Moral Development Notes

Diogenes of Sinope

• Diogenes of Sinope was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of the Cynic philosophy.
• Born in an Ionian colony on the Black Sea in April and died in Corinth in March.
• His father made coins for a living. Diogenes was banished after debasing currency and moved to Athens.
• He criticized cultural conventions, adopted a simple lifestyle, and criticized social values and institutions he viewed as corrupt.

Moral Character

• Moral character is an individual's disposition to think, feel, and behave ethically vs. unethically, implying consistency in moral behavior.
• Mrs. Blackford was a celebrity in the 1910s and 1920s, offering guidance on judging character.
• Harshorn and May (1928) conducted studies on children's moral character, placing 10-13-year-olds in situations where they could lie, steal, or cheat.
• Their analysis suggested moral behavior is highly context-sensitive, making a general character in children difficult to define.
• Moral behavior results from reasoning, motivation, and ability.
• Conscience restrains antisocial behavior and promotes compliance with rules, even without monitoring.
• Conscience also promotes prosocial behavior; children feel guilty when engaging in uncaring behavior.
• Two components of conscience: understanding behavior standards and moral emotions (guilt).
• Toddlers start showing appreciation for moral standards and guilt by age two.
• These components are stable between 22-45 months. Immature children adopt parents' rules if disciplinary practices include rational explanations.
• Secure parent-child relationships facilitate children's adoption of values.
• Reflection-enhancing communication is a powerful parental behavior.

Reflection Enhancing Communication

• Reflection-enhancing communication involves disciplinary encounters that give children a view of complex relationships.
• It encourages reflection on causes/consequences of actions and facilitates perspective-taking.
• This communication promotes moral motivation by highlighting the impact of actions on others.
• It connects emotions to behavior.
• It encourages accountability.
• It offers viable solutions and results in better moral decisions, connecting morality to a system of principles.
• It emphasizes individual rights and responsibilities.
• Secure attachment and cooperation foster conscience in fearless children.

Self-Regulation

• Self-regulation is the ability to control impulses, manage emotional states, and delay gratification.
• Poor self-regulation can lead to morally inappropriate actions due to an inability to suppress impulses.
• Self-regulation involves modulating emotions to achieve goals.
• It can be difficult for young children because it relies on the maturation of the prefrontal cortex.
• Poorly regulated children may act without considering consequences.
• Delay of gratification is the ability to hold off on a desired reward.
• Poor impulse control leads to giving in to temptation.
• Better impulse control allows reason to exert influence.
• The ability to effortfully delay gratification relates to academic achievement, social adjustment, less aggression, and more prosocial behavior.

Piaget's Theory of Moral Development

• Piaget emphasized the cognitive components of moral thought.
• He viewed children as moral philosophers and believed moral development shares features with other cognitive development areas, including stages.
• Piaget studied children's understanding of rules, judgments of culpability/guilt, and understanding of justice.
• Example scenarios:
  • Scenario A: A boy accidentally breaks a glass figurine while trying to steal a snack.
  • Scenario B: A boy intentionally breaks a piece of his toy.
• Young children in Piaget's studies based culpability judgments on the consequences, not intentions.
• Punishments were often not proportional to the transgression.
• Piaget called this moral realism.
• Children view rules as external and immutable and obey them because they are rules.

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development

• Lawrence Kohlberg provided a more specific account of moral reasoning.

• He believed children construct morality by developing beliefs about justice and rights.

• Early on, children confuse moral issues with power, coercion, and authority.

• Kohlberg assessed moral reasoning using moral dilemmas.

• These dilemmas were descriptions of morally ambiguous situations.

• Participants were asked which course of action was morally superior and why.

• Kohlberg focused on the child's reasoning, not the decision itself.

• Heinz Dilemma: A man named Heinz must decide whether to steal a drug to save his wife's life.

• Kohlberg proposed six stages of moral behavior, describing how the concept of virtue changes.

• A reference to being nice or bad is the most basic (pre-conventional stage) reasoning.

• A Conventional argument includes reasoning based on what society expects.

• The final stage (post-conventional stage) is when individuals believe virtue means adhering to a higher principle of justice than societal or individual interests.
  Stages:

  • Pre-conventional.
  • Focus on individual consequences.
  • Conventional
    • Focus on societal or group expectations.
  • Post-conventional.
    • Focus on internal principles.

• Reasoning can be driven by society's or the individual's own belief.

• Kohlberg emphasized the progression of stages but avoided strict age rules.

• The most advanced preconventional thinking predominates around ages 10-11.

• Most individuals are conventional by age 14.

• Postconventional thinking is rare before young adulthood.

• Kohlberg's work shows that moral judgment changes systematically with age.

• It has been useful in understanding how cognitive processes contribute to moral behavior.

Criticisms of Kohlberg's Theory

• Cultural differences: children in non-Western countries do not advance as far in moral judgment as Western peers.
• This led to criticism that Kohlberg's method is biased towards Western samples.
• In non-Western societies, preserving group harmony may be prioritized over individual rights.
• Obedience to authorities may be valued more than freedom.
• Gender differences: Kohlberg's theory was developed based on interviews with boys, and males scored higher.
• Carol Gilligan argued that Kohlberg's classification is biased against females because it doesn't recognize differences in moral reasoning.
• Females value caring for others, while males value justice and rights.

Gilligan's Perspective on Morality

• Morality includes concerns about purity, safety, authority, fairness, harm, and group loyalty.
• Justice and the right thing to do may not always align.
• Males value justice and rights, while females value caring for others.
• This difference causes males to score higher on Kohlberg's dilemmas.

Social Judgments

• Moral, social conventional, and personal judgments influence compliance and acceptance of punishment.
• Moral judgments pertain to right/wrong, fairness, and justice.
• Social conventional judgments pertain to customs ensuring social coordination.
• Personal judgments pertain to individual preferences.
• Children differentiate between moral and social conventional issues early on.
• By age three, they believe moral violations are more wrong.
• By age four, moral transgressions are wrong even if adults don't know or approve.

Conclusion

• Adolescents and some adults may disagree on moral judgments.
• Moral behavior may not always be based on moral reasoning.
• Kohlberg noted a gap between "is" (what children do) and "ought" (what they think is right).
• Hypocrisy includes inconsistency in moral behavior, rationalizations, and disingenuous behavior.

Moral Dumbfounding

• Moral dumbfounding: making a moral judgment without being able to adequately defend it with reason.
• We shouldn't assume a moral rationale for all beliefs about right/wrong.
• Examples:
  • Cutting up a flag to clean a bathroom.
  • Eating a dog killed by a car.
  • Having sex with a chicken before cooking it.
• These generate emotions without clear moral principles being violated.
• Haidt's social intuitive model suggests emotions can be triggered by perceived norm violations without moral reasoning.
• Cultural factors can link behaviors to moral emotions without explanation.