Universal Justice/Kohlberg
Lawrence Kohlberg’s Six Stages of Moral Reasoning

 

In the late 1950s, Lawrence Kohlberg began to collect data related to moral questions as a foundation for a 15-year study of moral reasoning. Kohlberg’s study focused on a developmental sequence of stages in moral development. Specifically, Kohlberg introduced a developmental theory for moral reasoning. The theory presents six sequential stages of moral reasoning.

Below is an outline of Lawrence Kohlberg’s three levels and six stages (each level has two stages) of moral development. Your teacher will organize you into working groups to research Kohlberg on the internet. Use the title bar of this page to conduct a Google search. You will find several sites with information that will allow you to understand Kohlberg’s theory.

Take notes on the Student Page as you gather information about the stages of moral development. To show your understanding, be sure to paraphrase and to note examples.

You will use these notes later.


 

Preconventional Morality Level: Give a short description of this level of development.





 

            Stage 1: Name the stage and describe its characteristics.





 

            Stage 2: Name the stage and describe its characteristics.





 

Conventional Morality Level: Give a short description of this level of development.





 

            Stage 3: Name the stage and describe its characteristics.





 

            Stage 4: Name the stage and describe its characteristics.





 

Post-Conventional Morality Level: Give a short description of this level of development.





 

            Stage 5: Name the stage and describe its characteristics.





 

            Stage 6: Name the stage and describe its characteristics.





 

The six stages represent a pattern of thinking which integrates each person’s experience and perspective on specific moral issues.

After reading about Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development examine the following fictional scenario.

 

A nurse named Esperanza has a child who has caught a form of influenza resistant to ordinary antibiotics. He is dying. She knows doctors in the hospital where she works are testing a drug that can save her son’s life. The drug is scheduled to be released to the public in one month. She appeals to the doctors to administer the new, more potent drug known to cure the influenza, but the doctors refuse to allow her to have a life-saving dose of the new drug because the company that owns the drug has forbidden its early release. Esperanza,, determined to save her child’s life, breaks into the laboratory freezer, steals a dose of the drug, and administers it to her dying child.

Should Esperanza have done that?

  

How might a person at each level of development respond to Esperanza’s situation? Provide a reason for your decisions.

 

Level Would she have stolen? Why or why not?
(Use a quote from the text to support)
Preconventional
Morality 		   
Conventional
Morality 		   
Post-
Conventional
Morality 		   

  

 

  • What would you have done in this situation? Why? Which stage does this represent?