Lawrence Kohlberg’s experiments gave children a series of moral dilemmas to test how they differed in their responses across various ages. He identified three separate stages of moral development from the egoist to the principled person. Some people do not progress through all the stages and remain “morally undeveloped.”
The Heinz Dilemma
Kohlberg was curious to see how and why children differed in their ethical judgements, and so he gave roughly 60 children, across a variety of ages, a series of moral dilemmas.
- They were all given open-ended questions to explain their answers in order to minimize the risk of leading them to a certain response.
Stages of Moral Development
Pre-conventional stage: This is characterized by an ego-centric attitude that seeks pleasure and to prevent pain.
- In this stage, “good” is defined as whatever is beneficial to oneself, and “bad” is whatever is harmful to others.
- Conventional Stage: This stage reflects a growing sense of social belonging and hence a higher regard for others. Approval and praise are seen as rewards, and behavior is calibrated to please others, obey the law, and promote the good of the family/tribe/nation.
- This stage is much more rule-focused and comes along with a desire to be seen as good.
How morally developed are you?
Kohlberg identified these stages as a developmental progression from early infancy all the way to adulthood, and they map almost perfectly onto Jean Piaget’s psychology of child development
- Pre-conventional stage lasts from birth to roughly nine years old, the conventional occurs mainly during adolescence, and the post-convention goes into adulthood
- This is not fatalistic timetable to which all humans adhere
- Some people never progress or mature
- It’s quite possible, maybe, for someone to have no actual moral compass at all
- More commonly, though, we all know people who are resolutely bound to the conventional stage, where they care only for their image or others’ judgment
