Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development: Level 3
Level 3 is Post-Conventional Moral Reasoning: Moral analysis goes further than looking at community values and focuses on human rights and their lasting consequences.
Stage 5: Social Contract or Social Conformity or Social Contract and Individual Rights: Ethical actions and ways of thinking are judged on compliance with the rules due to laws being perceived as being for the betterment of civilization and the structure of society. The person believes that if laws are disregarded, the social contract between that individual and the rest of humanity no longer exists and society as a whole could crumble.
An individual who’s in this stage would say “No, he should not pilfer the medicine because then people would believe it’s okay to steal, would begin breaking the law, and civilization as a whole would shut down.” Or “Yes, he ought to steal the drug to save her life, but the law should be edited to guarantee that this doesn’t take place all over again and control the total a pharmacist is able to charge above what the drug is worth.”
Stage 6: Universal Ethics Principle or Universal Principals: Moral interpretation takes into account the universal rights of every person (life, liberty, justice, etc.) and are based on the person’s opinions, not necessarily on the law of their society.
Somebody at this stage would reason that “the pharmacist put energy, time, and capital into developing the medicine and deserves to make a bit of a profit so that he can provide for his family and live comfortably, but that the pharmacists’ right to profit does not surpass/overshadow the right to life, so Heinz should break in, pocket the treatment, and save his wife, but should leave behind the funds he had raised, or the pharmacist should have agreed to Heinz making payments. Laws are there for a reason, to hold society in order, so maybe Heinz should still spend some time in prison, but his wife’s right to life comes first.”
Kohlberg also suggested there may be two further stages before he died. Stage 4 ½ proposed that methods of analysis from both Stage 4 (Law & order) and Stage 5 (Social Contract) are both used, showing disappointment in the thought of “laws’. Stage 7 was also suggested as containing ways of thinking that incorporated Stage 6 concepts with religious conviction. Nonetheless, because only a small amount of individuals ever coded into Stage 6, Kohlberg was unable to acquire adequate data to establish that Stage 7 existed.
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