Kohelberg is a close follower of Piaget. Accordingly, Kohlberg’s theoretical positions, including that on developmental change, reflect those of his mentor.
Kohlberg’s stages
- Level 1. Preconventional Morality
Stage 1. Obedience and Punishment Orientation
At this stage, children think of what is right as that which authority says is right. Doing the right thing is obeying authority and avoiding punishment
Stage 2.Individualism and Exchange
Children are no longer so impressed by any single authority, they see that there are different sides to any issue. Since everything is relative, one is free to pursue one’s own interests, although it is often useful to make deals and exchange favors with others.
- Level II. Conventional Morality
In this level at stage 3 and 4, Young people think as members of the conventional society with its values, norms, and expectations.
Stage 3. Good Interpersonal Relationships
They emphasize being a good person, which basically means having helpful motives toward people close to one
Stage 4. Maintaining the Social Order
The concern shifts toward obeying laws to maintain society as a whole.
- Level III. Postconventional Morality
In this level at stages 5 and 6 people are less concerned with maintaining society for it own sake, and more concerned with the principles and values that make for a good society.
Stage 5. Social Contract and Individual Rights
They emphasize basic rights and the democratic processes that give everyone a say.
Stage 6: Universal Principles
They define the principles by which agreement will be most just.
How development occurs
Here Kohlberg maintains that
- His (Kohlberg) stages are the product of socialization.
In here socializing agents (e.g. parents and teacher) do not directly teach new forms of thinking. That is difficult to imagine them systematically teaching each new stage structure in its particular place in the sequence.
- Then the stages emerge, instead, from our own thinking about moral problems.
Social experiences do promote development but do so by stimulating our metal process. For example, into discussions and debates with others, we find our views questioned and challenged and are therefore motivated to come up with new, more comprehensive positions. New stages reflect these broader viewpoints (Kohlberg et al., 1975).
- Change occurring through role-taking opportunities, opportunities to consider others’ viewpoints (e.g., 1976).
When children interact with others, they learn how viewpoints differ and how to coordinate them in cooperative activities. And when they discuss their problems and work out their differences, they develop their conceptions of what is fair and just.
Whatever the interactions are specifically like, they work best when they are open and democratic. When they feel pressured they will make or formulate their own ideas.
The Stage Concept
Kohlberg criterias :
- Qualitatively different ways of thinking
- Structured wholes
- Progress in an invariant sequence
- Can be characterized as hierarchic integrations
- Cross-cultural universals
This paper also said if Kohlberg’s scale has to do with moral thinking, not moral action. As everyone knows, people who can talk at a high moral level may not behave accordingly.
Kohlberg has also tried to relate his moral stages to other forms of cognition. He has first analyzed his stages in terms of their underlying cognitive structures and has then looked for parallels in purely logical and social thought. For this purpose, he has analyzed his own stages in terms of implicit role-taking capacities, capacities to consider others’ viewpoints (Kohlberg, 1976; see also Selman, 1976, and Rest, 1983)
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