Chapter 104. Moral Reasoning

1. Psychologist Jean Piaget conducted some of the earliest research on the development of moral reasoning. Piaget observed that young children have a rigid objective morality based on rules and inescapable consequences for breaking the rules. Older children have a more flexible subjective morality that is sensitive to situations, and places more emphasis on the intentions of the person.

2. Building on Piaget’s ideas, psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg proposed that moral reasoning develops through three levels, each loosely associated with the age of the person. Most children make moral judgments at a self-centered level Kohlberg called preconventional morality. Behaviors are considered "right" if they bring the person concrete rewards, and "wrong" if they bring punishment.

3. Kohlberg claimed that older children, and most adults, operate at the level of conventional morality. Here, the emphasis is on laws and social rules. Behaviors are right if friends and family would approve, or if the actions would be good for society. Behaviors are wrong if they break laws or result in social disapproval.

4. Kohlberg thought that only a minority of adults reach the highest level of reasoning, which he called postconventional morality. At this level, behaviors are considered right if they flow from personal ethical principles (an individual’s "conscience") or conform to universal moral goals such as preserving human life.

5. In Kohlberg’s view, as moral development progresses, a person’s focus moves from preconventional self-interest (an action is right if it is good for me) to the wider social world of conventional morality (an action is right if it is good for society). For some people, further development turns the focus back to the self—this time, in the form of postconventional self-chosen moral principles that may violate the standards of family and society (an action is right if my conscience compels me to do it, even if no one else agrees).

6. Kohlberg’s theory has been criticized as biased against females, because postconventional morality pits individual abstract ethical principles (perhaps more appealing to males) against compassion and care for family and society (perhaps more appealing to females). Kohlberg’s theory is also thought to be biased against people from non-western societies, where individualism is less valued. In general, research has supported the existence of a cultural bias; the evidence for a gender bias is not as strong.

7. Other critics of Kohlberg’s theory have pointed out the distinction between moral reasoning and moral behavior. Just because an older teen can make a decision at Kolhberg’s highest level of moral reasoning does not mean that the teen will actually follow through with the appropriate actions. For example, a college student may recognize that cheating on an exam is fundamentally unfair to other students and to the educational process—yet, that student may violate that moral principle when under extreme pressure to get a good grade.

8. Recently, researchers such as Jonathan Haidt have argued that many decisions are actually based on moral intuition (fast, automatic, emotion-based judgments) rather than careful, deliberate moral reasoning. However, when the decision is important and enough time is available, an individual’s characteristic level of reasoning is a good predictor of the outcome.