Theories of moral development

The Evolution of Moral Reasoning

Just as children differ from adults in their cognitive development, they also differ in the way they construct their reasoning about morality.

Society could not function at all without rules that tell people how they should communicate and how they should avoid hurting others.

Anyone who has been around children has noticed that they are often extremely rigid about rules, seeing everything in black and white.

To a young child, things are either right or wrong, and there doesn't seem to be any kind of middle ground or nuance in their judgments.

This absolutist view changes as we mature and discover that rules can be broken on purpose or that they don't always apply to everyone.

Piaget's Theory of Moral Development

Jean Piaget proposed that there is a direct relationship between the stages of cognitive development and our ability to reason about different moral issues.

According to Piaget, moral development progresses through a series of predictable stages, beginning with very egocentric reasoning.

Over time and with cognitive maturation, this egocentric view evolves into a much more sophisticated system of justice based on cooperation.

This theory explains why young children tend to be much more rigid in their views of right and wrong.

Kohlberg's Levels of Moral Reasoning Theory

Lawrence Kohlberg elaborated and refined Piaget's ideas, creating his own levels of moral reasoning theory, which is one of his most influential.

Kohlberg studied how children and adults reason about the rules that govern their behavior, often using moral dilemmas to assess their level.

He believed that a child could be helped to advance in their level of moral reasoning by interacting with others whose reasoning was one or two levels higher.

He proposed three broad levels of moral development, each with two stages, based on the progressive internalization of rules and ethical principles.

The Preconventional, Conventional, and Postconventional Levels

At the preconventional level, which corresponds to the earliest stages, children obey rules established by others in order to maximize their own self-interest.

Later, at the conventional level, individuals already adopt the rules, believe in the importance of law and order, and seek the approval of others.

Finally, at the postconventional level, which is the highest, people define their own values based on abstract ethical principles they have chosen to follow.