Week Seven Flashcards
morality
Morality (from the Latin moralitas “manner, character, proper behaviour”) is a sense of behavioural conduct that differentiates intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good (or right) and bad (or wrong).
perspectives on moral development
- affective
- cognitive
- behavioural
affective moral development
The affective, or emotional, component consists of the feelings (guilt, concern for others’ feelings, and so on) that surround right or wrong actions and that motivate moral thoughts and actions (moral affect)
cognitive components of morality
· The cognitive component centres on how we conceptualise right and wrong and make decisions about how to behave (moral reasoning)
· How do we make a decision about what is right and wrong.
behavioural components of morality
· The behavioural component reflects how we behave when, for example, we experience the temptation to cheat or are called upon to help a needy person (moral behaviour)
This is what we judge people on.
moral affect
· Moral affect – positive and negative emotions related to matters of right and wrong – can motivate behaviour
· Negative emotions (shame, guilt) can keep us from doing what we know is wrong
· Positive emotions (pride, self-satisfaction) can occur when we do the right thing
- We can use these emotions to guage or control how often we will engage in the type of behaviour. Unpleasant emotions are likely to deter us from doing the behaviour again.
empathy
the vicarious experiencing of another person’s feelings – is an emotional process that is important in moral development
· Critical in moral development. Influences moral reasoning and behaviour.
· Empathy can motivate prosocial behavior – positive social acts, such as helping or sharing, that reflect concern for the welfare of others
- This care is often dependent on empathy
moral reasoning
· Cognitive developmental theorists study morality by looking at the development of moral reasoning – the thinking process involved in deciding whether an act is right or wrong
· What cognitive skills do we employ to determine good and bad
· Moral reasoning is believed to progress through an invariant sequence – a fixed and universal order of stages, each of which represents a consistent way of thinking about moral issues that is different from the stage preceding or following it
Piaget and moral development
· Piaget’s theory of moral development includes three aspects – the premoral period, heteronomous morality, and autonomous morality
Piaget’s moral experiment
· Asked children at various stages how they would respond to moral dilemmas.
· Determined 3 stages of moral development:
· Premoral period
· During the preschool years, children show little awareness or understanding of rules and cannot be considered moral beings
· Heteronomous morality
· Children 6 to 10 years old take rules seriously, believing that they are handed down by parents and other authority figures and are sacred and unalterable
· They judge rule violations as wrong based on the extent of damage done, not paying much attention to whether the violator had good or bad intentions
· Only looks at consequences rather than reasoning.
· Autonomous morality
· At age 10 or 11, most children enter a final stage of moral development in which they begin to appreciate that rules are agreements between individuals – agreements that can be changed through a consensus of those individuals
· In judging actions, they pay more attention to whether the person’s intentions were good or bad than to the consequences of the act
· Used the scenario of the two brothers with the cups- looked at the consequences and the intentions.
Kohlberg
· Lawrence Kohlberg argued that moral growth progresses through a universal and invariant sequence of three broad moral levels, each of which is composed of two distinct stages
HEINZ STEALS THE DRUGS EXAMPLE.
Kohlberg’s levels of morality
· Level 1: preconventional morality- avoiding getting in trouble and receiving rewards.
· Stage 1: punishment-and-obedience orientation - judged as being good or bad depending on the punishment or reward.
· Stage 2: instrumental hedonism
§ An act is good if it meets my needs and incurs a favour from another.
· Level 2: conventional morality- more about social rules.
· Stage 3: “good boy” or “good girl” morality
§ Good is what pleases others.
· Stage 4: authority and social order-maintaining morality
§ Good is what conforms to existing laws and contributes to the good of society.
· Level 3: postconventional morality- emphasis on broader moral principles and principles of justice.
· Stage 5: morality of contract, individual rights, and democratically accepted law
§ Recognition that laws can be unjust.
· Stage 6: morality of individual principles of conscience
§ We are able to take the perspective of each individual in a situation and come up with a solution that is just to all parties.
criticisms of Kohlberg’s theory
· Scoring procedures not sufficiently objective or consistent
· Content of dilemmas too narrow
· Dilemmas not aligned with real-life
· Particularly real life for adolescents.
· No distinction between moral knowledge and social conventions
· Gender and culture bias
other criticisms of moral reasoning theories
· Underestimating the child?
· Piaget’s scenario- confounded intentions with amount of damage done
· Ball throwing scenario
· Nelson (1980) 3 year olds are capable of considering BOTH intentions and consequences when evaluating conduct
moral behaviour
· Is what we do on our own different to how we act when we are being watched?
· According to social-learning theory, moral behavior is learned in the same way that other social behaviors are learned: through observational learning and reinforcement and punishment principles
· Social-learning theorists believe moral behavior is believed to be strongly influenced by the situation
· Due to situational influences, what we do (moral performance) is not always reflective of our internalised values and standards (moral competence)
