Lawrence Kohlberg was an American psychologist who proposed that people’s actions and decisions are based on and follow six stages. According to Kohlberg, these sequential and static stages represent an individual’s moral development and reasoning. Being constructive, these stages are the culmination of physical, mental, and emotional growth in an individual. Kohlberg separated these stages into the three categories of pre-conventional morality, conventional morality, and post-conventional morality, with two distinct stages comprising each category. Because his theory is based on research through qualitative and quantitative observation, it can be referred to as a measure of ethical maturity. When applied to the German film The Lives of Others, one of the main characters, Stasi agent Hauptmann GerdWeisler, starkly follows Kohlberg’s stages of moral development throughout the film.
At first a devoted agent of the state, Weisler becomes disillusioned after eavesdropping on two prominent artists, and in a surprising turn, explicitly takes moral matters into his own hands. In the beginning of them film, Stasi agent Weisler is already a fully grown, middle aged adult, and a long-standing member of the German Democratic Government’s secret police, or Stasi. He is seen in the very first scene as a relatively senior member of the Stasi, teaching the younger members methods of interrogation and also unconditional loyalty to the state.
In Kohlberg’s terms, Weisler at this point in time is in stage four, or the society maintaining orientation. Weisler’s strict devotion as an agent of the Stasi shows that he has already surpassed the pre-conventional levels of moral development as outlined by Kohlberg. Kohlberg split this level into the first two stages, the punishment and obedience orientation, and the instrumental relativist orientation. Both of these stages are associated with children, as they represent naïve perceptions of the world. Clearly, Weisler is beyond action that is the result of “physical or hedonistic consequences” that are characteristic to the pre-conventional level (Kohlberg, 65).
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The next level in moral reasoning is the conventional level, which encompasses stages three and four. Stage three is the interpersonal concordance, a step in which individuals associate good or correct behavior with “conformity to stereotypical images” (Kohlberg, 66). At this stage, an individual is immediately concerned with his or her peers, and the resulting relationships this realization forms. As an extension of stage three, stage four, or the society maintaining orientation stage, marks an individual’s awareness of duties beyond those of immediate peers.
As a Stasi interrogator and teacher, the Weisler observed at the inception of the film is a staunch supporter and idealist of the state’s role in maintaining order and peace in society. This is characteristic of Kohlbergs’s description of an orientation towards “authority, fixed rules, and maintenance of social order” (Kohlberg, 66). At this stage, Weisler’s idea of “correct” or moral action is left to the state and its officials, which he views as an institution that represents society’s best interests.
