from Lawrence Kohlberg, Essays on Moral Development Volume 1: The Philosophy of Moral Development, 1981
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Preconventional Level
Stage 1: The Stage of Punishment and Obedience
Stage 2: The Stage of Individual Instrumental Purpose and Exchange
Conventional Level
Stage 3: The Stage of Mutual Interpersonal Expectations, Relationships and Conformity
Stage 4: The Stage of Social System and Conscience Maintenance
Postconventional Level
Stage 5: The Stage of Prior Rights and Social Contract or Utility
Stage 6: The Stage of Universal Ethical Principles
Level A. Preconventional Level
Stage 1. The Stage of Punishment and Obedience
Content
Right is literal obedience to rules and authority, avoiding punishment, and not doing physical harm.
What is right is to avoid breaking rules, to obey for obedience’s sake, and to avoid doing physical damage to people and property.
The reasons for doing right are avoidance of punishment and the superior power of authorities.
Social Perspective
This stage takes an egocentric point of view. A person at this stage doesn’t consider the interests of others or recognize they differ from actor’s, and doesn’t relate two points of view. Actions are judged in terms of physical consequences rather than in terms of psychological interests of others. Authority’s perspective is confused with one’s own.
Stage 2. The Stage of Individual Instrumental Purpose and Exchange
Right is serving one’s own or other’s needs and making fair deals in terms of concrete exchange.
What is right is following rules when it is to someone’s immediate interest. Right is acting to meet one’s own interests and needs and letting others do the same. Right is also what is fair; that is, what is an equal exchange, a deal, an agreement.
The reason for doing right is to serve one’s own needs or interests in a world where one must recognize that other people have their interests, too.
Social Perspective
This stage takes a concrete individualistic perspective. A person at this stage separates his own interests and points of view from those of authorities and others. He or she is aware that everybody has individual interests to pursue and these conflict, so that right is relative (in the concrete individualistic sense). The person integrates or relates conflicting individual interests to one another through instrumental exchange of services, through instrumental need for the other and the other’s goodwill, or through fairness giving each person the same amount.
Level B. Conventional Level
Stage 3. The Stage of Mutual Interpersonal Expectations, Relationships, and Conformity
Content
The right is playing a good (nice) role, being concerned about the other people and their feelings, keeping loyalty and trust with partners, and being motivated to follow rules and expectations.