In this Article “The Child as a Moral Philosopher,” psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg gives a clear description of his theory of moral development. Kohlberg uses the studies of seventy-five American boys of varying ages. He also uses boys from other cultures for instance Great Britain, Canada, Taiwan, Mexico and Turkey. Kohlberg uses these studies to determine how we progress morally through adolescence into young adulthood.
Kohlberg believes there are three levels of moral thinking, the first of the three levels being the pre-conventional level, the second the conventional and the third being the post conventional level. He then continues to further explain that at each of these three levels of moral thinking there are stages. Kohlberg continues to explain, “all movement is forward in sequence and does not skip steps.” When looking at morality in this fashion it is easy to associate a person within a specific stage, as Kohlberg did to young boys in villages of Malaysian aboriginal and Taiwanese descent.
All in all as we look at this article we see that the process of our sequence is not greatly affected by social, cultural or religious conditions. Kohlberg determines “the only thing that is affected is the rate at which individuals progress through this sequence.”
Meaning that passing through the sequences can very well be described as passing from one grade to another. An individual can look at the grade before with understanding, but can’t and unwilling to go back.
To sum it up Moral thought is the same as any other kind of thought. It has its levels and stages as intellect and behavior, in which you need to use past knowledge to learn something new. In doing this you will in fact expand your experiential field helping you move forward in your sequence of moral hierarchy.
