Moral Reasoning Flashcards
Punishment and Obedience (should end at age 3)
Avoidance of punishment is the key motivation.
This person submits to power and authority in order to avoid punishment.
Personal Usefulness
Satisfies one’s own needs and occasionally the needs of others.
“You’ll scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”
What two stages focus on the self?
Personal Usefulness and Punishment and Obedience
What two stages focus on the group?
Conforming to the will of the group and Law and Order
What two stages focus on principles?
Personal Conscience and Social Contract
Conforming to the will of the group
Pleases or helps others and gets approval from them.
Conforms to standard ideas of appropriate behaviour.
Law and Order
One seeks obedience to rules for their own sake as necessary to maintain order.
One’s duty and respecting authority.
Flaws are because people failed to obey
Social Contract
Society agrees to the general values of the law.
Laws are justified on the basis of general principles.
“I do what I do because”
1) to avoid a negative consequence
2) to get what I want
3) the group I belong to or that I want to belong to, does it
4) authority says should or must
5) the rules exist for a reason and the reason is important
6) it’s the right thing to uphold human dignity (write down the principle at play)
Personal Conscience
Choices are grounded in genuine moral interest in the well-being of others, regardless of who or where they are.
“Abstract ethical principles that apply to all persons everywhere”
“principles of justice” and “respect for the dignity of human beings as individual persons.”
Write down the principle at play
People move from stage to stage of moral growth as they mature
Can not be in two stages at a time, nor skips a stage. But may slip back a stage or two.
Some people never go beyond stage one or two.
Make good choices to grow
Who created these stages?
Lawrence Kohlberg
Stages 1-4 are immature because the individual lacks critical thinking skills.
Good people have similar value traits but grew up different.
Psychology says that, the person doing the action sees a benefit to doing it.
