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Key Takeaways
Kohlberg’s levels of moral development are as follows: ThePreconventional level: children accept the authority (and moral code) of others. If an action leads to punishment, it must be bad. If it leads to a reward, it must be good. There is also a sense in which decisions concerning what is good are defined in terms of what is good for us. TheConventional level: children believe that social rules and the expectations of others determine what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior. A social system that stresses the responsibilities of relationships and social order is seen as desirable and must, therefore, influence our views of right and wrong. ThePostconventional level: here what is right is based on an individual’s understanding of universal ethical principles. What is considered morally acceptable in any given situation is determined by what is the response most in keeping with these principles.
Heinz Dilemma
Lawrence Kohlberg (1958) agreed withPiaget’s (1932) theory of moral developmentin principle but wanted to develop his ideas further.
He used Piaget’s storytelling technique to tell people stories involving moral dilemmas. In each case, he presented a choice to be considered, for example, between the rights of some authority and the needs of some deserving individual unfairly treated.
After presenting people with various moral dilemmas, Kohlberg categorized their responses into different stages of moral reasoning.
Using children’s responses to a series of moral dilemmas, Kohlberg established that the reasoning behind the decision was a greater indication of moral development than the actual answer.
One of Kohlberg’s best-known stories (1958) concerns Heinz, who lived somewhere in Europe.
Heinz could only raise half the money, even after help from family and friends. He explained to the chemist that his wife was dying and asked if he could have the drug cheaper or pay the rest of the money later.
The chemist refused, saying that he had discovered the drug and was going to make money from it. The husband was desperate to save his wife, so later that night he broke into the chemist’s and stole the drug.
Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?
Kohlberg asked a series of questions such as:
By studying the answers from children of different ages to these questions, Kohlberg hoped to discover how moral reasoning changed as people grew older.
The sample comprised 72 Chicago boys aged 10–16 years, 58 of whom were followed up at three-yearly intervals for 20 years (Kohlberg, 1984).
Each boy was given a 2-hour interview based on the ten dilemmas. Kohlberg was interested not in whether the boys judged the action right or wrong but in the reasons for the decision. He found that these reasons tended to change as the children got older.
Kohlberg identified three levels of moral reasoning: preconventional, conventional, and postconventional. Each level has two sub-stages.
People can only pass through these levels in the order listed. Each new stage replaces the reasoning typical of the earlier stage. Not everyone achieves all the stages.
Level 1 – Preconventional Morality
Preconventional morality is the first level of moral development, lasting until approximately age 8. During this level, children accept the authority (and moral code) of others.
Preconventional morality is when people follow rules because they don’t want to get in trouble or they want to get a reward. This level of morality is mostly based on what authority figures like parents or teachers tell you to do rather than what you think is right or wrong.
For example, if an action leads to punishment, it must be bad; if it leads to a reward, it must be good.
So, people at this level don’t have their own personal sense of right and wrong yet. They think that something is good if they get rewarded for it and bad if they get punished for it.
For example, if you get candy for behaving, you think you were good, but if you get a scolding for misbehaving, you think you were bad.
Stage 1. Obedience and Punishment Orientation. The child/individual is good to avoid being punished. If a person is punished, they must have done wrong.
Level 2 – Conventional Morality
Conventional morality is the adolescent phase of moral development focused on societal norms and external expectations to discern right from wrong, often grounded in tradition, cultural practices, or established codes of conduct.
We internalize the moral standards of valued adult role models at the conventional level (most adolescents and adults).
A social system that stresses the responsibilities of relationships and social order is seen as desirable and must influence our view of right and wrong.
So, people who follow conventional morality believe that it’s important to follow society’s rules and expectations to maintain order and prevent problems.
For example, refusing to cheat on a test is a part of conventional morality because cheating can harm the academic system and create societal problems.
Stage 4. Law and Order Morality. The child/individual becomes aware of the wider rules of society, so judgments concern obeying the rules to uphold the law and avoid guilt.
Level 3 – Postconventional Morality
Postconventional morality is when people decide based on what they think is right rather than just following the rules of society. This means that people at this level of morality have their own ethical principles and values and don’t just do what society tells them to do.
At this level, people think about what is fair, what is just, and what values are important.
They also think about how their choices might affect others and try to make good decisions for everyone, not just themselves.
Values are abstract and ill-defined but might include: the preservation of life at all costs and the importance of human dignity. Individual judgment is based on self-chosen principles, and moral reasoning is based on individual rights and justice.
According to Kohlberg, this level of moral reasoning is as far as most people get.
Only 10-15% are capable of abstract thinking necessary for stage 5 or 6 (post-conventional morality). That is to say, most people take their moral views from those around them, and only a minority think through ethical principles for themselves.
Stage 5. Social Contract and Individual Rights. The child/individual becomes aware that while rules/laws might exist for the good of the greatest number, there are times when they will work against the interest of particular individuals.
The issues are not always clear-cut. For example, in Heinz’s dilemma, the protection of life is more important than breaking the law against stealing.
Stage 6. Universal Principles. People at this stage have developed their own set of moral guidelines, which may or may not fit the law. The principles apply to everyone. E.g., human rights, justice, and equality.
The person will be prepared to act to defend these principles even if it means going against the rest of society in the process and having to pay the consequences of disapproval and or imprisonment.
Kohlberg doubted few people had reached this stage.
Problems with Kohlberg’s Methods
1. The dilemmas are artificial (i.e., they lack ecological validity)
Most dilemmas are unfamiliar to most people (Rosen, 1980). For example, it is all very well in the Heinz dilemma, asking subjects whether Heinz should steal the drug to save his wife.
However, Kohlberg’s subjects were aged between 10 and 16. They have never been married, and never been placed in a situation remotely like the one in the story.
How should they know whether Heinz should steal the drug?
2. The sample is biased
Kohlberg’s (1969) theory suggested males more frequently progress beyond stage four in moral development, implying females lacked moral reasoning skills.
His research assistant, Carol Gilligan, disputed this, who argued that women’s moral reasoning differed, not deficient.
She criticized Kohlberg’s theory for focusing solely on upper-class white males, arguing women value interpersonal connections. For instance, women often oppose theft in the Heinz dilemma due to potential repercussions, such as separation from his wife if Heinz is imprisoned.
Gilligan (1982) conducted new studies interviewing both men and women, finding women more often emphasized care, relationships and context rather than abstract rules. Gilligan argued that Kohlberg’s theory overlooked this relational “different voice” in morality.
According to Gilligan (1977), because Kohlberg’s theory was based on an all-male sample, the stages reflect a male definition of morality (it’s androcentric).
Men’s morality is based on abstract principles of law and justice, while women’s is based on principles of compassion and care.
3. The dilemmas are hypothetical (i.e., they are not real)
Kohlberg’s approach to studying moral reasoning relied heavily on his semi-structured moral judgment interview. Participants were presented with hypothetical moral dilemmas, and their justifications were analyzed to determine their stage of moral reasoning.
Some critiques of Kohlberg’s method are that it lacks ecological validity, removes reasoning from real-life contexts, and defines morality narrowly in terms of justice reasoning.
Psychologists concur with Kohlberg’s moral development theory, yet emphasize the difference between moral reasoning and behavior.
What we claim we’d do in a hypothetical situation often differs from our actions when faced with the actual circumstance. In essence, our actions might not align with our proclaimed values.
In a real situation, what course of action a person takes will have real consequences – and sometimes very unpleasant ones for themselves. Would subjects reason in the same way if they were placed in a real situation? We don’t know.
The fact that Kohlberg’s theory is heavily dependent on an individual’s response to an artificial dilemma questions thevalidityof the results obtained through this research.
People may respond very differently to real-life situations that they find themselves in than they do to an artificial dilemma presented to them in the comfort of a research environment.
4. Poor research design
How Kohlberg carried out his research when constructing this theory may not have been the best way to test whether all children follow the same sequence of stage progression.
His research wascross-sectional, meaning that he interviewed children of different ages to see their moral development level.
A better way to see if all children follow the same order through the stages would be to conductlongitudinal researchon the same children.
She tested them six times in 27 years and supported Kohlberg’s original conclusion, which is that we all pass through the stages of moral development in the same order.
Contemporary research employs more diverse methods beyond Kohlberg’s interview approach, such as narrative analysis, to study moral experience. These newer methods aim to understand moral reasoning and development within authentic contexts and experiences.
Problems with Kohlberg’s Theory
1. Are there distinct stages of moral development?
Kohlberg claims there are, but the evidence does not always support this conclusion.
For example, a person who justified a decision based on principled reasoning in one situation (postconventional morality stage 5 or 6) would frequently fall back on conventional reasoning (stage 3 or 4) with another story.
In practice, it seems that reasoning about right and wrong depends more on the situation than on general rules. Moreover, individuals do not always progress through the stages, and Rest (1979) found that one in fourteen slipped backward.
The evidence for distinct stages of moral development looks very weak. Some would argue that behind the theory is a culturally biased belief in the superiority of American values over those of other cultures and societies.
Gilligan (1982) did not dismiss developmental psychology or morality. She acknowledged that children undergo moral development in stages and even praised Kohlberg’s stage logic as “brilliant” (Jorgensen, 2006, p. 186). However, she preferred Erikson’s model over the more rigid Piagetian stages.
While Gilligan supported Kohlberg’s stage theory as rational, she expressed discomfort with its structural descriptions that lacked context.
She also raised concerns about the theory’s universality, pointing out that it primarily reflected Western culture (Jorgensen, 2006, pp. 187-188).
Rest and colleagues (199) have developed a theoretical model building on but moving beyond Kohlberg’s stage-based approach to moral development. Their model outlines four components of moral behavior: moral sensitivity, moral judgment, moral motivation, and moral character.
For the moral judgment component, Rest et al. propose that individuals use moral schemas rather than progress through discrete stages of moral reasoning.
Schemasare generalized knowledge structures that help us interpret information and situations. An individual can have multiple schemas available to make sense of moral issues, rather than being constrained to a single developmental stage.
Rather than viewing development as movement to higher reasoning stages, the neo-Kohlbergian approach sees moral growth as acquiring additional, more complex moral schemas. Lower schemas are not replaced, but higher order moral schemas become available to complement existing ones.
The schema concept attempts to address critiques of the stage model, such as its rigidity and lack of context sensitivity. Using schemas allows for greater flexibility and integration of social factors into moral reasoning.
2. Does moral judgment match moral behavior?
Kohlberg never claimed that there would be a one-to-one correspondence between thinking and acting (what we say and what we do), but he does suggest that the two are linked.
However, Bee (1994) suggests that we also need to take into account of:
a) habits that people have developed over time.
b) whether people see situations as demanding their participation.
c) the costs and benefits of behaving in a particular way.
d) competing motive such as peer pressure, self-interest and so on.
Overall, Bee points out that moral behavior is only partly a question of moral reasoning. It also has to do with social factors.
3. Is justice the most fundamental moral principle?
This is Kohlberg’s view. However, Gilligan (1977) suggests that the principle of caring for others is equally important. Furthermore, Kohlberg claims that the moral reasoning of males has often been in advance of that of females.
Girls are often found to be at stage 3 in Kohlberg’s system (good boy-nice girl orientation), whereas boys are more often found to be at stage 4 (Law and Order orientation). Gilligan (p. 484) replies:
“The very traits that have traditionally defined the goodness of women, their care for and sensitivity to the needs of others, are those that mark them out as deficient in moral development”.
In other words, Gilligan claims that there is a sex bias in Kohlberg’s theory. He neglects the feminine voice of compassion, love, and non-violence, which is associated with the socialization of girls.
Gilligan concluded that Kohlberg’s theory did not account for the fact that women approach moral problems from an ‘ethics of care’, rather than an ‘ethics of justice’ perspective, which challenges some of the fundamental assumptions of Kohlberg’s theory.
In contrast to Kohlberg’s impersonal “ethics of justice”, Gilligan proposed an alternative “ethics of care” grounded in compassion and responsiveness to needs within relationships (Gilligan, 1982).
Her care perspective highlights emotion, empathy and understanding over detached logic. Gilligan saw care and justice ethics as complementary moral orientations.
Walker et al. (1995) found everyday moral conflicts often revolve around relationships rather than justice; individuals describe relying more on intuition than moral reasoning in dilemmas. This raises questions about the centrality of reasoning in moral functioning.
4. Do people make rational moral decisions?
Kohlbeg’s theory emphasizes rationality and logical decision-making at the expense of emotional and contextual factors in moral decision-making.
One significant criticism is that Kohlberg’s emphasis on reason can create an image of the moral person as cold and detached from real-life situations.
Carol Gilligan critiqued Kohlberg’s theory as overly rationalistic and not accounting for care-based morality commonly found in women. She argued for a “different voice” grounded in relationships and responsiveness to particular individuals.
Critics contend that his model does not adequately capture the multifaceted nature of morality in the complexities of everyday life.
References
Bee, H. L. (1994).Lifespan development. HarperCollins College Publishers.
Blum, L. A. (1988). Gilligan and Kohlberg: Implications for moral theory.Ethics,98(3), 472-491.
Day, J. M., & Tappan, M. B. (1996). The narrative approach to moral development: From the epistemic subject to dialogical selves.Human Development,39(2), 67-82.
Gilligan, C. (1977). In a different voice: Women’s conceptions of self and of morality.Harvard Educational Review, 47(4), 481-517.
Gilligan, C. (1982).In a different voice. Harvard University Press.
Gilligan, C. (1995). Hearing the difference: Theorizing connection.Hypatia, 10(2), 120-127.
Jorgensen, G. (2006). Kohlberg and Gilligan: duet or duel?.Journal of Moral Education,35(2), 179-196.
Kohlberg, L. (1958). The Development of Modes of Thinking and Choices in Years 10 to 16.Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Chicago.
Kohlberg, L. (1984).The Psychology of Moral Development: The Nature and Validity of Moral Stages (Essays on Moral Development, Volume 2). Harper & Row
Piaget, J. (1932).The moral judgment of the child. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.
Rest, J. R. (1979).Development in judging moral issues. University of Minnesota Press.
Rosen, B. (1980). Moral dilemmas and their treatment. In,Moral development, moral education, and Kohlberg.B. Munsey (Ed). (1980), pp. 232-263. Birmingham, Alabama: Religious Education Press.
Walker, L. J., Pitts, R. C., Hennig, K. H., & Matsuba, M. K. (1995).Reasoning about morality and real-life moral problems.
Further InformationBBC Radio 4: The Heinz DilemmaThe Science of MoralityPiaget’s Theory of Moral DevelopmentFAQs
Further Information
FAQs
What is an example of moral development theory in real life?An example is a student who witnesses cheating on an important exam. The student is faced with the dilemma of whether to report the cheating or keep quiet.A person at the pre-conventional level of moral development might choose not to report cheating because they fear the consequences or because they believe that everyone cheats.A person at the conventional level might report cheating because they believe it is their duty to uphold the rules and maintain fairness in the academic environment.A person at the post-conventional level might weigh the ethical implications of both options and make a decision based on their principles and values, such as honesty, fairness, and integrity, even if it may come with negative consequences.This example demonstrates how moral development theory can help us understand how individuals reason about ethical dilemmas and make decisions based on their moral reasoning.
What is an example of moral development theory in real life?
An example is a student who witnesses cheating on an important exam. The student is faced with the dilemma of whether to report the cheating or keep quiet.A person at the pre-conventional level of moral development might choose not to report cheating because they fear the consequences or because they believe that everyone cheats.A person at the conventional level might report cheating because they believe it is their duty to uphold the rules and maintain fairness in the academic environment.A person at the post-conventional level might weigh the ethical implications of both options and make a decision based on their principles and values, such as honesty, fairness, and integrity, even if it may come with negative consequences.This example demonstrates how moral development theory can help us understand how individuals reason about ethical dilemmas and make decisions based on their moral reasoning.
An example is a student who witnesses cheating on an important exam. The student is faced with the dilemma of whether to report the cheating or keep quiet.
A person at the pre-conventional level of moral development might choose not to report cheating because they fear the consequences or because they believe that everyone cheats.
A person at the conventional level might report cheating because they believe it is their duty to uphold the rules and maintain fairness in the academic environment.
A person at the post-conventional level might weigh the ethical implications of both options and make a decision based on their principles and values, such as honesty, fairness, and integrity, even if it may come with negative consequences.
This example demonstrates how moral development theory can help us understand how individuals reason about ethical dilemmas and make decisions based on their moral reasoning.
What are the examples of stage 6 universal principles?
Stage 6 of Kohlberg’s moral development theory, also known as the Universal Ethical Principles stage, involves moral reasoning based on self-chosen ethical principles that are comprehensive and consistent. Examples might include:
Equal human rights: Someone at this stage would believe in the fundamental right of all individuals to life, liberty, and fair treatment. They would advocate for and act according to these rights, even if it meant opposing laws or societal norms.
Non-violence: A commitment to non-violence could be a universal principle for some at this stage. For instance, they might choose peaceful protest or civil disobedience in the face of unjust laws or societal practices.
Social contract: People at this stage might also strongly believe in the social contract, wherein individuals willingly sacrifice some freedoms for societal benefits. However, they also understand that these societal norms can be challenged and changed if they infringe upon the universal rights of individuals.
Respect for human dignity and worth: Individuals at this stage view each person as possessing inherent value, and this belief guides their actions and judgments. They uphold the dignity and worth of every individual, regardless of social status or circumstance.
What is the Kohlberg’s Heinz dilemma?
Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education
Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.
Saul McLeod, PhD
BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester
Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.
