Political Philosophy of Habermas - Term Paper Example

Kohlberg points out that human beings are in reality capable of reason and highly communicative; they also have a deep desire to see the others’ point of view as well as the world around themselves.  The levels and stages of the Kohlberg’s theory refer to the relativity and the quality of moral reasoning which normally people adopt which incidentally does not translate directly into blaming or praising of the critical actions of an individual. This theory argues clearly that the form and structure of moral arguments are definitely different and separate from the content of the arguments.

This is termed in Kohlberg’s theory as formalism. In the same manner, justice is directly dependent upon the fact that there exists a sound reasoning principle. Though it is justice centered morality theory, the Kohlberg theory is found highly compatible with the contents of deontology and eudemonia.             This theory implies that as a person reaches or progresses to a higher level (stage), he/she cannot skip stages; they have to go through each one of them.

This is true in all the cases; the exception being when the person encounters a moral dilemma. Then the individual will look not at his level, but the next level for solutions. In other words, the progress from one stage to the other is triggered by the realization that the present level is no more sufficient to relate with the world and other individuals.             There a number of critical reviews of Kohlberg’s theory of moral dilemma.  The most important one is that it always rotates around the axis of justice and excludes most other values.

Hence, it may not be always applicable to situations where the arguments of people are based on other values and moral aspects in their actions.  Carol Gillian on the other hand, while criticizing the Kohlberg theory as androcentric, developed another alternative which is centered on the ethics of caring. This shows that the theories on moral development are not necessarily required to be focused only on justice as the sole value and measurement. Other theories and schools of thought have thrown up a number of ideas which have actually questioned the action that is backed only with formal reasoning.