Lesson 2 Flashcards
Kohlberg
-Conscience as a result of Social Interaction
-L. Kohlberg (American Psychologist 1927-87) – Dr. of child development, tested his theories by using moral dilemmas to understand a person’s moral reasoning.
Pre conventional level
Pre-Conventional Level: established in childhood through reward and punishment – right behaviours are rewarded and wrong behaviours are punished.
Conventional level
Conventional Level: the development of good relationships with others leads people to want to obey the rules of society to avoid guilt.
Post conventional level
Post-Conventional Level: Utilitarian understanding that good for society is more important than good for individuals. This leads to the development of an individual conscience that makes consistent choices for the good of everyone. This is Kantian in nature as choices become universalizable.
Kohlberg - interviews
-Theory of Moral Development derived from interviews with young boys (ranging from early childhood to adolescent) asking them to consider moral dilemmas (famously the Heinz dilemma).
-The interviews suggested a progression in moral reasoning, meaning as children grow up, they go through a series of stages in life, which help morality develop.
-Kohlberg said there were 6 stages of moral development, split into three sections
Pre conventional stages
- Avoid punishment
- Obtain rewards
Morality is externally controlled; children accept & believe rules imposed by authority figures. They focus on external consequences of actions.
Conventional stages
- Belong and be accepted
- Obey rules and regulations
Morality is concerned with social conformity. Shift from self-interest to social systems. Seeking social approval, positive relationship & maintain social order. Seeking acceptance.
Post conventional stages
5.make and keep promises
6. Live moral imperatives
Morality is concerned with justice.
Judgements may conflict with societal standards.
May disobey rules that are not consistent with moral values.
Concern for the common good and genuine interest of the welfare of others.
Universal principles such as dignity, justice, respect, equality.
Heinz dilemma
-Somebody on stage 1 of Kohlberg’s pre-conventional level might answer that Heinz should not steal the drug because stealing is wrong and he would get put in prison.
-On stage 5, at the post-conventional level, Heinz might take a right-to-life argument that everybody has an equal right to treatment, so Heinz should steal the drug.
-On stage 6, where people develop their own universal ethical principles, the individual might reason (on Kantian lines) that theft is always wrong, and so refrain from stealing the drug, with the inevitable result that the wife of Heinz would die.
-In such processes of moral reasoning and decision, then, worked out in social contexts (such as that of Heinz), we can see the conscience developing and deciding.
A Kohlberg dilemma
-Kohlberg reached and tested his conclusions by the use of moral dilemmas, because his method was to test the moral reasoning by which individuals reached their decisions in these dilemmas.
-In a typical Kohlberg dilemma, the needs of two individuals are in conflict with each other, so that either by acting or not acting, there will be a negative outcome for one of the parties in the dilemma.
-In solving the conflict, the individual (given little additional information) is forced to imagine the consequences of different courses of action, and Kohlberg used the data he accumulated by these tests to locate each participant in one of the levels of reasoning described on the previous slide.
-Probably the best known of Kohlberg’s dilemmas is that of Heinz.
