level of moral reasoning

What is moral reasoning?

• Lawrence Kohlberg (1968) proposed that people’s decisions and judgments on moral issues can be summarised in stages of moral reasoning - higher stages show more sophisticated reasoning

What did Kohlberg find about offenders?

• Offenders tend to show a lower level of moral reasoning than non-offenders, even after controlling for social background.

• Offenders usually in pre-conventional stages

What is the link between moral reasoning and crime?

• Offenders are often at the pre-conventional level (seeking rewards or avoiding punishment), while non-offenders have usually progressed to conventional or post-conventional reasoning

What characterises pre-conventional reasoning?

• A focus on self-interest, gain, and avoiding punishment rather than moral principles such as honesty or justice

Research support AO3

• Strength

• Colby and Kohlberg (1987) and Hollin (1998) found that offenders show less mature moral reasoning than non-offenders using 11 moral dilemma tasks

• E.g. questions about things belonging to others

Type of offence AO3

• Limitation

• Thornton and Reid found that offenders committing financial crimes showed more mature reasoning than impulsive crimes like assault - Kohlberg’s stages may not apply equally to all crimes.

Thinking versus behaviour AO3

• Limitation

• Kohlberg’s theory focuses on moral thinking, not behaviour. Moral reasoning may differ from actual moral action (Hollin et al)