In What Ways are Piaget's and Kolhberg's Views of Moral Development Comparable - Research Paper Example

In what ways are Piagets and Kolhbergs views of moral development comparable? The theory of moral development mainly focuses on the way ethical principles and moral ideologies are embedded in a child’s psychology and how he or she would respond to the external stimuli in particular circumstances. It analyses the process through which a child has to pass through in order to develop his or her moral perspectives and how he or she relates with the society. The paper presents Kohlberg’s six stages moral development theory in comparison with Piaget’s two stages moral judgment theory to understand the limitations and strengths of each. Kohlberg suggests that morality progresses along a series of different phases, each of which stands for a greater standard of moral reasonableness. The categorization of phases is based upon this reasoning. Kohlberg has based his findings upon studies involving several children, adolescents and adults. The research revealed that both males and females belonging to all age groups and from different cultural and religious backdrops could travel through the stages defined by him. The first stage, Heteronomous Morality, indicates that children on the basis of intuitions know that if their actions are immoral they would be punished and hence the idea working behind this stage is that “goodness and badness are inherent in acts” (Moshman, 2005, p.55). The know-how about this good and bad are perceived by the adults and generated to the children. The second stage might be defines as individualism and exchange. When a child develops cognitively he gradually becomes aware of the social perspectives around him apart from his own. Hence they learn to respond to the call of others and see things from others’ viewpoint. The third stage is based upon ‘mutual expectations’ where social-cognitive development brings about more refined acceptance of perspectives and one person is able to perceive on the basis of relationships amongst individuals. The fourth stage based upon ‘social system’, involves larger social perspective involving moral determinations, which are derived from the entire society. However according to crosscultural studies, it is less probable for people whose lives are based upon traditional cultures to develop moral perception beyond the third stage. The fifth stage involves social agreements and individual rights where the differences of opinions and viewpoints come into focus and the people must abide by the common rules of law. The sixth stage is based upon universal principles of ethics and morality here people abide by the integral ideals of justice despite all conflicts. (Moshman, 2005, pp.54-58; Cherry, n.d.) Piaget’s theory of moral development is based upon peer interaction where children learn moral behavior through interaction with their friends. For instance is four children are given eight candy pieces and asked to divide it amongst themselves all of them might desire to possess all or most of them. However, this might engage them in a fight and finally the stronger might win. It might be easier for an adult to instruct the children about the principles of morality and that no one should get less than any one. A child might follow this like the other laws, but these externally imposed moral principles would not be genuine. According to Piaget through a course of discussion amongst themselves children might find out that no one would be happy to get less and hence resort to equal division of candies. When these interactions increase, the fairness of equal division would become inherent in them. Automatically these children would construct a social equilibrium based upon mutual esteem. So it depends on each child’s moral ideologies that how he or she would perceive the principles of justice and equality. So moral development is realized as the children begin to adopt “the permanent laws of rational cooperation”. (Moshman, 2005, p.53) He essentially develops a two-stage theory, which divides children as per age groups – below 10 or 11 years and beyond. The children who are younger observe these rules as final and absolute and hence follow the rules defined by adults. Hence their decisions are based upon a sense of the consequences involved if they take a moral or immoral decision. Older children on the other hand, judges on the basis of motives behind the act. Therefore a number of modifications take place during the transition from 10 to 12 years. (Moshman, 2005, pp. 52-54; Crain, 1985) The main difference between Kohlberg and Piaget is that the former categorizes six stages of moral development while the latter formulates a two-stage work on moral judgement. Kohlberg has taken Piaget’s work as the base and carried it forward. (Moshman, 2005) While Piaget’s work is based mostly on child psychology Kohlberg focuses on adolescents and adults too. While Piaget actually stresses on internal moral development, Kohlberg simply theorizes the stages through which the child must pass through without actually highlighting the nature of involvement of the individual in the process. Piaget focuses on the interaction of a child with his surroundings, which Kohlberg does not explicitly talk about. Piaget actually describes the psychological interplay. Kohlberg suggests a similar thing in stage three and four but does not specify age groups like Piaget though his stages carry forward to one’s adulthood. The main similarity between Kohlberg and Piaget is that both uses the ground of age to distinguish between stages though their approaches are different. Based on the concept of ‘development via equilibrium’ as suggested by Piaget, Kolhberg suggests the stage three development where mutual relationships are built and then moves on to stage four where an individual derives the perspectives from those of the society (Moshman, 2005). Like Piaget, Kohlberg also stress upon the moral development in children although he carries it forward to later stages. Kohlberg’s initial three stages therefore have many similarities with Piaget’s two stage moral judgement. Piaget’s views about the first stage suggests that younger children are more likely to obey adults’ teachings, while Kohlberg’s first stage also projects something similar. The latter’s second stage based upon the concept of exchange also goes parallel with Piaget’s views about sharing and peer interaction. Kohlberg carries this same concept forward to the third stage. Carol Gilligan on two main grounds has criticized Kohlberg’s work, which is a development on Piaget’s theory. First, Kohlberg had studied mainly the privileged section of white men and boys, which might be regarded as a discrimination against women who might have different inclinations of morality than men. While devising his stages of moral development, Gilligan suggests that Kohlberg held the viewpoint of men with respect to individual rights superior to that of women. Gilligan based her moral development theory on three stages – selfish, social (conventional morality), principled morality. She also brings up the point that women often draws back from judgment because they can understand the complications of relationships better than men. (Gilligan, 1982) Despite the weakness of Kohlberg’s theory it gives a clear and detail direction about the progress of moral judgement in children as they grow up to become adults. Piaget’s main limitation is that he mainly based his study on children but he gives a conceptual viewpoint of moral development, which have facilitated future studies including Kohlberg’s. However Kohlberg is a perfect complement to Piaget’s study while later researchers like Gilligan have found some ground in Kohlberg’s work to show new perceptions on moral development. References Cherry, K. (n.d.). “Kohlbergs Theory of Moral Development”, About.com, retrieved on November 11, 2010 from: ttp://psychology.about.com/od/developmentalpsychology/a/kohlberg.htm Crain, W.C. (1985). Theories of Development. New York: Prentice-Hall. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and womens development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Moshman, D. (2005). Adolescent Psychological Development, London:Routledge. Read More