MORALITY

• What are morals?

• What are your morals?

• Where did you get your morals?

• Why does morality fit with Adolescent Development? (Why didn’t we talk about this with child development?)

1

Piaget’s 2 Stage Theory• Children younger than 10-12 make

judgments on consequences– Billy broke 15 cups trying to help his mom.– Joey broke 1 cup trying to steal a cookie.– Billy did a worse thing, because he broke MORE.

• Older children consider dilemmas based on intentions.– Joey did a worse thing because Billy was trying to

help

2

Kohlberg’s Stages of

Moral Development

Heinz Steals the DrugIn Europe, 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 make. 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." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug-for his wife. Should the husband have done that? (Kohlberg, 1963)

Should the husband have done that?

• Why? Explain your answer!

• Kohlberg didn’t really care if you said yes or no… he was most interested in the reasoning behind the answer.

Level 1: (Ages 0-9) Preconventional Morality

Stage 1: Obedience & Punishment Orientation•Morality is obeying rules and avoiding negative consequences. Children see rules set, typically by parents, as defining moral law.

– “Heinz was wrong to steal the drug because it is bad to steal; it is against the law.”

• Why is it bad? Because you will be punished.

– “Heinz can steal it because he asked first and it’s not like he stole something big, he won’t get punished. “

Level 1: (Ages 0-9) Preconventional Morality

Stage 2: Individualism and Exchange•Children recognize that there is not just ONE right view handed down by authorities, but still consider punishment and don’t view it as a member of society

– “Heinz might think its right to take the drug, the druggist would not.’

– “Heinz might steal the drug if he had children and needed someone at home to look after them. But maybe he shouldn’t steal it because they might put him in prison for more years than he can stand”

Level 2: (Ages 9-adolescence) Conventional Morality

Stage 3: Good Interpersonal Relationships•Believe people should live up to the expectations of the family and community. Good behavior means having good motives.

– “Heinz was right to steal the drug because he was a good man for wanting to save her.”

– “His intentions were good, that of saving someone he loves”

– “The druggist was selfish, greedy. It was his fault for trying to overcharge and letting someone die. He should be in jail.”

Level 2: (Ages 9-adolescence) Conventional Morality

Stage 4: Maintaining the Social Order•Young teenagers emphasize obeying laws, respecting authority, and performing one’s duties so that the social order is maintained.

– “If everybody did as he wanted to do, set up his own beliefs as to right and wrong, then I think you would have chaos. The only thing I think we have in civilization nowadays is some sort of legal structure which people are sort of bound to follow. [Society needs] a centralized framework.”

Level 3: (Adulthood) Postconventional Morality

Stage 5: Social Contract and Individual Rights•Believe a good society is best conceived as a social contract into which people freely enter to work toward the benefit of all. Different social groups have different values

– “It is the husband’s duty to save his wife. The fact that her life is in danger transcends every other standard you might use to judge his action. Life is more important… Usually the moral and legal standpoints coincide. Here they conflict. The judge should weight the moral standpoint more heavily but preserve the legal law in punishing Heinz lightly.”

Level 3: (Adulthood) Postconventional Morality

Stage 6: Universal Principles•The principles of justice require us to make decisions based on an equal respect for all.

– This would require all parties to view the situation from all perspectives, in which (ideally), the druggist would realize that life should be valued over property.

– Kohlberg no longer scores responses at this stage because subjects would not consistently respond at stage 6.

Sounds good… BUT

• People who can talk at a high moral level may not behave accordingly..

• Kohlberg proposes that moral behavior is more consistent, predictable, and responsible at the higher stages.– Research supports this, but evidence is not

clear-cut.