Kohlberg's Moral Development

According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2011, para. 1), “the term ‘morality; can be used either descriptively to refer to some codes of conduct put forward by a society or some other group, such as a religion, or accepted by an individual for her own behavior, or normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.” Studying moral development has been conducted for several years. This study within the past decade has been very popular. The psychology field has been more interested with this type of development because of school violence, such as shootings, and juveniles becoming more involved with drug use. The primary theorist in the study of moral development is Lawrence Kohlberg and psychologists rely on his work. Lawrence Kohlberg (1958) developed a theory of moral development using Piaget’s (1932) theory of moral judgment. His theory focuses on the thought process when an individual has good or bad behavior. However, Kohlberg’s theory is not based on what an individual decides or does but how someone will respond to a moral dilemma. He believed children learn from his or her experiences. Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory is in six stages with three main level of this development. Each of these levels relied on the next. The six stages of his theory are Obedience and Punishment Orientation, Instructional-Relativist Orientation, Good Boy and Nice Girl, Law and Order Orientation, Legalistic Orientation, and Universal, Ethical Orientation. The three levels under these six stages are Preconventional Morality between ages four-ten, Conventional Morality ages 10-13, and Postconventional Morality from adolescence to adulthood. Kohlberg main concern was the moral development of children. This became a major interest not only for psychologist but also educators as well. This developed into his theory that moral development would lead to moral decision making. Kohlberg’s theory

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