Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development
Six stages across pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional moral reasoning.
Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development, presented in his 1969 paper 'Stage and Sequence' and subsequent work culminating in Essays on Moral Development (1981, 1984), extend Piaget's developmental approach to moral reasoning, characterizing development through six stages organized into three levels. Pre-conventional level (typically childhood): Stage 1 — punishment and obedience orientation; Stage 2 — instrumental purpose and exchange. Conventional level (typically adolescence and most adults): Stage 3 — interpersonal accord and conformity; Stage 4 — social order and law-and-order orientation. Post-conventional level (reached by a minority of adults): Stage 5 — social contract and individual rights; Stage 6 — universal ethical principles. Kohlberg used dilemma-based interviews (the 'Heinz dilemma' being the canonical example) to assess moral reasoning, focusing on the structure of justification rather than the content of choice. The framework substantially influenced moral psychology and education but has drawn major critiques — most prominently Carol Gilligan's argument that the framework systematically undervalues care-based moral reasoning more common in women, and Jonathan Haidt's broader argument that moral judgment is largely intuitive with reasoning serving post-hoc rationalization.
Core components
- Three levels: Pre-conventional, Conventional, Post-conventional
- Six stages: Punishment/Obedience, Instrumental, Interpersonal Accord, Social Order, Social Contract, Universal Ethical Principles
- Moral dilemma interview methodology (Heinz dilemma and others)
- Focus on structure of moral reasoning rather than content of choice
- Cognitive-developmental framework extending Piaget
- Standard Issue Scoring system
Primary use case
Foundation of moral psychology research; moral education curricula (notably the Just Community schools approach); clinical and educational assessment of moral reasoning; framework underlying ethics-development programs in professional education; ongoing reference framework in moral psychology and political psychology debates.
Common criticisms
- Carol Gilligan's 1982 In a Different Voice argued the framework systematically undervalues care-based moral reasoning more common in women, leading to systematic gender bias in stage assignment (debate continues with mixed empirical resolution)
- Jonathan Haidt's social intuitionist model and Moral Foundations Theory argue moral judgment is largely intuitive with reasoning serving post-hoc rationalization, challenging Kohlberg's rationalist framework
- cross-cultural validity contested — post-conventional reasoning is rare across cultures including Western adults
- Stage 6 has been particularly hard to identify empirically
- over-emphasis on justice and individual rights at expense of other moral concerns (loyalty, sanctity, authority)
- Heinz dilemma's specific cultural assumptions limit universality.
Lineage
- Child of
- Piaget's Stages
- Siblings
- Erikson's Stages, Piaget's Stages
- Derived from
- Piaget's Stages