Moral Development And Moral Judgement

Rest, J., Turiel, E., & Kohlberg, L. (1969). Level of moral development as a determinant of

Kohlberg’s theory of moral development is an adaptation of the development theory of Jean Piaget. Piaget studied many aspects of moral judgment, most of his findings fit into a two stage process of moral development. Put into the simplest of terms, Stage 1: children younger than 10 or 11 years think about moral dilemmas one way and Stage 2: older children consider them differently.

Lawrence Kohlberg, a developmental psychologist, identified six developmental stages of human moral reasoning. The first stage that he recognized was the Punishment-Obedience Orientation, where the person’s concern is for avoiding punishment through obedience. The second stage was the Instrumental Relativist Orientation, where the person’s concern is to work in their self interest, and better their position. The third stage of moral development was the Good Boy-Nice Girl Orientation, where the person’s concern lies with their reputation. Next was the Law And Order Orientation, where the person was less concerned with their own immediate well being to the maintenance of a larger society. The fifth stage was the Social Contract

Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development has served as basis of the investigation of many issues related to morality. Building on Piaget’s belief that the moral judgment of children derived from their cognitive development, Kohlberg attend to identify cognitive stages that underline the development of moral thinking.

Patricia S. Churchland 's book entitled Braintrust: What Neuroscience tells Us About Morality, takes us on a walk through the scientific advances in evolutionary biology, genetics and neuroscience that have lead us to the question of wether morality can be explained or justified by science. The goal being an attempt at creating a framework for which to understand human morality. Churchland, a professor at the University of California San Diego in her book asks what is morality? Is it divinely inspired, or instinct, or an abstract set of rules? She argues, that a real understanding of morality begins with an understanding of the brain.

The link between morality and human nature has been a progressive reoccurring theme since ancient times (Prinz, 2008). Moral development is a characteristic of a person’s general development that transpires over the course of a lifetime. Moral development is derived by a wide variety of cultural and demographic factors that appear to influence morally relevant actions. Turiel (2006) defined morality as an individuals “prescriptive judgments of justice, rights, and welfare pertaining to how people ought to relate to each other.” Individuals’ moral judgments are frequently considered to be a product of culturally specific controls that provide a framework for behavioral motivations that are sensitive to the effects of gender, education, religion and politics (Banerjee, Huebner & Hauser, 2010). While several approaches have been utilized to examine the interaction of multivariate contributors to fundamental moral differences such as: disputes about family life, sexuality, social fairness, and so on, research has suggested that ideological considerations have provided a potent and diverse explanation for the polarization of contrasting views (Weber & Federico, 2013).

The neurological advancement is most basic to making great judgments. Moral and moral choice .

Moral development is mostly a concern of every parent. Parents wants their children to well behaved, respected and disciplined. Hence they work hard from infancy through adulthood to build morality in them. It is the development of establishing objective norms and standards of behaviors. This view provides the basic structure of character such as kindness, honesty, courage, dedication, etc. that is analyzed and cooperated. Development of morality is construct by multiple factors. Children 's interpersonal experiences with family, peers, and other adults, as well as their physical, cognitive, emotional and social skills combine to effect moral development. According to the text book “A chronological Approach”, self-control is one of the first step of moral development because it teaches children that they cannot get everything they wanted. There must be limitations and pros and cons which they must be respected. Similarly, there are multiple factors

The frontal lobe, especially the pre-frontal cortex, is the area of the brain that controls reasoning, decision-making and “guide planning, problem solving, and judgment” (Ashford, p. 426). This part of adolescent’s brains are not fully developed and therefore do not work the same was as adults’ brains. The “cognitive functions like problem solving, maturity, and insight are still developing in adolescence.” (Ashford, p. 426). Adolescents are not able to regulate the “socioemotional parts of the brain, particularly when in the presence of peers or when under emotional stress” (Burillo, p. 7). It is important to recognize that moral reasoning is also part of the pre-frontal cortex and adolescents have not reached the highest level of ethical

The emotion disgust is an omnipresent feeling that dwells inside every person. Previous studies have shown that there are relationships between disgust and the moral domains outlined in (Graham, Nosek, Haidt, Iyer, Koleva & Ditto 2011). This study looks at four domains in particular and attempts to confirm previously proposed associations as well as develop others. It was hypothesised that Disgust Propensity would be positively correlated with each of the four domains. The participants, who were 596 undergraduate students, were instructed to complete several online questionnaires relating to the study.(This The vast majority of findings were consistent with past literature. The results indicated a significant positive correlation for all of the moral domains except Harm. Since some of the results were barely significant it would be beneficial to alter some of the methodology and rerun the study to grasp a better understanding of potential relationships between disgust and the moral domains.

Chenbo Zhong and Katie Liljenquist prior to this study saw aspects of life where cleansing one’s self would make one more morally pure. One pattern they found was religious practices. In some religions, physical purity/cleanliness created moral purity. In Christianity, baptisms are when water is poured on a baby’s head to represent the washing away of original sin. Another thing that they found interesting was the evolution of the word disgust. Disgust was originally used in relation to food that was hazardous or distasteful, now the definition has expanded to social and moral acts. While pure disgust and moral disgust means two different things, the mental, facial, and physical reactions suggest that there are similarities between the two. This led Zhong and Liljenquist to think about two questions: If our moral purity is threatened, do we feel the need to cleanse ourselves physically?; If you clean yourself, do you feel like you have successfully mentally

Typically little children tend to behave this way but some adults use this type of moral thinking in their daily lives. Using this type of behavior is usually due to situations where the situation may be wrong but the action was provoked by the person 's definition of fair or the right thing to do no matter what. The question that may be asked while thinking in this manner may be, “What must I do to avoid pain, gain pleasure?”(“Kohlberg 's Stages of Moral Development”). In this stage, making a decision that leads to a positive outcome clearly shows increase in the hierarchy of moral development that can be seen in level 3!

The second level of moral development is the conventional moral reasoning; “Beginning in middle school, up to middle age – most people end up here” (“Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development.”). At this level,

Ethical judgment, in our everyday lives, is acquired via a complex combination of cultural background, particular workplace, past experiences and so on. The purpose of this essay is to examine two competing ethical concepts and approaches I used to evaluate my own moral development. In addition, this essay also conducted to analyze how my ethical being assist me to deal with moral dilemmas in two different work context: a commercial website in 2004 and a local government website in 2008.

The theory of moral development, advanced by psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg is one of the most well-known persuasive theories in the field of cognitive science and stems from the work of Jean Piaget, which hypothesizes on the direct correlation that exists between moral and cognitive development. Kohlberg speaks of the appearance and understanding of what is right and wrong from childhood to adulthood and explains by this transition through the identification of various levels of morality known as pre-conventional, conventional and post conventional. People will make decisions based on the understanding of the possible outcome and through reasoning of morals. (Target Concept)