Lawrence Kohlberg

• Who is Lawrence Kohlberg?


  American psychologist (1927-87).
• What is the key quote that Lawrence Kohlberg said about conscience?


  “Conscience is a behaviour developed through social interaction.”
• Describe Kohlberg’s stages of moral development:


  • He defined six stages of moral development from birth in three levels (pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional).
• Explain the pre-conventional level:

  The pre-conventional level begins with the ‘punishment and obedience’ stage, at which our understanding of right and wrong is that right is what we are rewarded for and wrong is what we are punished for.
• Explain the conventional level:


  The conventional level begins with the development of good interpersonal relationships, and concludes with the decision to obey society’s rules and thus avoid guilt. Many never get past this stage.
• Explain the post-conventional level:


  The post-conventional level begins with a (utilitarian) recognition that where the needs of individuals and of society conflict, individual needs must give way in order to benefit society as a whole. The final stage is the level of an individualised conscience. The conscience directs that moral choices must be consistent and universalisable (applicable to everybody). To go against the conscience leads to feelings of guilt, so it will be followed even if it leads to imprisonment. Comparatively few reach this level.
• How did Kohlberg reach and test his conclusions?


  Kohlberg reached and tested his conclusions by the use of moral dilemmas, because his method was to test the moral reasoning by which individuals reached their decisions in these dilemmas (not what they decided).
• What is the best known of Kolhberg’s dilemmas?

  The dilemma of Heinz
• What is the dilemma of Heinz?


  • A woman is on the verge of dying from cancer.
  • There is a drug that could help to save her life. It costs $2000.
  • Heinz (husband) is desperately trying to get the drug for her but doesn’t have enough money.
  • He has $1000 but the druggist refuses to give the drug for cheaper or let him pay later.
  • So, Heinz breaks in and steals the drug for his wife.
• How would stage 1 of pre-conventional level respond to the dilemma of Heinz?


  May answer that Heinz shouldn’t steal the drug as stealing’s wrong and he would be put in prison.
• How would stage 5 of post-conventional level respond to the dilemma of Heinz?


  Heinz might take a right-to-life argument that everybody has an equal right to treatment, so Heinz should steal the drug.
• How would stage 6 of post-conventional level respond to the dilemma of Heinz?


  Where people develop their own universal ethical principles, the individual might reason (on Kantian lines) that theft is always wrong, and so refrain from stealing the drug, with the inevitable result that the wife of Heinz would die.
• What do the six stages of moral development show about conscience?


  The conscience as developing and deciding.
• What are the reactions to Kohlberg?


  • Often said that it’s not clear that moral reasoning guides the conscience so much as ‘gut-reaction‘ or intuition.

  —> Here we can see the influence of Hume, whose general view of ethics was that ‘reason should be a slave of the passions‘, and not the other way round.

  —> In other words, you decide what the right thing to do is through your intuition about right behaviour, and only subsequently do you justify that rationally, and only subsequently do you justify that rationally, or sort out how best to put your intuition into effect.