대학저널

[ 1 ]
How children learn to make judgments about what is right and wrong is an aspect of cognitive development. Piaget included the study of moral development in his theory, arguing that morality is related to cognitive awareness. Like Piaget's approach, Lawrence Kohlberg offered a theory, moral development which moves from one stage to another in an orderly fashion. Kohlberg's database comes from the responses made by young boys who were asked questions about stories that involve a moral dilemma. A commonly cited example concerns whether a man should steal a drug to save his wife's life after the pharmacist who invented the drug refuses to sell it to him. Should the man steal the drug; why or why not? On the basis of responses, Kohlberg proposed three levels of moral development. For example, a child who says that the man should not steal the drug because “he'll get caught and be put in jail" is at the first, pre-conventional, level of reasoning because the prime interest of the child is simply with the punishment that comes from breaking a rule. A child who says that the man should steal the drug because "It will make his wife happy, and probably most people would do it anyway" is reflecting a type of reasoning at the second, conventional, level because the judgment is based on an accepted social convention, and social approval matters. The argument that "he shouldn't steal the drug for a basically selfish reason, which in the long run would just promote more stealing in the society in general" is a moral reasoning at the third, post-conventional, level because it reflects complex, internalized standards. Notice that what matters most is not the choice the child makes, but the reasoning behind the choice.

< Questions >
1. Explain the three levels in your own words.
2. How did Lawrence Kohlberg arrive at the theory?
3. Have you seen any practical uses for the theory?
4. What is this passage intended to explain?
5. Tell a story about a moral dilemma and indicate responses at each of the three levels.