Kohlberg — Moral Development

Overview

Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development is a cornerstone topic in Child Development and Pedagogy for KAR TET. It explains how children and adults progress through distinct stages of moral reasoning—not just what they decide is right or wrong, but *how* they arrive at that judgment. For the exam, you must know the three levels, six stages, and the characteristics of reasoning at each stage.

This theory builds on Piaget's earlier work on moral development but extends it significantly. While Piaget proposed only two stages (heteronomous and autonomous morality), Kohlberg identified six stages grouped into three levels. Understanding Kohlberg helps teachers recognise where students are in their moral reasoning and design appropriate classroom interventions. Expect 2–3 questions on this topic, often asking you to identify the stage from a given scenario or compare Kohlberg with Piaget.

Key Concepts

• **Moral development is stage-based and sequential**: Children progress through stages in a fixed order; no stage can be skipped, though individuals may stop at any stage.

• **Focus is on moral reasoning, not moral behaviour**: Kohlberg studied *how* people justify their decisions, not whether they actually behave morally.

• **Three levels with two stages each**: Pre-conventional (Stages 1–2), Conventional (Stages 3–4), and Post-conventional (Stages 5–6).

• **Heinz Dilemma as research method**: Kohlberg used moral dilemmas (most famously, whether Heinz should steal medicine to save his dying wife) to assess reasoning patterns.

• **Age is a rough guide, not a determinant**: While younger children typically show pre-conventional reasoning and adolescents show conventional reasoning, adults may remain at conventional level.

• **Universal but culturally influenced**: Kohlberg claimed the sequence is universal, though critics note that post-conventional reasoning appears more frequently in Western individualistic cultures.