What if Kohlberg is Right?
Implications for teaching applied ethics’ Saturday 4.50-5.20pm (Junior Common Room) Lawrence Kohlberg’s stage theory of cognitive moral development, although controversial, remains one of the most influential cognitive-structural perspectives on moral development. According to Kohlberg and his followers there are three identifiable levels of moral reasoning each comprising two stages. Individuals pass through these stages sequentially and they do not use reasoning associated with more than two adjacent stages. Furthermore, individuals are not able to comprehend moral reasoning more than one stage above the stage at which they are currently reasoning (though they can comprehend reasoning at lower stages). While progress through these stages is age related, it is not age dependent. With each successive stage an individual’s moral judgements become less susceptible to outside influences, and their conception of what is right shifts from a self-centred conception to a broader understanding
