PSYB20H3 Lecture 9: Moral Development
Moral Development
Chap 15
Historical views on morality
- Intuitive sense of right and wrong
- Guides our behaviour and leads us to judge others
- Locke saw children as blank slates that were molded by the environment
- So it was the parent’s job to instill a sense of morality in them
- No innate disposition of good and bad
- Rousseau saw everything as innate
- Children had an innate sense of right and wrong and were born good
- Become bad with lack of support along the good path
- Cognitive approach
- Process of making judgements about the ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of specific acts
- What judgements do you make to decide if smt is good or bad
- Does a child think this is good or bad
- Piaget’s model of moral development
- Would watch kids of different ages play marbles together
- Stage theory:
- Premoral
- Before 4 years
- No moral sensibilities
- Not fully aware of rules
- Don’t really understand or care about the rules
- Just played marbles for fun
- Made up the rules as they went to make sure they
would win
- Heteronomous morality
- 5-10 years
- Rules are unchangeable, non negotiable
- Black and white perspective
- Rules are set by an authority figure
- Teacher, parents
- Rules are moral absolutes
- Moral behaviour is being set by the rules in place
- Focus on consequences, not intent
- Gave them a little story about two boys
- One broke 15 cups attempting to help his mom
- The other broke one cup attempting to steal it
- At this stage, they’d say the helper is worse because he
broke more
- Believe in imminent justice
- You are going to be punished right away in any way
- Even if others don’t know you broke the rule, karma may
happen or smt
- hetero=someone else is making the rules
- Autonomous morality
- auto=now holding internal ideas of morality
- 10+ years
- Rules are just social contract that can be negotiated
- More abstract understanding
- Judgement depends on intent
- Punishment to fit the crime
- Reflective of what happened
- Broke a window? Pay for it
- With the story, these guys would say the thief is worse because
of intent
- Kids acc understand intent earlier than piaget gave them credit for
- Underestimated them, again
- Even at the age of three, they think about intent in some way
- Consequences may just be a bigger factor
- Kohlberg’s model of moral development
- Mid-late 1900s
- Influenced by piaget
- Why do you think an action is good or bad
- Stage theorist
- Have to progress through them in order
- vignettes/moral dilemmas
- Problems with no good answer
- Look at your reasoning for why someone was good or bad
- Too optimistic about how quickly people went through the stages
- Three levels, each with two stages
- Preconventional
- Obedience and punishment avoidance
- Concerned about what’s going to happen to you
- Stage 1: punishment and obedience orientation
- Things that get us punished are bad
- You are bad no matter what if you break the
rules
- Things that don’t get us punished are good
- Older people must be obeyed
- Focused on rules
- Stage 2: naive hedonism
- Things that make us feel good are good and vice versa
- It is fair (moral) to reciprocate both good and bad acts
- Conventional
- Intention behind the action
- Moral judgements are now based on membership in some
reference group
- How you fit in society
- Stage 3: good boy/girl orientation
- Concern for other people
- Motivation determines morality
- intention
- Your concern for others well being
- Stage 4: social order maintaining morality
- Concern for society as a whole
- Interested in the legality of things
- Feel like the laws exist for society to function
- Trust in the law and legal process
- Where you fit in society
- Why rules exist in society
- Cultural level obedience determines morality
- Some cultures see stage three as higher order
moral thinking than stage four
- Postconventional
- There is something larger that rules society
- Stage 5: social contract orientation
- While laws exist for the greater good, there are times
when they work against rights of particular individuals
- When laws violate basic human rights, they should be
challenged
- democracy
- Embodying their own sense of morality
- Internal idea of good and bad
- Own ethical principles
- Stage 6: morality of individual principles of conscience
- Accept that the quest for social justice can force you to
break with conventional rules
