Kohlberg (1969, 1981, 1984) described the development of moral reasoning as a pro- gression through an invariant sequence of six stages. Kohlberg developed the stages based on a research tactic similar to that of Piaget. He presented moral dilemmas in the form of stories to adolescent boys. One of these dilemmas involved a character named Heinz:
In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that the druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make. He paid $400 for the radium and charged $4000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money and tried every legal means, but he could only get together about $2000, which is 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 drug- gist said, “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.” So having tried every legal means, Heinz gets desperate and considers breaking into the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife. (Kohlberg, 1984, p. 640)
The boys were asked to respond to questions, such as the following, about the moral dilemmas posed by the story:
1. Should Heinz steal the drug? Why or why not?
2. Is it actually right or wrong for him to steal the drug? Why is it right or wrong?
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75These children are playing according to the rules of the game. Heteronomously moral children believe that rules are absolute; autonomously moral children realize that rules are social contracts agreed upon by the players.
3. Does Heinz have a duty or obligation to steal the drug? Why or why not?
4. If Heinz doesn’t love his wife, should he steal the drug for her? (If the boy favors not stealing the drug:) Does it make a difference in what Heinz should do whether or not he loves his wife? Why or why not?
5. Suppose the person dying is not his wife but a stranger. Should Heinz steal the drug for the stranger? Why or why not?
6. (If the boy favors stealing the drug for the stranger:) Suppose it’s a pet animal that he loves. Should Heinz steal to save the pet animal? Why or why not?
7. Is it important for people to do everything they can to save another’s life? Why or why not?
8. It is against the law for Heinz to steal. Does that make it morally wrong? Why or why not?
9. In general, should people do everything that they can to obey the law? Why or why not? How does this apply to what Heinz should do?
10. In thinking back over the dilemma, what would you say is the most responsible thing for Heinz to do? Why? (Kohlberg, 1984, pp. 640–641)
What mattered in the interview was not whether the boys felt Heinz should steal the drug but the reasons they gave for Heinz’s actions. These reasons varied from stage to stage (all quotes from Kohlberg, 1984, pp. 49–53, based on Rest, 1968).
The stages of preconventional morality, Stages 1 and 2, focus on self-interest in decision making. The reasons given in Stage 1 centered on obedience and avoiding punishment. Staying out of trouble is the concern that is more important than all others for the Stage-1 thinker, exemplified by this rationale in favor of stealing the drug: “If you let your wife die, you will get in trouble. You’ll be blamed for not spend- ing the money to save her and there’ll be an investigation of you and the druggist for your wife’s death.” Of course, a case also can be made that the best way to stay out of trouble is not to steal the drug: “You shouldn’t steal the drug because you’ll be caught and sent to jail if you do. If you do get away, your conscience would bother you think- ing how the police would catch up with you at any minute.” The Stage-1 thinker is only worried about protecting him- or herself—avoiding punishment.
The Stage-2 thinker has made only a slight advance: he or she is concerned only about his or her own pleasures. What is right is what brings pleasure to the self. Self- interest comes through clearly in this Stage-2 justification for stealing the drug: “If you do happen to get caught, you could give the drug back and wouldn’t get much of a sentence. It wouldn’t bother you much to serve a little jail term, if you have your wife when you get out.” Self-interest can be used to justify not stealing as well: “He may not get much of a jail term if he steals the drug, but his wife will probably die before he gets out, so it wouldn’t do him much good. If his wife dies, he shouldn’t blame himself; it isn’t his fault she has cancer.” By now it should be obvious why Stage-1 and Stage-2 thinking is considered preconventional. An adult offering such justifications would be viewed with dismay by other adults, who long ago rejected such narrow self-interest in decision making.
The stages of conventional morality, Stages 3 and 4, focus on maintaining the social order. The Stage-3 thinker is sometimes thought of as displaying “good boy–
good girl” thinking, which is concerned with helping and pleasing others. This is conformist thinking in the sense of wanting to go along with the majority. Consider this example in favor of stealing the drug: “No one will think you’re bad if you steal the drug but your family will think you are an inhuman husband if you don’t. If you let your wife die, you’ll never be able to look anyone in the face again.” The concern
for the opinion of others comes through in this justification for not stealing the drug as well: “It isn’t just the druggist who will think you’re a criminal, everyone else will, too. After you steal it, you’ll feel bad thinking how you’ve brought dishonor on your family and yourself; you won’t be able to face anyone again.”
Whereas the Stage-3 conventional thinker is concerned with the subjective per- ceptions of others, the Stage-4 thinker is concerned with being in synchrony with the established standards of his or her society. Those in Stage 4 have a deep respect for law and order. The Stage-4 person is concerned with doing his or her duty to coun- try, God, spouse, or whatever else commands allegiance by societal standards. This rationalization in favor of stealing the drug is based on the perception of duty to family members that is expected by society: “If you have any sense of honor, you won’t let your wife die because you’re afraid to do the only thing that will save her.
You’ll always feel guilty that you caused her death if you don’t do your duty to her.”
Consistency with the laws of society comes through in this opposition to stealing the drug offered by another Stage-4 thinker: “You’re desperate and you may not know you’re doing wrong when you steal the drug. But you’ll know you did wrong after you’re punished and sent to jail. You’ll always feel guilty for your dishonesty and law- breaking.”
After some experience with conventional thinking, some come to reject it. The stages of postconventional morality, Stages 5 and 6, are characterized by shared or potentially sharable principles and standards. The Stage-5 thinker views rules and laws in terms of a contract, which is intended to protect the will and rights of others.
Those entering into a contract obey rules as part of a social understanding, rather than because of fear of retribution, respect for authority, or sense of duty. If the social purpose for the rules cannot be fulfilled by obeying them, it is all right to dis- pense with the rules, as ref lected in this opinion that favors Heinz stealing the drug:
“The law wasn’t set up for these circumstances. Taking the drug in this situation isn’t really right, but it’s justified to do it.” The social contract orientation also comes through in this Stage-5 advisement against stealing the drug: “You can’t have every- one stealing when they get desperate. The end may be good, but the ends don’t jus- tify the means.”
Although there was certainly room for debate over the adequacy of the data sup- porting Stages 1 through 5 (Kurtines & Grief, 1974), without a doubt, the greatest challenges were launched at Kohlberg’s proposals about a Stage 6. The Stage-6 thinker did not compromise in respecting the sanctity of life and human freedom.
Kohlberg was especially inf luenced by Rawls’s Theory of Justice (1971) in his portrayal of the Stage-6 thinker, who is described as the ultimately just individual, one who could rationally make decisions without taking self-interest into account. That is, Stage-6 thinkers attempted to make decisions that would be viewed as fair as possible by all parties. That this stage was hypothetical became obvious when Kohlberg admitted that there was no convincing evidence for it (see Kohlberg, Levine, &
Hewer, 1983). This Stage-6 conceptualization in terms of justice continues to be important, however, in that critics of Kohlberg point to his embrace of rationally determined justice as the highest of moral ideals to be narrow, ref lecting both a mas- culine bias and a bias toward Western philosophies.
Most adults would find the thinking that occurs in the stages of preconventional morality unacceptable. On the other hand, the stages of conventional morality repre- sent the type of moral thought most typically observed in adults. Stages 5 and 6, the stages of postconventional morality, are reached by some but not all adults. Thus,
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77the stages are invariant in that to get to Stage 4, one must go through Stages 1, 2, and 3. Achieving Stage 4, however, in no way guarantees achievement of Stages 5 or 6 (nor does achieving Stage 2 assure further progress to Stage 3). A summary view of Kohlberg’s six stages of moral reasoning is depicted in Table 3.3.
Classifying a person into a stage was never clear-cut and Kohlberg’s scoring scheme was revised many times (Dawson, 2002). If you need evidence that the moral judgment interview approach produces ambiguous data, simply respond to the Heinz interview presented earlier. As you struggle to classify the various responses you have to the dilemma, note that Heinz was only one of nine dilemmas and inter- views. Each interview resulted in a mass of data. It was not uncommon at all for the responses of a specific participant to ref lect what became known as stage mixture, with the assignment of a research participant to one particular stage based on the most frequent response category. Using the Kohlberg manuals, arriving at a diagno- sis of someone’s stage level took days and weeks of scoring in some cases!
Fortunately, others such as James Rest (1979; see also Rest et al., 1986) and John C. Gibbs (Gibbs, Arnold, & Burkart, 1984; Gibbs, Basinger, & Fuller, 1992; Gibbs, Basinger, & Grime, 2003; Gibbs, Widaman, & Colby, 1982) validated adaptations of the moral judgment interview that could be scored consistently and more easily than the original Kohlberg instrument. As with the Kohlberg measure, within-person vari- ability in responding was the norm, however, so that a person might offer Stages 3, 4, and 5 responses across dilemmas, with stage mixture even for the same dilemma not uncommon.
People may consistently use different levels of moral judgments to respond to dif- ferent types of moral dilemmas (Wark & Krebs, 1996). In other words, the context of the moral dilemma may exert more inf luence on the moral judgment than Kohlberg originally hypothesized. Some researchers have extended the study of the inf luence of context on moral reasoning to the school setting. For example, Thorkildsen and her colleagues interviewed children and adolescents to assess their conceptions about the justice of typical instructional and school practices. This research revealed that stu- dents possess diverse theories about what was fair and just in the classroom context, with some evidence of developmental progression (Thorkildsen, 1989; Thorkildsen, Nolen, & Fournier, 1994; Thorkildsen, Sadonis, & White-McNulty, 2004). Kohlberg’s theory continues to inspire investigations of processes related to moral judgment. See the Considering Important Questions special feature (Box 3.3) for a summary of recent research on the development of forgiveness.
TABLE 3.3. Summary of Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Reasoning Preconventional morality: focus on self-interest
Stage 1 Focus on obedience and avoiding punishment Stage 2 Focus on obtaining rewards or pleasure Conventional morality: focus on maintaining social order
Stage 3 Focus on being a good boy or a good girl Stage 4 Focus on law and order
Postconventional morality: focus on shared standards and principles Stage 5 Focus on social contract
Stage 6 Focus on principle
Gender Differences in Moral Reasoning
Carol Gilligan (1982) raised concerns about the generalizability of Kohlberg’s theory to women in her book In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Develop- ment. Gilligan argued that females were much more likely than males to consider issues of interpersonal caring and person-to-person connections as they reasoned about moral dilemmas, consistent with other thinking that care is a much more important issue for women than for men (Brabeck, 1989; Noddings, 1984; see also Chapter 11). This conclusion was based on an examination of reasoning by males and females over many issues involving moral decisions.
The differences between reasoning based on caring versus rationality can be appreciated by review of some responses to the Heinz dilemma presented ear- lier. Female responses are more likely than male responses to include arguments such as “ . . . I think he [the druggist] had the moral obligation to show compassion in this case . . . ” (p. 54), “ . . . if she [Heinz’s wife] dies, it hurts a lot of people and it hurts her . . . ” (p. 28), “ . . . you have to love someone else, because you are insepara- ble from them . . . that other person is part of that giant collection of everybody”
(p. 57), and, “Who is going to be hurt more, the druggist who loses some money or the person who loses her life?” (p. 95). The females in Gilligan’s studies raised issues about compassion, connection, and concerns about minimizing hurt.
Gilligan recognized that the scoring scheme devised by Kohlberg was sensitive to thinking based on rationality and justice but insensitive to thinking strategies based on the human, interpersonal consequences of the possible actions. Gilligan contended that, at a minimum, the traditional analyses of moral judgment missed the rich diversity of thinking about moral issues, something apparent in studies con- ducted in response to Gilligan’s (1982) book.
For example, the adult participants in one study (Lyons, 1988) were asked,
“What does morality mean to you?” They were also asked to describe themselves in relation to others and to talk about their own real-life moral conf licts and issues.
Consistent with Kohlberg’s work, the participants in the study talked about objective relations between people, duties and obligations, rules and standards—a morality of justice. Participants also discussed a morality of response and care, however, as pre- dicted by Gilligan’s theory. Consistent with Gilligan, the morality of justice predomi- nated in men’s responses, whereas response and care predominated in women’s answers. In fact, about one-third of men made no references to response and care, and about one-third of women made no references to justice issues. Two-thirds of the research participants, however, represented both moralities in their responses, so that a scoring scheme based on justice alone would have misrepresented the moral reasoning of two-thirds of the men and all of the women.
Evidence of a sex difference was also obtained in a series of studies involving upper-middle-class adolescents and adults (Gilligan & Attannucci, 1988). The partici- pants were asked to identify an occasion when they were in a moral conf lict and describe what they did, followed by ref lection on whether their action was appropri- ate and why they thought their actions were justified or should have been different.
The interview data were then analyzed for the types of moral considerations expressed by the participants. Justice considerations predominated in the responses of two-thirds of the males, with all but one of the remaining third offering a mixture of justice and care considerations. In contrast, slightly more than one-third of females focused on issues of care, a little less than one-third focused on justice con-
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79Considering Important Questions
BOX 3.3. How Does Forgiveness Develop?
Robert Enright and his colleagues (1994, 2001; Enright & Fitzgibbons, 2000) have studied the development of forgiveness. They asked students in grades 4, 7, and 10, and in college, as well as adults, to respond to modified versions of the types of moral dilemmas used by Kohlberg in his research. The modification involved changing the story so that the lead character was hurt emotionally by the end of the story. For example, in the Heinz story, Heinz was unable to steal the drug from the greedy druggist and his wife died. The students were asked about whether Heinz should forgive the druggist and about the role of forgiveness in the following: revenge, restitution, peer and authority pressure, and social harmony. They were also asked about unconditional forgiveness—forgiveness that occurs without getting something in exchange and without external social pressure.
Enright and his colleagues described a developmental progression moving from condi- tional to unconditional forgiveness. That is, granting forgiveness in exchange for something is less advanced than forgiving in response to pressure which, in turn, is less advanced than unconditional forgiveness.
Although Enright found stage mixture in the responses, the participants’ answers could be related to six stages (Enright & Human Development Study Group, 1994, Table 1):
• Stage 1: Revengeful forgiveness. “I can forgive someone who wrongs me only if I can punish him or her to a similar degree to my own pain.”
• Stage 2: Conditional or restitutional forgiveness. “If I get back what was taken away from me, I can forgive.” Or, “If I feel guilty about withholding forgiveness, I can forgive to relieve my guilt.”
• Stage 3: Expectational forgiveness. “I can forgive if others pressure me to forgive; I for- give because other people expect it.”
• Stage 4: Lawful expectational forgiveness. “I forgive because my religion (or other insti- tution) demands it.” (Note this differs from Stage 2, in which forgiveness is to relieve guilt about withholding forgiveness.)
• Stage 5: Forgiveness as social harmony. “I forgive because it restores harmony or social relations in society.” Forgiveness decreases friction and outright conflict in society; it is a way of maintaining peaceful relations.
• Stage 6: Forgiveness as love. “I forgive because it promotes a true sense of love.
Because I must truly care for each person, a hurtful act on his or her part does not alter that sense of love.” This type of relationship keeps open the possibility of reconciliation and closes the door on revenge. Forgiveness no longer depends on a social context, as at Stage 5. The forgiver does not control the other by forgiving, but he or she releases the other.
Enright found a strong relationship between stage level and age, with older participants reasoning about forgiveness at a higher level than younger participants. A modest relationship existed between the level of reasoning about forgiveness and the individual’s moral reasoning in general, suggesting some overlap between the two types of reasoning but considerable in- dependence as well.