Kohlbergs Moral Reasoning

Kohlbergs Moral Reasoning

1. Is justice the only aspect of moral reasoning we should consider? Critics have pointed out that Kohlberg's theory of moral development overemphasizes the concept as justice when making moral choices. Factors such as compassion, caring and other interpersonal feelings may play an important part in moral reasoning.

Carol Gilligan, author of In a Different Voice, is one of the most vocal critics of the over emphasis of justice in Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning. The premises of her book also answers Kohlbergs imbalance of the genders as they apply to morality. In her book, she concludes that Kohlberg's results are skewed based on gender, as his deductions are based on the male participants of his study and thus do not represent the whole picture. Gilligan (1982) states that "Given the differences in women's conceptions of self and morality, women bring to the life cycle a different point of view and order human experience in terms of different priorities." (p.22) The book separated the potential differences between men and women in reference to Kohlberg's stages of morality. While men were most likely to attach morality to their perceived rights, women attached their perceived morality to a sense of responsibility and caring. Gilligan's (1982) work further claims that Kohlberg's study doesn't allow women to move out of the third stage of morality, while men do move upwards: Kohlberg and Kramer imply that only if women enter the traditional arena of male activity will they recognize the inadequacy of this moral perspective and progress like men toward higher states where relationships are subordinated to rules (stage four) and rules to universal principles of justice (stage five and six). (p.18) A sense of caring and responsibility may make perfect sense to a female, though a male may think that morality as a responsibility is not concrete enough. With the input of the female point of view, Gilligan's purpose was to show that compassion, caring and interpersonal feelings are important parts of moral reasoning. She

Kohlbergs Moral Reasoning

argues that morality based on compassion and responsibility, which was not specifically addressed by Kohlberg, is equal to his justice based results. At the time it was written, it potentially opened up a huge flaw in Kohlberg's study. It seems like Kohlberg has criticism of women's morality. Good is okay, but it's not good enough. It also negates the compassion and caring role in morality. Puka (1994) asks "How does one amiably combine the punitiveness and aloof judgmentalism of justice with the dialogical struggle and "not hurting" of care?" (p. 135) The question then is does the compassionate answer still result in justice and should it matter? Does the compassionate answer compliment justice, or should justice be replaced with compassion when the question of morality is in place? Justice is based on individuality, dignity and equal rights. It read like a definition of negative freedom, not a roadmap for morality. I think that compassion and caring are better definitions of morality, perhaps because I am woman. If justice is served in the process, it can only compliment the former. This rationale may be true of both genders. Walker (1984) says Despite the fervor of the debate, however, reviews of the research seem to indicate few gender differences in moral reasoning. While Walker has his own critics, his theory does put question to Gilligans work as well as other critics of Kohlberg.

2. Does Kohlberg's theory overemphasize Western philosophy? Individualistic cultures emphasize personal rights while collectivist cultures stress the importance of society and community. Eastern cultures may have different moral outlooks that Kohlberg's theory does not account for.

Several people have done studies to expand on what they believe is Kohlbergs Western biased study on morality. Kohlberg implies that moral judgement is universal across cultures. One of the more recent studies by Lene Arnett Jensen argues that Kohlbergs study is missing key elements of morality based decisions - religion, community, spirituality, and divinity. She claims Kohlbergs study is also missing reference to community and

Kohlbergs Moral Reasoning

interdependence. (Matsumoto, Juang 2012) While its widely agreed that Kohlbergs first three stages of morality are consistent in most cultures, many also agree that the consistency stops there. Its thought that in the last three stages of his morality scale, cultural differences emerge. Jensen (2009) states that The limitation of approaches... is that they are one-size-fits-all models that cannot accommodate culturally diverse definitions of morality, culturally diverse moral reasons, or culturally diverse paths of moral development. Psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner (1994) said that the only consistent stage is the self-oriented morality (stage one). He also claimed that this first stage was the only one that could be considered pre-conventional, where as Kohlberg states the first two stages are pre-conventional. Bronfenbrenner is implying that cultural and ethnic differences affect all stages except the first self interest stage. Moving from stages two to five is a result of exposure to specific moral systems. Bronfenbrenner called this moral pluralism. After reading several studies, its my opinion that culture and environment play a significant role in morality. I think, too that the beliefs within a culture play a role as well. Religion and political ideals may both affect moral decision. I found one article particularly interesting, as it not only found differences of morality in cultures, but found differences within the culture. Edwards (1985) found that answers to moral questions differed when presented to leaders and non leaders within a community. Twelve men, of whom six were considered leaders in the community, and six were considered non leaders within the community, were presented with a question of whether or not it was bad for a father to break a promise to his son. Edwards (1985) states The leaders answers are not only longer and more carefully argued than the nonleaders... their answers also include more focus on the fathers possible motivations for breaking his work, the potential psychological effects on the son, and/or the evolving nature of the father/son relationship. My question is what defined these men as leaders or non-leaders? What part of their upbringing within their culture defined their role as adults? While I find Kohlbergs theory fascinating, it feels like a good start to me rather than an all out conclusive theory. With the published compliment of answers, criticisms and rebuttals to his original work, there seems to be an unending supply of layers to the question and/or source of morality.

Kohlbergs Moral Reasoning

References

Bronfenbrenner, Urie (1995). Ecological Models of Human development. The International Encyclopedia of Education (2nd ed., pp. 1643-1647). New York, NY: Elsevier Science. Gilligan, Carol (1982). In A Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jensen, L. A. (2009). Through Two Lenses: A Cultural-Developmental Approach to Moral Psychology. Developmental Review, 28, 289-315. Matsumoto, D., & Juang, L., (2012). Culture and Psychology (5th ed., pp. 112). Cengage learning. Puka, Bill (1994). The Great Justice Debate: Kohlberg Criticism, Volume 4. Taylor & Francis. Walker, Lawrence (1984). Sex differences in the development of moral reasoning: A critical review. Child Development, 55(3), 677-691