MORAL DEVELOPMENT

Moral Development

Moral Development

This paper briefly explains Lawrence Kohlberg's six stages of moral development and then relates these stages to a case study of a woman, suffering from a rare cancer.

Kohlberg's theory makes two very bold claims: (a) that the basic problem-solving strategies used by people the world over can be boiled down to just a few--six; (b) that the six problem-solving strategies--his six stages--comprise a developmental sequence such that all people start out using Stage 1 reasons, then move to Stage 2, then Stage 3, and so on.

Six Stages in the Concept of Cooperation

The following are the six stages of cooperation, as described by Kohlberg.

Stage 1: The morality of obedience

Stage 2: The morality of instrumental egoism and simple exchange

Stage 3: The morality of interpersonal concordance

Stage 4: The morality of law and duty to the social order

Stage 5: The morality of consensus-building procedures

Stage 6: The morality of non-arbitrary social cooperation (Rest, 2007, 25)

Now turning on to the case of the suffering woman, whose husband firstly tries to win the trust of the other people (the doctor and the pharmacist in this case) hence, at Stage 1, At Stage 1, being "good" is being obedient to the demands of superior others readily applies to the situation of the case.

At Stage 2, "doing good" comes to mean "doing what is instrumentally satisfying to me," not doing what another person demands. Although Stage 2 sees everyone as self-centered, it still has a conception of how people can cooperate (Rest, 2007, 26). At stage 2, the husband of the patient tries to make short-term deals with his friends exchanging favor for favor. Cooperation in this case has become the simple exchange of favors and fairness comes through with husband's side of the bargain.

Stage 3 morality then is the ...