STAGES
OF
MORAL
DEVELOPMENT
•
• Let us All together Pray….
• Slow me down oh Lord, and ease
the pounding of my heart by quieting
of my mind. Steady my hurried pace
with the vision of the eternal reach of
Time. Give me amidst the confusion of
the day, the calmness of the
everlasting hills. Break the tension of
my nerves and muscles with the
Help me to know the magical,
restoring power of sleep. Teach
me the art of taking minute
Vacations, of slowing down to
look at a flower, to chat with a
friend, to pat a dog, to read few
lines from a good book. Slow me
down Oh, Lord, and inspire me
to send my roots deep into the
soul of enduring values that I
may
Learning Intent
● Discuss the moral development of
the person by enumerating Lawrence
Kohlberg stages of moral development.
● Apply the Lawrence Kohlberg Stages of Moral
Development by the stages based on the responses
given in the case.
∙ Respect and be sensitive to the unique moral
growth of each person by accomplishing the course
insight summary sheet.
Review
• Elements of Moral dimension
• 1.ACTION
• 2. FREEDOM
• 3. JUDGEMENT
• 4. OBLIGATION
• 5. UNIVERSALITY
MORAL CASE
• Week 4: Moral Reasoning Activity
Read the assigned Moral Dilemma to your group;
1.
Accomplish the Case-Base Worksheet
2.
Come to a group consensus regarding the three
3.
best solutions to each;
Rank order your three choices;
4.
Choose a spokesperson to report your choices,
5.
describe the reasoning your group used in
making them.
Watch Video
• https://drive.google.com/file/d/
1BZwbfZx
ezivULtBAz2ULGPNNH6JfN-
n2/view?usp=sharing
• https://drive.google.com/file/d/
12KRw2H
M7tZlFIvggCOYc9gocrXtE93JN/view
?u sp=sharing
The American psychologist
Lawrence Kohlberg grouped
together children while they
were still small and did a
study on the moral
development of these people
in a span of about twenty
years. He was interested in
the justification or reasoning
behind the right behavior of
the group and was able to
mark out of six stages of
development.
Pre-conventional Level
Concerned with concrete
consequences to individuals, focusing
on pursuing concrete
interest, while avoiding sanctions.
Stage one
Punishment-Obedient Orientation
What is right is to obey the rules,
avoid physical damage to persons and
property. The reason is that one wants
to avoid punishment. Also, there is the
deference to power and position. In
relation to social
perspective, what is
considered is simply one’s
own interest as there is still
no sense of another’s point
of view.
Stage two
Instrumental-Purposive Orientation
What is right is one’s own
immediate interest, and letting
others act also in their own interest.
Thus, each to his own. What is right
is what is fair. You do your thing, I
do my thing; we have fair,
equal exchange.
Stage two
Instrumental-Purposive Orientation
The reason for this is instrumental, to
satisfy one’s need and admit the needs of
others in their own self interest. While the
other is after his/her own interest, I too
have my own interest. And if I do what is
wrong, I might not obtain my own
interest. Human relations are seen as a
market place, a place of exchange.
Fairness, reciprocity, equal
sharing are all
interpreted in a physical,
pragmatic way.
Conventional Level
Concerned with
fulfilling role
expectations,
maintaining and
supporting the social
order, and
identifying persons
or groups involved in
this order.
Stage three
Interpersonal Concordance Orientation
What is deemed right is what pleases or
helps others, what is approved by others,
what reinforces mutual relationships
such as trust, loyalty, respect, gratitude.
Stage three
Interpersonal Concordance Orientation
The reason for helping others, for
pleasing others, for doing what is
conventional or what is mutually good for
everyone is the need to be seen by the
self and others as a loyal, caring person
(important here is my image to others),
the desire to maintain rules and
authority that support your
typical good behavior and
living up to what significant
others expect.
Stage three
Interpersonal Concordance Orientation
In relation to the social perspective,
one takes the third person
perspective where one knows how
the group will react, is aware of
shared feelings, agreements, groups
expectations thattake
primacy over individual interest.
Stage four
Social Structure Orientation
What is right is doing one’s duty;
showing respects for laws, authority and
society and contributing to the
maintenance of society and institutions.
One’s reason for doing one’s duty and
the like is that, action which breaks the
social or moral agreements impairs the
system which is a value. It would be
hazardous to digress from conformity,
from social norms.
Stage four
Social Structure Orientation
One reason for this is that conscience is
imperative to the moral law, to the ethical
system. Another reason is the
maintenance of the system for system for
its own sake. The social perspective takes
the perspective of a generalized other
and not just the personal other. The
generalized other is the institution, the
society or the church. One sees a given
social issue from the perspective of a
fixed system of laws and beliefs.
Post – Conventional Level
In this level, there is the
effort to define the moral
values and principles that
have validity and
application apart from the
authority of groups or
persons and the ability to
see beyond laws and
norms of society. It is here
that one examines, adopts
and applies the different
ethical frameworks or
principles.
Stage five
Social Contract Orientation
This stage includes what is right;
individual rights and standards which
have been critically examined, and
agreed upon. One says “these rights
have been examined, and since they
are right, they are the ones to be
followed.”
Stage five
Social Contract Orientation
Here, one is concerned that
obligations be based on calculations
of overall utility, what is really good
for all. To a certain extent, there is
universality in this good but still
within basic human society, basic
human agreements.
Stage five
Social Contract Orientation
The social perspective here views the
rights of each as best protected when
stability governs relations, when one
recognizes that moral and legal
perspective sometimes differ and
thus one may question the legal,
because it may not be moral.
Stage six
Universal Ethical Principles
***Kohlberg was not able to
observe this stage in his
group, and thus he projected
it.
What is right is following self
chosen ethical principles
based on judgments that are
universalizable, irreversible,
and consistent.
Stage six
Universal Ethical Principles
What is right are the
universal principles of
justice, and the reasons
given are the validity of
universal moral principles
and the sense of personal
commitment to these
principles.
Stage six
Universal Ethical Principles
The social perspective
taken is the moral point
of view from which even
the social arrangements
are derived; from this
universalizable moral
point of view, moral
judgments are made.
MORAL DEVELOPMENT MODELS
Kohlberg’s model
Routinely used to gauge an individual’s moral maturity based on their responses to a
series of hypothetical dilemmas. It conceptualizes progress in moral thinking in terms of
increased abstraction and autonomy.
• Most of the conventional studies in the accounting literature use Rest’s Defining
Issues Test to
collect data on individual predispositions and this is subsequently analyzed using
Kohlberg’s model.
• The model itself consists of six discrete pre-dispositions.
• Ponemon (1990), found that accountants’ moral reasoning capacity increases until they
reach the
stage of manager or partner, at which point it subsequently decreases.
MORAL DEVELOPMENT MODELS
Gilligan’s model
Gilligan’s ‘ethics of care’ presents a
more embedded and empathic view
of ethical development. Gilligan was
particularly concerned that
Kohlberg’s model appeared to be
developed primarily from studies of
male volunteers.
STAGE GOAL
1st/ Pre-conventional PERSON CARES FOR HIMSELF
Transition 1: From selfishness to responsibility to others
2nd/ Conventional MORE CARE FOR OTHERS
Transition 2: is from god ness to truth that she is a person too
PRINCIPLE FOR CARE OF SELF
3rd/ Post-conventional
AND
OTHERS IS ACCEPTED
Kohlberg’s Model of Cognitive
Moral Development Gilligan’s hierarchy of
moral development.
FOCUS AND STAGES OF MOTIVATION
FIRST FOCUS: CARING FOR SELF AND
ENSURING SURVIVAL
TRANSITION: FOCUS ON ONESELF SEEN AS
UNCCEPTABLY SELFISH
SECOND FOCUS: CARE FOR DEPENDENT
OTHERS, INVOLVING SELF SACRIFICE
TRANSITION: QUESTIONING OF LOGIC AND
INEQUALITY BETWEEN THE NEEDS OF
OTHERS AND SELF
THIRD FOCUS: DYNAMIC INTERRELATION
BETWEEN THE SELF AND OTHERS
Moral Intensity
• Jones (1991) suggests that the moral intensity of an issue will be
influenced by six factors:
1) The nature of the consequences - relates to the magnitude of
the
outcome of one’s actions
2) The social consensus - refers to the general social attitude towards
the
particular issue
3) The possibility of effect - relates to the probability that a particular
set of
consequences will ensue from an individual’s action
4) Temporal immediacy - relates to the speed with which
the consequences are likely to come into effect
5) Proximity - refers to the nearness to individuals who are
likely to be affected by one’s actions
6) The concentration of effect - relates to the number of people likely to
be
affected by a particular action
Both Gilligan’s and Kohlberg’s work is quite pertinent
for exploring the ethics of accounting. Two issues
are relevant here.
First, their work encourages us to reflect on how we
might conceptualize the moral development of the
individual accountant. For example, quite often
accounting scandals are followed by calls for new
codes of conduct; however,
Kohlberg’s model would imply that simply following
ethical codes would represent quite a low level of
ethical maturity. Both models provide us with
different ways of beginning to
think about the kinds of attributes that could
characterize
ethical maturity, so the notion of moral development is
both
complex and contested.
ETHICS AND THE NATURE OF
THE DILEMMA: SITUATIONAL
ETHICS
