This essay will demonstrate the explanation and the evaluation of two different theories of moral development. Moral development Is related to behavior, and psychologists mean by moral behavior is that the judgment of person. Jean Pigged is the most renowned psychologist for his work on moral development. However, his theory was limited and not developed as Lawrence Kohlrabi’s theory, but Pigged made a favor for Goldberg by provided him the starting point of the studying.
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Starting with Piglet’s theory, which was focused on children and how do they concise right and wrong. It is worth to know that moral development has been divided by Pigged to three age stages, the first stage is pre-moral Judgment which Is from birth to five years old, the second stage Is moral realism, it is also called heterogamous morality, children here are between five to nine years old, the rules In this stage are unchangeable and they are obligatory by others and the punishment Is always harsh.
However the third stage moral relativism which Is also called autonomous morality, children in this stage are older than ten years old, and rules ere can be flexible to accommodate the situation, and the punishment is adjusted to fit the offense. To evaluate Piglet’s theory, it is important to know if his theory has supported evidence or not. Many psychologists’ findings were consistent with Piglet’s theory, like Hoffman (1970) “who confirmed that younger children see rules as moral absolutes”. However,Judith Gamesman (1981, 1985) found that young children about three years old were aware of rules and showed respect.
In addition, an Important question Is that; did Piglet’s theory cover moral development, Pigged did not study hillier beyond eleven years, In opposite of many researchers who found many stages of moral development behind this age. Pigged study who claimed that children at three-year-old cannot take into account. However, Nelson (1980) found that children at this age were able to take into account, also Pigged put this age in pre- moral stage. However, Nelson found that children could make moral Judgments at this age. Moreover, “… – ID-year-olds are capable of questioning parental authority – they believe that parents are justified in making and enforcing rules about moral issues such as stealing, but not in imposing conventional rules” Laps and Turret (1986). Furthermore, Pigged studied few children who were his own or his friends’ children, so this small number of children could not represent all children in the world. Therefore, Pigged study lacked of population validity. It Is also note-worthy that Pigged research was androgenic since he believed that girls’ games were simple. The second theory, which will be illustrated in this essay. s Lawrence Kohlrabi’s Kohlrabies (1967) research, both children and adults were engaged to evaluate their moral reasoning. His aim was to work out how children’s moral Judgment changed while they grew up. In his study, again the participants were males aged ten to thirteen and sixteen year-old in Chicago. Goldberg was focusing on the reasoning not the answers that the boys gave. As a result, he proposed three levels of moral reasoning and each level consist of two stages. Goldberg divided his levels by ages, starting with level one which is pre-conventional morality, this level for children about eight to twelve year-old.
Children’s understanding about how to keep themselves out of trouble is based on their moral thinking. This first stage which is similar to Piglet’s stage of moral realism is about punishment of actions and obedience orientation, so doing anything to avoid punishment, anything wrong, it must be punished. Who has stronger power is obeyed. The second stage is talking about instrumental hedonism orientation, children in this stage start to know that different people have different moral option. This stage is about exchanging of favors. Hedonism is the belief that what is pleasurable is morally good”. The second level is conventional morality and this level is for people around thirteen to sixteen year-old. This level contain stage three and four, starting with stage three which is talking about good boy/girl orientation, so doing what others like and what please them is a good behavior. The fourth stage is about the morality of authority; not the authority of specific people but the authority of norms of the society, so to be a good person you need to obey the law and try to do other’s duty.
The third level is post-conventional morality and this level is for early adulthood onwards, in this level people start to recognize that they can build their own values and norms that they believe it will be better than society norms and ales. This level consist last two stages five and six, stage five illustrated the individual rights and democratically accepted law, so in this stage it is the time for people to know how to deal with laws and manage that when they can ignore it or break it.
The last stage is talking about morality of individual principles of conscience, so individual’s self-chosen ethical principles are the basis of right or wrong definition, now law is not important as much as principles. To evaluate, Goldberg claimed that his stages are universal. Cross-culture studies show the same sequences which evidence and support Kohlrabies theory. However, there are many weaknesses in his study including ethnocentric, he Just studied Western society and leave other societies who have different norms and values.
He also expressed the ideas so it is difficult for participant to put their reasoning in words. Methodologically, Goldberg analyses the answers to his questions, so it is based on his analysis. In addition, Kohlrabies dilemmas were not related to everyday life, and it was difficult for participant to comprehend. Therefore, his theory lacked of ecological validity. Furthermore, Goldberg had a biased sample; he Just had male participants. It is also important to know that does moral development go through six different stages.
Turret (1978-1983) argued that moral development was gradual and continuous not different stages, when people grow up and starting to think and Pigged before him, they did not have and convince evidence that development has stage boundaries. All people’s moral statements will belong to one stage, if moral development passes on through stages. Finally, it is worth to know that both of Pigged and Goldberg broke the four ethical rules; they did not inform the consent, the participants were not able to leave, there were no guarantee to protect the artificial from harms, and they were deceivers.