Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Reasoning and Roman Catholic Faith Hannah Gernhardt

My Research Questions: Do most high commitment Roman Catholics fall into pre-conventional, conventional, or post-conventional stages? 2) Does a regard for the teachings of the Catholic Church (as stated in the Catechism) affect a person’s response to a Kohlberg-style dilemma? 3) Is there a discernable pattern of moral reasoning among committed Roman Catholics?

Lawrence Kohlberg: A brief Biography (1927-1987) Grew up in Bronxville, New York Served as an engineer on a freighter carrying European refugees to Israel before attending college 1948: Enrolled at the University of Chicago Studies followed in the steps of Piagetian theory 1958: Published his dissertation, which was the first appearance of his stage theory Taught at the University of Chicago from 1962-1968 Taught at Harvard from 1968 until his death in 1987 Source: Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications, (p. 157)

The Philosophy of Moral Development vs The Philosophy of Moral Development vs. The Psychology of Moral Development

Kohlberg wrote Three Volumes of essays on moral development: Volume I. The Philosophy of Moral Development: Moral Stages and the Idea of Justice Volume II. The Psychology of Moral Development: Moral Stages and the Life Cycle Volume III. Education and Moral development: Moral Stages and Practice

“Although my writings started first as psychology, psychology should not be our first concern as writers or readers about moral development. The key chapter in Volume I, Chapter 4, ‘From Is to Ought’, clearly indicates why some hard philosophic reflection on moral development is required before beginning empirical psychological research on the topic.” Source: The Philosophy of Moral Development, p. xi

“Once the psychologist recognizes that the psychology of moral development and learning cannot be discussed without addressing the philosophic questions, ‘What is virtue?’ and ‘What is justice?’ the only path to be taken is that taken by Plato and Dewey, which ends with the writing of a treatise describing moral development in a school and society that to the philosopher seems just.” Source: The Philosophy of Moral Development, p. xii

Things to remember about Kohlberg’s Cognitive Developmental Theory: Structuralism (“the analysis of invariant systems of relations among ideas”) is the underlying framework Theory of virtue: Justice Kohlberg works within the tradition of Piaget

The Six Developmental Stages: Level A. Premoral Stage 1-Punishment and obedience orientation Stage 2-Naïve instrumental hedonism Level B. Morality of conventional role conformity Stage 3-Good-boy morality of maintaining good relations, approval by others Stage 4-Authority-maintaining morality Level C. Morality of self-accepted moral principles Stage 5-Morality of contract, of individual rights and democratically accepted law Stage 6-Morality of individual principles of conscience Source: The Psychology of Moral Development, p. xxix

Characteristics of developmental stages: Invariant sequence 2) Sturctured wholeness or cross-task or cross-situational consistency 3) Heiracrchical integration or displacement of lower stages by higher stages Source: The Psychology of Moral Development, p. xxx

The Three Major Levels of Social Perspective: Moral Judgement Social Perspective Preconventional Conventional Postconventional, or principled Concrete individual perspective Member-of-society perspective Prior-to-society perspective Source: The Psychology of Moral Development, p. 177

Level A. Premoral/Preconventional: “rules and expectations are something external to the self.” (p.173) Religious beliefs/Church Teaching Source: The Psychology of Moral Development

Level B. Conventional: “The self is identified with or has internalized the rules and expectations of others, especially those of authorities.” (p. 173) Law Source: The Psychology of Moral Development

Level C. Post-conventional Postconventional individuals have “differentiated his or her self from the rules and expectations of others and defines his or her values in terms of self-chosen principles.” (p.173) Conscience Source: The Psychology of Moral Development

My Research Questions: Do most high commitment Roman Catholics fall into pre-conventional, conventional, or post-conventional stages? 2) Does a regard for the teachings of the Catholic Church (as articulated in the Catechism) affect a person’s response to a Kohlberg-style dilemma? 3) Is there a discernable pattern of moral reasoning among committed Roman Catholics?

My Survey: Participants of my study were asked to take a ten question survey online. All participants were self-identified Catholics The survey was divided into two parts: 1) Part 1 was designed to assess how committed each individual was to the Church. 2) Part 2 assessed the Level of Moral reasoning (A, B, or C) according to Kohlberg’s scale based on responses to Kohlberg’s eighth dilemma. Link: (Responses and individual data) https://docs.google.com/a/udallas.edu/forms/d/1o3_OwjECwM3 wPd4QjIlSShyXuNJ0JcKRYvqUDma4HZc/edit?ts=580e3fcc#respons es

Part I: How important is the Catholic Church to you personally? 2) Aside from weddings and funerals, how often do you attend mass? 3) On a scale from 1 to 7, with 1 indicating you would never leave the church, and 7 indicating you might leave the church, where would you place yourself?

Part II: (Preface to the dilemma) Quote #1: “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.” (p. 493). Quote #2: “The Church has no other light than Christ's; according to a favorite image of the Church Fathers, the Church is like the moon, all its light reflected from the sun…The Church is, in a phrase used by the Fathers, the place ‘where the Spirit flourishes’” (p. 214). Quote #3: “’Human society can be neither well-ordered nor prosperous unless it has some people invested with legitimate authority to preserve its institutions and to devote themselves as far as is necessary to work and care for the good of all.’ By ‘authority’ one means the quality by virtue of which persons or institutions make laws and give orders to men and expect obedience from them. The authority required by the moral order derives from God: ‘Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.’” (p. 515). Source: Catechism of the Catholic Church: With Modifications from the Editio Typica. New York: Doubleday, 1997. Print.

Dilemma VIII: “In a country in Europe, a poor man named Valjean could find no work, nor could his sister and brother. Without money, he stole food and medicine that they needed. He was captured and sentenced to prison for six years. After a couple of years, he escaped from the prison and went to live in another part of the country under a new name. He saved money and slowly built up a big factory. He gave his workers the highest wages and used most of his profits to build a hospital for people who couldn’t afford good medical care. Twenty years had passed when a tailor recognized the factory owner as being Valjean, the escaped convict whom the police had been looking for back in his hometown.” Source: The Psychology of Moral Development, (p. 649)

Questions: Should the tailor report Valjean to the police? Does a citizen have a duty or obligation to report an escaped convict? Suppose Valjean were a close friend of the tailor. Should he then report Valjean? Thinking in terms of society, should people who break the law be punished? Valjean was doing what his conscience told him to do when he stole the food and medicine. Should a lawbreaker be punished if he is acting out of conscience?

Limitations of my study: Number of participants: The number of people who took my survey was far too small to draw accurate conclusions. My goal was to have thirty participants, yet I obtained only six. I collected data in the form of an online survey, which is not the same method used by Kohlberg. I used only one dilemma, whereas Kohlberg’s original study included eight.

Data and results: Out of the six participants who responded, three met the criteria for “high commitment” Catholics. Of these three: Level A. One classified as Preconventional Level B. One classified as Conventional Level C. One classified as Postconventional

Conclusions: Although my study lacked sufficient data, it did reflect the results I expected to see based on Kohlberg’s research. “Our evidence of culturally universal moral stages, then, is also direct evidence against the view that the development of moral ideologies depends on the teachings of particular religious belief systems. No differences in moral development due to religious belief have yet been found. Protestant, Catholic, Moslem, and Buddhist children go through the same stages at much the same rate when social class and village- urban differences are held constant.” (Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral Development) According to Kohlberg, the connection between religious belief and moral development is more apparent in the context of specific religious proscriptions rather than generally secular principles of justice. Source: The Philosophy of Moral Development, (p. 303)

Kohlberg on the Nature-Nurture Line:

Kohlberg on the Nature-Nurture Line: Kohlberg belongs in the middle of the line due to these positions: “Development of cognitive structure is the result of processes of interaction between the structure of the organism and the structure of the environment, rather than being the direct result of maturation or the direct result of learning.” (The Psychology of Moral Development, p. 8) “the cognitive-developmental assumption is that basic mental structure is the result of an interaction between certain organismic structuring tendencies and the structure of the outside world, rather than a reflection of either one directly.” (The Psychology of Moral Development, p. 13)

Works Cited: Kohlberg, Lawrence. The Philosophy of Moral Development. Vol. 1. New York: Harper and Row, 1981. Print. Kohlberg, Lawrence. The Psychology of Moral Development. Vol. 2. New York: Harper and Row, 1984. Print. Crain, William C. Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall, 2011. Print. Catechism of the Catholic Church: With Modifications from the Editio Typica. New York: Doubleday, 1997. Print.