Kohlbergs stages of moral development real life examples

Lawrence Kohlberg and the Six Levels of Moral Judgment

Snippet 1

Traditionally, psychology has avoided studying anything that is loaded with value judgments. There is a degree of difficulty involved in trying to be unbiased about things that involve terms like "good" and "bad!" So, one of the most significant aspects of human life—morality—has had to wait quite a while before anyone in psychology dared to touch it! But Lawrence Kohlberg wanted to study morality, and did so using a most interesting (if controversial) technique. Basically, he would ask children and adults to try to solve moral dilemmas contained in little stories, and to do so outloud so he could follow their reasoning. It wasn't the specific answers to the dilemmas that interested him, but rather how the person got to his or her answer.

Heinz's Dilemma

One of the most famous of these stories concerned a man named Heinz. His wife was dying of a disease that could be cured if he could get a certain medicine. When he asked the pharmacist, he was told that he could get the medicine, but only at a very high price—one that Heinz could not possibly afford. So the next evening, Heinz broke into the pharmacy and stole the drug to save his wife's life. Was Heinz right or wrong to steal the drug?

(Source: The above passages of both Kohlberg's work and the Heinz dilemma were taken from Dr. C. George Boeree's terriffic web site.)

Snippet 2

The psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987) didn't think moral behavior should be thought of as a grab bag of virtues, e.g. that being a moral person meant you were honest, upright, and direct, or it could also mean you were hard-working, generous, and fair. Instead, Kohlberg focused on different stages or levels of moral judgment and pinned each level to a particular way of morally evaluating behavior. Based on a series of interviews, Kohlberg developed six distinct levels of moral judgment or reasoning.

Snippet 3

This video will give you some good visual images to clarify the various stages or levels in Kohlberg's theory. But the real treat is watching a clip from the movie Edward Scissorhands. In the film, Johnny Depp, as the title character, puzzles over a moral dilemma posed for him by the great character actor Alan Arkin. Arkin tries to make Edward solve a moral dilemma using his head. But all Edward can do is respond with his heart. In short, Arkin talks Kohlberg while Depp speaks Carol Gilligan. Gilligan was Kohlberg's research assistant, and she criticized him for emphasizing what she considered a male-biased view of morality, one that emphasized rules and principles rather than relationships (More about her in another snippet). The other images in the video will be useful to help you remember the stages in Kohlberg's theory. But in any case, Depp pondering morality in a goofy-looking wig and white pancake make-up is not to be missed.

Last change made to this page, April 11, 2011

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