Moral Development

1958

Lawrence Kohlberg (1927–1987)

We all must make moral choices in life. Psychologist Larry Kohlberg, who clearly articulated the development of moral judgment, had spent time helping to smuggle Jewish refugees into the British-controlled Palestinian territory. He did so because he believed that helping to establish a Jewish state served a higher moral purpose than obeying British law.

Kohlberg devoted his life to understanding how moral principles develop. In his 1958 doctoral dissertation, he first reported his studies of how humans resolve moral dilemmas. He then spent the rest of his career exploring the implications of his theory. He presented moral dilemmas to people of different ages and then analyzed their responses. His classic moral dilemma was the following:

Heinz’s wife is near death from cancer. A local druggist has invented a drug that could save her life, but is charging $2,000 for it, ten times what it cost him to make it. Should Heinz steal the drug to save the life of his wife or should he obey the law and let his wife die for lack of the drug? Why or why not?

Analyses of participants’ responses led Kohlberg to argue that moral development proceeds through six stages. Young children use preconventional reasoning marked by an emphasis on avoiding punishments and getting rewards. The first stage is oriented to punishment and obedience, and its most important value is obedience in order to avoid punishment. In stage two, reasoning is based on taking care of one’s own needs. Adolescents and most adults develop conventional moral reasoning that emphasizes social rules: the next two stages proceed from defining moral behavior as that which pleases others (stage three) to defining it as being a good citizen who obeys the law (stage four). Finally, some adults develop postconventional moral judgment: this has two stages, beginning with morality based on a social contract that is always negotiable (stage five). Universal ethical principles are the basis of the highest form of moral judgment (stage six). Here a person is guided by values that transcend law and social convention; Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. are two examples of this highest stage. Although Kohlberg’s last stage is not recognized by all his peers, it has led to further studies of the highest levels of moral reasoning.

SEE ALSO Genetic Epistemology (1926), Ecological Systems Theory (1979)

Gandhi, who reached Kohlberg’s highest stage of moral development, uses a spinning wheel in this late 1920s photograph.