Stages of Moral

Development
Learning Outcomes:

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

1. Define what moral character is.
2. Understand the components of moral character.
3. Learn the process of development.
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Lawrence Kohlberg was a 20th century psychologist known primarily for his research
into moral psychology and development. 1

1
https://www.goodtherapy.org/famous-psychologists/lawrence-kohlberg.html
Professional Life

Lawrence Kohlberg was born in Bronxville, New York on October 25, 1927.
Kohlberg enrolled in the University of Chicago, and with high examination scores, he was
excused from many required courses and received his bachelor’s degree in just one year. He
received his PhD in psychology from the University of Chicago in 1958. His dissertation was
based on his research into the moral choices of adolescent boys and led to a life devoted to
the exploration of moral and ethical development in young people. 

In 1959, Kohlberg joined the staff of Yale University as an assistant professor of

psychology. In 1962, he returned to the University of Chicago as an assistant professor. Over
several years, he worked as an associate professor and director of Child Psychology Training
Program at the university. The remainder of his career was spent as a professor of education and
social psychology at Harvard University between 1968 and 1987.

Kohlberg married Lucy Stigberg in 1955, and the couple had two sons. Kohlberg died of
an apparent suicide in 1987, after a long battle with depression coupled with painful symptoms
from a tropical parasite he had contracted in Belize in 1971. He parked his car, leaving
identifying documents behind, then walked into the frigidly cold Boston Harbor. 

Contribution to Psychology

Kohlberg’s stages of moral development were influenced by the Swiss

psychologist Jean Piaget’s stage-based theory of development. Kohlberg expanded on
Piaget’s two stages, identifying six stages of moral development. He argued that correct moral
reasoning was the most significant factor in moral decision-making, and that correct moral
reasoning would lead to ethical behavior. Kohlberg believed that individuals progress
through stages of moral development just as they progress through stages of cognitive
development.

STAGES OF MORAL REASONING

How do people reason morally? Why does one person reason this way and another person
in a different manner? A noted psychologist, Dr. Lawrence Kohlberg of Harvard University did a
research and devoted all his life studying the way people do moral reasoning. His interest is in
how people develop and he concluded that people tend to reason in one of six stages at one three
levels. Each stage is an organized way of thinking about moral problems. Each stage rests on
specific principles that give it a distinctive evaluative orientation. Let us briefly go through these
stages in order.

LEVEL 1: PRECONVENTIONAL

STAGE 1: Punishment and Obedience Orientation

A person at this stage judges the goodness or badness of an act by its physical
consequences. A person chose the right thing to avoid punishment: he or she may do the
wrong thing only if there is no chance of getting caught. Such a person is governed both by the
fear of the power of authority and by a submission to that superior power. Moral good or evil,
therefore, is measured in terms of the physical consequences of an act. The good is what is
physically pleasant, enjoying and satisfying. It is what earns reward or escapes punishment. Evil
is what brings physical and psychological punishment, the deprivation of physical satisfaction.

STAGE 2: Personal Usefulness Orientation

This stage of moral thinking is represented by the slogan: “I’ll scratch your back if you’ll
scratch mine,” What is right is what satisfies one’s own needs and occasionally the needs of
others. For example, a person reasoning at this stage may decide to go out of his or her way to do
a good deed for someone else, but only if there might be some reward in it. Here, there is still no
awareness at all of the existence of generalized moral principles that ought to govern personal,
ethical decisions. There is as yet no real appreciating of higher moral ideals like loyalty, justice,
and gratitude.

LEVEL 2: CONVENTIONAL

The pre-conventional level of moral reasoning is usually the level of thinking of

children. The conventional level, on the other hand, represents the moral thinking of the vast
majority of people in our society.

STAGE 3: Interpersonal Sharing Orientation

A person at this stage reasons out moral issues in a way to please and help others in
order to get approval or avoid disapproval. At this stage, one maintains, supports, and justifies
the order within the group. Moral thinking is marked by conformity to the standard ideas of what
is the will of the group to which one wants to gain acceptance. Personal decisions begin to be
justified by stereotyped appeals to the way “everybody” acts. There is also an enhanced
appreciation of the importance of being “nice” to one another, although the personal cultivation
of “nice” behavior is largely motivated by a desire for social approval.

STAGE 4: Law and Order Orientation

A person in this stage, holds the value of obedience to rules for their own sake as
necessary to maintain order. Right behavior here consists of doing one’s duty. What is right is
what maintains the order of the larger social group. Moral thinking at this stage would hold that
any flaws in the system are due to the failure of individuals to obey the system. Moral good is
equated with the faithful and obedient performance of social duty irrespective of the personal
sacrifices involved. There is a conscious need to defend the legitimate exercise of authority and
to preserve the institutional guarantees of social order.

LEVEL 3: POST-CONVENTIONAL

STAGE 5: Social Contract Orientation

In a way, this stage is a further development over Stage 4, just as all the stages are more
sophisticated than the ones that precede them. Here, a person reasons for the principles behind
the laws. The fact that people can both make and change laws is recognized here. One may work
to change the law for the sake of society, especially if the change will make the community more
self-respecting. Law is not seen as something permanently fixed but something that can change
as situations and people change. The conscience now concedes that the legal and institutional
structures of human society are subject to critical review and to improvement. There is, thus, an
enhanced sense both of individual personal rights before the law and of the relativity and
diversity of personal value systems.

STAGE 6: Universal Moral Principles

The most advanced stage of moral reasoning is Stage 6, where the right is a decision of
personal conscience in accord with ethical principles that apply to all persons everywhere. This
principles include justice, the equality and reciprocity of human rights, and the respect for the
dignity of human beings or individual persons. The conscience acknowledges the inadequacy of
both utilitarian and legalistic solutions to ethical problems. There is a new sense that in order to
do one’s duty, one may on occasion be obliged in conscience to stand in opposition to the
existing legal conduct. And with this realization comes commitment to self-chosen ethical
principles for dealing with important moral questions.
 According to Kohlberg, the pace of ethical maturation varies from individual to
individual. Everyone, of course, begins at Stage 1. By age 9, however, most people have passed
through Stage 2 and have entered Stage 3, though some may make the transition later. Entrance
into Stage 4 ordinarily occurs in middle or late adolescence. For Kohlberg, the odds are against
the majority of people ever passing Stage 5. If the transition occurs at all, it does so in the late
teens and early twenties, or possibly even later. Kohlberg believes that relatively few people
even reach Stage 6. If they do, they are usually over 30.