and saving a life, one
must act in accordance with the higher
principle of preserving and respecting
life
- He is justified in stealing the drug,
because if he had failed in this action to
save his wife, he would not have lived up
to his own standards of conscience
- Heinz must consider the other
principle who need the drug just as
much as his wife. By stealing the drug
he would be acting in accordance with
his own particular feelings with utter
disregard for the value of all the lives
involved
- He should not steal the drug, because
though he would probably not be
blamed by others, he would have to deal
with his own self-condemnation,
because he did not live up to his own
conscience and standards of honesty.