Moral Reasoning and Dilemmas in Childhood - Essay Example

This theory was based on an interview he conducted with a group of children. In this study, a series of moral dilemmas were presented to these children who were then required to make judgments and later give the reasoning for their judgments(Jorgensen, 2006). The researcher was more interested in the reasoning behind the responses than the responses themselves. From the study, he categorized the responses into three levels pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional morality(Jorgensen, 2006).

Under the pre-conventional morality are the obedience and punishment and individual and exchange stages while under the conventional morality are interpersonal relationships and management of social order. The post-conventional morality has the stages of the social contract and individual rights and universal principles. The first and the earliest stage of obedience and punishment is a stage of moral development rather common in young children, during which they consider rules as fixed and absolute(Jorgensen, 2006).

At this stage, children obey rules to avoid being punished. At the individualism and exchange stage of moral development, children account for individual views and judge actions based on their individual needs being served by the actions(Jorgensen, 2006). The social contract and individual rights stage is characterized by accountability for diverse values, opinions, and beliefs in society Jorgensen, 2006). The moral dilemma of finding money is often used to highlight this stage and that of conformity to societal norms.

If a child finds someone’s lost money, he or she is likely to report to his or her parents, teachers, or any other authority figure to trace the owner. Similarly, at the universal principles stage, universal ethical principles would form the basis of the child’s moral reasoning to try to give the money back, irrespective of the moral dilemma faced (Berk, 2012). Thus, Kohlberg asserts that the development of moral reasoning is related to one's age, and after his study, he concluded that the subjects of his study were yet to achieve their highest level of moral reasoning since they were just developing children(Jorgensen,2006).