THEORIES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENTS

  Kohlberg’s Theory

Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987) suggested three levels of moral development. These levels are distinguished by the reasoning and motivation of an individual in response to moral questions.

1. Pre-conventional Level: In this level the right conduct is one which directly benefits a person. The motivation behind this conduct is self benefit, avoidance of punishment or submission to an authority and power. The example is conduct of young children and a few adults.

1. Conventional Level: In this level, the yardstick for good conduct is the norms of the family and society. Such norms are accepted without any critical examination. The individuals at this level are out to please others and unconditionally submit to the societal norms regardless of their own interests. According to Kohlberg some people do not go beyond this level of moral development.

1. Post Conventional Level: This level is attained when an individual regards the standard of right and wrong as a set of principles concerning rights and the general good without consideration of self-interest or social conventions. Kohlberg calls these individuals autonomous because they think for themselves and do not assume that customs are always right. They believe in the Golden Rule “Treat others as you would like to be treated by them”. Their motivation is to do what is morally reasonable and which does not affect their moral integrity and self respect and the respect of rationally thinking individual.

Kohlberg’s scheme requires development of rational thinking and moral reasoning without undue influence of prevalent societal conventions. But this morally responsive attitude develops out of the childhood influences of parental treatments, religious beliefs, the exposure to customs, traditions, cinema, TV, literature in the development of morally autonomous individual. This early childhood training makes the individuals grow beyond the first two levels of moral development.

But Kohlberg’s theory has snags. It cannot prove that the moral development takes place according to these stages as even Kohlberg admits that very few people, and not the majority, qualify to the moral autonomy stage. At best Kohlberg assumes that moral development should take place according to these levels. This led to the development of another moral development theory i.e. (Carol) Gilligan’s Theory.

Gilligan’s Theory

Gilligan was a student and colleague of Kohlberg who strongly disagreed with Kohlberg’s findings in following respects:

1. She says that Kohlberg’s studies are distorted by male bias. Not only he conducted his studies primarily with male subjects, but also he approached his studies with a typically male pre-occupation with general rules and rights.

1. She suggests that there is a tendency for men to be more interested in trying to solve moral problems by putting more emphasis on most important moral rules which ignore other moral rules relevant to the dilemma.

1. On the contrary women try harder to preserve personal relationships with all people involved in a situation and put more emphasis on the context in which dilemma arises rather than invoking general rules. Gilligan refers to this context-oriented approach on maintaining personal relationships as the‘Ethics of care’ rather than the ‘Ethics of rules and rights’.

She used the example of Kohlberg of Heinz’s wife suffering from cancer and the Pharmacist giving medicine at a very high price and not ready to offer it cheaper and on deferred payment. To save the life of his wife he commits a theft in the pharmacy. Kohlberg ranked the subjects according to kind of reasoning they gave about resolving the dilemma.

1. The subjects who said Heinz did a wrong thing by breaking the law is reasoning at Conventional Level in which right conduct is regarded as simply obeying the law.
2. Those who said that Heinz did a right thing as according to their religious belief, human life is sacred and should be saved are also at Conventional Level.
3. Those who said wife’s right to life is more important than the property rights of the pharmacist are reasoning at the Post-conventional Level according to Kohlberg.
4. Women were in majority at the Conventional Level as they were hesitant to encourage stealing and were in favour of alternate solutions of convincing pharmacist or raising money. According to Kohlberg women were mostly reasoning at conventional level and hesitant to apply the principle of ‘right to live’ for the woman.

Gilligan drew different conclusions from Kohlberg’s observations. She saw importance of context-oriented personal relationships in resolving moral dilemmas instead of following rigid and abstract general/universal rules and rights.

Gilligan’s scheme of moral development is as under:

1. The Pre-Conventional Level:  This is roughly the same as Kohlberg’s first level in that the person is preoccupied with self-centered reasoning. Right conduct is viewed in a selfish manner as solely what is good for oneself.

1. Conventional Level: In this level, there is preoccupation of not hurting others and sacrificing own interest for others. Women conventionally are ready to sacrifice their own interests, comfort and rights in order to serve the needs of others.

1. Post-conventional Level: At this level individuals try to strike a reasoned balance between caring others and looking after their own interests while exercising one’s rights. The aim is to balance one’s own needs with the needs of others, while maintaining relationships based on mutual caring. This is achieved through context-oriented reasoning rather than strictly following the rules.

In our opinion both theories have their own merits. The context orientation and personal relationships are as important as following the general principles and safeguarding the rights.