Levels of moral reasoning

Who came up with this theory of moral reasoning?

Kohlberg (1970-80)

What is moral reasoning?

our ability to think about what is right and wrong and how to make decisions on how to act

What are the 3 levels?

pre conventional
conventional
post conventional

How does this explanation link to crime?

Kohlberg thought that if someone was stuck at low moral reasoning it leads them to make poor decisions and commit crime

Kohlberg’s research

longitudinal study over 12 years
75 boys between 10 and 16
interviewed them with moral dilemmas

Pre conventional level

egocentric
society’s laws and rules aren’t understood
doesn’t think about impact on others
consists of reward and punishment levels

Punishment level

decisions based on whether or not they are likely to be caught

Rewards level

decisions based on whether the person think rewards outweigh the costs

Conventional and post conventional levels

able to consider impact on others
consider ethical principles

Palmer and Hollin (1998) methods

moral reasoning of 210 female non offenders, 122 male non offenders, 126 make offenders
between 13 and 22 years old
assessed with questionnaire with 11 dilemmas

Palmer and Hollin results

male offenders had significantly lower moral reasoning

Stams et al (2006)

meta analysis of 50 studies
data from 2000 offenders and 2000 non 
found offenders operate at lower level

AO3 - androcentric

developed by a man with male samples
may not accurately capture how female offenders make moral decisions

AO3 - ethnocentric

developed by Western researchers
someone may commit bribery because their legal system is corrupt
emic research would be better

AO3 - don’t reason the same in real life as we do in dilemmas

scenarios may be unfamiliar to children, like being married 
some criminal behaviour is impulsive and means there is no time to think it through