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
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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
Content
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.
What is right is
living up to what is expected by people close to one or what
people generally expect of people in one’s role as son,
sister, friend, and so on. "Being good" is important and
means having good motives, showing concern about others. It
also means keeping mutual relationships, maintaining trust,
loyalty, respect, gratitude.
Reasons for
doing right are needing to be good in one’s own eyes and
those of others, caring for others, and because if one puts
oneself in the person’s place one would want good behavior
from the self (Golden Rule).
Social Perspective
This stage takes the perspective of the individual in relationship
to other individuals. A person at this stage is aware of shared
feelings, agreements, and expectations, which take primacy over
individual interests. The person relates points of view through the
"concrete Golden Rule," putting oneself in the other person’s shoes. He
or she does not consider generalized "system" perspective.
Stage 4. The Stage of Social
System and Conscience Maintenance
Content
The right is doing one’s duty in society, upholding the social
order, and maintaining the welfare of society or group.
What is right is
fulfilling the actual duties to which one has agreed. Laws
are to be upheld except in extreme cases where they conflict
with other fixed social duties and rights. Right is also
contributing to society, the group, or institution.
The reasons for
doing right are to keep the institution going as a whole,
self-respect or conscience as meeting one’s defined
obligations, or the consequences: "What if everyone did it?"
Social Perspective
This stage differentiates societal point of view from interpersonal
agreement or motives. A person at this stage takes the viewpoint of the
system, which defines roles and rules. He or she considers individual
relations in terms of place in the system.
Level B/C. Transitional Level
This level is postconventional but
not yet principled.
Content of Transition
At Stage 4 ½, choice is personal and subjective. It is based on
emotions, conscience is seen as arbitrary and relative, as are ideas
such as "duty" and "morally right."
Transitional Social Perspective
At this stage, the perspective is that of an individual standing
outside of his own society and considering himself as an individual
making decisions without a generalized commitment or contract with
society. One can pick and choose obligations, which are defined by
particular societies, but one has no principles for such choice.
Level C. Postconventional and
Principled Level
Moral decisions are generated from
rights, values, or principles that are (or could be) agreeable to all
individuals composing or creating a society designed to have fair and
beneficial practices.
Stage 5. The Stage of Prior
Rights and Social Contract or Utility
Content
The right is upholding the basic rights, values, and legal contracts
of a society, even when they conflict with the concrete rules and laws
of the group.
What is right is
being aware of the fact that people hold a variety of values
and opinions, that most values and rules are relative to
one’s group. These "relative" rules should usually be
upheld, however, in the interest of impartiality and because
they are the social contract. Some nonrelative values and
rights such as life and liberty, however, must be upheld in
any society and regardless of majority opinion.
Reasons for
doing right are, in general, feeling obligated to obey the
law because one has made a social contract to make and abide
by laws for the good of all and to protect their own rights
and the rights of others. Family, friendship, trust, and
work obligations are also commitments or contracts freely
entered into and entail respect for the rights of others.
One is concerned that laws and duties be based on rational
calculation of overall utility: "the greatest good for the
greatest number."
Social Perspective
This stage takes a prior-to-society perspective – that of a rational
individual aware of values and rights prior to social attachments and
contracts. The person integrates perspectives by formal mechanisms of
agreement, contract, objective impartiality, and due process. He or she
considers the moral point of view and the legal point of view,
recognizes they conflict, and finds it difficult to integrate them.
Stage 6. The Stage of Universal
Ethical Principles
Content
This stage assumes guidance by universal ethical principles that all
humanity should follow.
Regarding what
is right, Stage 6 is guided by universal ethical principles.
Particular laws or social agreements are usually valid
because they rest on such principles. When laws violate
these principles, one acts in accordance with the principle.
Principles are universal principles of justice: the equality
of human rights and respect for the dignity ofhuman beings
as individuals. These are not merely values that are
recognized, but are also principles used to generate
particular decisions.
The reason for
doing right is that, as a rational person, one has seen the
validity of principles and has become committed to them.
Social Perspective
This stage takes the perspective of a moral point of view from which
social arrangements derive or on which they are grounded. The
perspective is that of any rational individual recognizing the nature of
morality or the basic moral premise of respect for other persons as
ends, not means. |