MORAL DEVELOPMENT

Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas believed that…

➢ the judgement regarding the morality of an action is based on the person who did the action.
➢ the goodness of an action can be based on the kind of person who did the action:
o From the intention of an act
o From the character of the moral agent

CHARACTER (comes from the ancient Greek term character, which initially referred to the mark impressed
upon a coin)

➢ a composition of the upbringing of the person.

➢ the whole morality of the person.
➢ the culture or the practices of the person.

A person’s character is the mental and moral character that one possesses which makes him
different from others.
In philosophy, the person’s character refers to the moral aspect of a person.

• ARISTOTLE
➢ In order to give more light to character. Aristotle often used the term ethe. His idea of
character is etymologically linked to “ethics” and “morality”. Aristotle’s concept of
morality is connected with his concept of arete, which Aristotle translated as excellence.
➢ To make the person moral, his action must be an act done in the most excellent way. For
this reason, the Aristotelian concept of excellence is associated with function.

*MORAL CHARACTER IS THE FORCE BEHIND MORAL ACTION

-A person will have a greater value if he/she keeps on acting as a person excellently.
-A human person acting excellently consistently, then he is said to have a great character.

• LAWRENCE KOHLBERG
-was born on October 25, 1927, at Bronxville, New York, USA. Kohlberg was an American
psychologist and educator, who is known for his theory of moral development.

-youngest of four children.

-Father: Alfred Kohlberg- a successful silk merchant of Jewish ancestry.
-Mother: Charlotte Albrecht Kohlberg- a Protestant and a skilled amateur chemist.
-Lawrence Kohlberg chose to live with his father when his parents divorced in 1932 after 11 years
of marriage.

1945 ➢ He finished his studies at Philips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.

➢ He worked on a ship that had been hired by Hagana, the Zionist military
organization, to smuggle Jewish war refugees into Palestine past the
British blockade.
1948 ➢ He enrolled at the University of Chicago and completed Bachelor of Arts
degree in Psychology in one year and his Ph.D. in psychology in 1958.
1968 ➢ He began his teaching career at various academic institutions and, later on,
at Harvard University.
 • KOHLBERG’S THEORIES
➢ both psychology and education are very much influential.

His theory is said to be the only one that provided a very detailed explanation regarding
the moral development of children.
It was only Kohlberg’s work the broke new ground as he focused on cognitive
performance.

• Carol Gilligan
➢ Because it was new, according to the American psychologist, it ignored the distinct
patterns of moral development exhibited by girls. Kohlberg’s work received criticism.
Experiment: The cognitive of females are different from the thoughts of males.

1971 ➢ While doing his research in Belize, he was said to have contracted a
parasitic infection that led him to develop severe illness and
depression for the rest of his life.
January 17, 1987 ➢ He left Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass.
➢ Kohlberg committed suicide and autopsy indicated drowning as the
cause of death, and that no foul play was suspected.

• How did Kohlberg come up with such idea of morality?

➢ He became interested in Jean Piaget’s work regarding the moral development of children.
➢ He agreed with Piaget’s theory of moral development principle wherein he wanted to
develop this further.
➢ In such a case, he used the storytelling technique of Jean Piaget.
He narrated what he called the Heinz Dilemma.

• Jean Piaget
➢ He took the idea that children naturally progress from a form of moral reasoning based
on the consequences of an act (e.g., punishment) to one that takes the actor’s intentions
into account.

HEINZ DILEMMA
In Europe, a woman was near death from a very bad disease, a special kind of cancer. There was one
drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town
had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what
the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2000 for a small dose of the drug.
The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could get
together only about $1000 which was half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying,
and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later, but the druggist said, “No, I discovered the drug
and I’m going to make money from it, Heinz got desperate and broke into the man’s store to steal the
drug for his wife (Kohlberg 1984, 6-7).

In order to prove his point, he interviewed 72 lower and middle-class white boys, from
both middle- and lower-class families in Chicago which were ages 10, 13, and 16.
➢ Would it be morally permissible for Heinz, the poor man to steal medicine for his dying
wife? Yes or No

• RESULT
➢ Kohlberg is not really interested in whether the subject says “yes” or “no” to this dilemma,
but in the reasoning behind the answer.
 ➢ The interviewer wants to know why the subject thinks Heinz should or should not have
stolen the drug. The interview then asks new questions which help one understand the
child’s reasoning.

• WHY OR WHY NOT? (MORAL REASONING)

• Moral philosophy and moral psychology, according to Kohlberg, represent the two basic areas of
inquiry to moral education.

MORAL PSYCHOLOGY ➢ studies what moral development is.

MORAL PHILOSOPHY ➢ studies what moral development ought to be.

➢ For Kohlberg, the is of psychology and the ought of philosophy must be integrated before one can
have a reasoned basis for moral education (Gensler, et al.)

• THE STAGES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT

➢ After presenting to his subjects the Heinz dilemma, he asked series of questions such as:
1. Should Heinz have stolen the drug?
2. Would it change anything if Heinz did not love his wife?
3. What if the person dying was a stranger, would it make any difference?
4. Should the police arrest the chemist for murder if the woman died?

1. PRE-CONVENTIONAL STAGE
➢ Also called the Self-Focused stage because this is concerned with concrete consequences
to individuals, and it is focusing on pursuing a concrete interest while avoiding sanctions.
➢ 9 years old and younger, the moral code is shaped by the standards of adults and the
consequences of following or breaking the rules.

a. STAGE 1 (OBEDIENCE AND PUNISHMENT ORIENTATION)

➢ The orientation to the punishment and reward and to physical and material
power.
➢ At this stage, what is right for the person to do is to obey the rules and avoid
physical damage to persons and property. The reason for making a moral
decision is to avoid punishment (Power, 2018)

b. STAGE 2 (PLEASURE ORIENTATION OR THE INSTRUMENTAL-PURPOSIVE ORIENTATION)

➢ Characterized by hedonistic orientation with an instrumental view of human
relations. The emphasis in this stage is placed on the idea of reciprocity.
➢ “Heinz should steal for his wife, he might go to jail, but he loves his wife.”
➢ “Ig it is a pet you can get a new one, but it is not easy to get a new wife.”

2. CONVENTIONAL STAGE
➢ Characterized by the Group-Focused stage and it is concerned with fulfilling role
expectations, as well as maintaining and supporting the social order. At this level
(most adolescents and adults), we begin to internalize the moral standards of
valued adult role models. Here, authority is internalized but not questioned, and
reasoning is based on the norms of the group to which the person belongs.
 c. STAGE 3 (PEER AND GROUP ACCEPTANCE ORIENTATION)
➢ The “good boy” orientation as it seeks to maintain expectations and win approval
of one’s immediate group.
➢ “If I was Heinz, I would have stolen the drug for my wife. You cannot put a price on
love, no amount of gifts make love, you cannot put a price on life either.”
➢ The reason for helping and for pleasing others is his own need to be seen by the
others as a loyal and caring person, and therefore, a moral person.
➢ In terms of one’s relation to the society, a person in this stage takes the third
person’s perspective; hence, one should be aware of shared feelings and group
expectations.

d. STAGE 4 (SOCIAL STRUCTURE ORIENTATION)

➢ The individual becomes aware of the wider rules of society, no judgements
concern obeying the rules in order to uphold the law and to avoid guilt.
➢ Characterized by an orientation to authority, law, and duty.
➢ The main preoccupation is on how to maintain a fixed order, whether social or
religious. Such order is assumed as a primary value. Marriage = perform legal
duty
➢ A conscientious person will definitely feel bad if he fails to perform his duty and
will feel worse if, instead of performing one’s duty. He becomes the cause of the
destruction of the community.

3. POST-CONVENTIONAL STAGE
➢ Individual judgement is based on self-chosen principles, and moral reasoning is based on
individual rights and justice. Most people take their moral views from those around them
and why a minority think though and ethical principles for themselves.
➢ In this stage, it is here that one examines, adopts, and applies the different ethical
frameworks or principles.

e. STAGE 5 (SOCIAL-CONTRACT ORIENTATION)

➢ It emphasizes on equality and mutual obligation within a democratically
established order.
➢ “I think he was justified in breaking in because there was a human life at stake. I
think that transcends any right that the druggist had to the drug.”
➢ An individual may look at morality as a way of reciprocating the rights of the
individual, the rights of other individuals, and not interfering with the rights of
others.
➢ At this stage, one is concerned that obligations be based on calculations of overall
utility and on what is really good for all.
➢ There is universality in this good reasoning but still within basic human society
and basic human agreements.

f. STAGE 6 (THE UNIVERAL ETHICAL PRINCIPLE)

➢ This is focused on principles of conscience that have logical comprehensiveness
and universality.
➢ For Kohlberg, people will rarely reach this stage.

From Kohlberg’s theory, ethicists have different opinions. The dilemma that he presented
to his young respondents may be unfamiliar to them. In such a case, they should never
know whether Heinz should steal the drug.
Moreover, Gilligan commented that Kohlberg’s theory was based on all-male sample,
which is, in return, based on abstract principles of law and justice. Gilligan mentioned that
this is definitely different from women’s point of view because the latter is based on
principles of compassion and care. Not taking into consideration the point of view of
women can have a great impact in creating a moral theory. ---(major lapses in Kohlberg’s
theory)

Some moralists claims that Kohlberg’s theory is hypothetical. The question raised to him
was: If the respondents were placed in the real situation, would they have the same
decision? Because the dilemma raised is hypothetical, it may not produce a valid result.

Do you think Lawrence Kohlberg’s work and theory are still of great value? Why?