Intro:
People all over
the world have broken laws, and obeyed laws. But for what reason? Well everyone in the whole entire world has
their own reasons for doing the things that they do. Some may do things because
they think that it is their right to do something, and others may do something
because the law tells them to. Looking at their actions, one may question what
their moral reasoning behind what they did is, and what stage of the morality
they may be at. Lawrence Kohlberg came
up with the theory of moral reasoning. Through an interview with “X” I was able
to calculate what kind of moral theorist the person I interviewed was. The
three moral theories are “Deontologist, Utilitarianism, and Rights Ethics”. A
person who fits into the utilitarianism category tries to please others rather
than themselves. They believe that following the law is defined by how much
happiness that they bring to a community. If someone brings more sorrow to
people then that is considered breaking the law. A Rights Ethics person believes
that everyone has rights that they are born with, and that you may do the
things that please them, as long as what they do does not take away the rights
of another person. A Deontologist believes that they must tell the truth no
matter what, even if it may hurt someone. In this interview I also got to
calculate what stage of morality that “X” stood at. Through this interview I
was able to find out the reasons behind the decisions that my interviewee made
and learned a little about what they thought was moral and what was not moral
in different circumstances. Every individual make different decisions every day
depending on their rights and what they see as moral, everyone has their own
definition of what is moral and what isn’t moral, but does that actually mean
that what they do is moral according to society?
Moral theory is Rights Ethics:
A Rights Ethics
theorist believes that every person has specific rights that cannot be given or
taken away such as Life, Liberty, Property, and the Pursuit of Happiness. They
believe that you can exercise your rights as long as you don’t take away the
rights of others. In the interview that I conducted with X I calculated that X
aligned most directly with Rights Ethics as their moral theory. In the
interview I asked what actions X would take if they were in the Trolley Dilemma
#2. When I asked if they would push the
fat man over the edge to save the five workers lives, X’s response to this was
“No. it’s preposterous to make that choice, to think that I’m the one that’s going
to say whose to live and who is going to die”. This is a perfect example of
Rights Ethics because X would not push the man because it shouldn’t be X’s
choice whether the man should live or die. When I asked X if they would still
choose to not push the fat man off the bridge if there wasn’t going to be a
punishment for X if they did, “X” explained, “No. He has his life, who am I to
take away his life??!!?? What if we lived in a society where people just came
up to you and said, “Maybe I will take away your life to save someone else”
that would be wrong, who are they to choose to take away my life?, and the
other way around. You can’t judge him for his life. It’s his life. When a
person is living, they have their history, life, family, and a life that belongs
to them, and you don’t have the right to take that away from them, you can’t
decide when that ends”. This is also another perfect example of a Rights Ethics
theorist. A quote by John Locke who was
the philosopher that came up with the Rights Ethics theory says “The state of
nature has a law of nature to govern it, That being all equal and independent,
no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possession… and
that all men be restrained from invading others’ rights.” This quote is basically
saying that you can have all the happiness that you want, as long as it doesn’t
take away the rights that another person was born with. This is also saying that you can protect your
own life while protecting the life and rights of another person. X answered the
questions that I asked them about pushing the fat man off the bridge to save
the five workers lives with “NO”. They believed that pushing the fat man was an
obstruction of the fat man’s rights. So
I calculated X to be a Rights Ethics Theorist. By knowing this we can start to
get a clearer understanding of what stage of moral development that X is at on
Kohlberg’s 6 stages of Moral Development Theory.
Stage of Moral Development:
In this
interview I asked X what actions they would take and reasoning’s behind those
actions that they would take on many Moral Dilemmas to determine what stage of
moral development that they were on. The moral dilemma that I asked X’s opinion
on was Kohlberg’s Dilemma #3 which involved a husband “Heinz” stealing a certain
drug to save his wife who was dying of cancer. When I asked X if Heinz should
steal the drug for his wife, X answered with “No. Because he would likely get
caught and go to prison. Then he wouldn’t be able to help his wife”. This led
me to see that X was more afraid of the consequences that they would have to
face if they stole the drug instead of helping the wife. I asked X if they still wouldn’t steal the
drug if it weren’t his wife that was dying, but a pet or a stranger, X still
said “ No, it’s against the law to steal” to every question that I asked X
about whether it was wrong to steal the drug. This led me to believe that X was
more on the pre conventional level on stage 1of the 6 stages of moral
development scale. In the article “ 13.
Moral stages and moralization The cognitive- development approach By: Lawrence
Kohlberg” it says that at the pre conventional level it says under “what is
right” is to avoid breaking rules backed by punishment, obedience for its own
sake, and avoiding physical damage to persons and property. This means that a person on stage 1 on the
pre conventional level would not steal the drug because it is will have a
consequence behind it and that it is against the law. In this article Kohlberg
interviewed a boy over his life time to see how he would respond to Heinz’s
moral dilemma. At a young age when the boy was asked “why shouldn’t you steal
from a store?” the boy answered “It’s not good to steal from the store. It’s
against the law. Someone could see you and call the police” In this stage the
boy is saying that stealing is bad because someone could see you and you would
get into trouble because stealing is against the law. As the boy grew older his
perspective on stealing the drug changed. X had the same mind frame when answering if it
was ok to steal the drug.
Stage of moral development “political
Issue”:
To further see
what stage of morality that X was on I asked them about a political issue that
was affecting the world today. The political issue that I chose was abortion.
This is a heated topic between many people who have very different views on the
issue. I asked X questions that will tell me where they stand on the issue and
to discover what stage of moral development she is on for this issue. One of the questions that I asked was “Should
a teenager have the right to abort a fetus without parent consent?” to this
question X answered “No. because they are a minor and they may need help to
make decisions that are really major.” When I asked X if it was morally right to
take away a fetuses right to life X answered “That’s a very difficult question.
The question is usually thought of from the woman’s perspective. If she thinks
it is right then that is her decision. We don’t know what her reasons are. The
people who tell her otherwise don’t know why she need to get one and what might
be happening in her life to make her decide to get an abortion.” These two
answers help me to see that X might be on level 3 stage 5 on the moral
development scale. When a person is on
level 3 stage 5 of the morality scale they are aware that people hold a variety
of values and opinions (Moral stages and moralization, the cognitive
development approach). They believe that they should still follow the law but
at the same time let people have their own choices and lives. This is also like
being a Rights Ethics theorist. When I
asked X what they would tell a close friend or relative if they decided to get
an abortion, X responded “I think that I would encourage them to look at all
sides of the situation. It is a big step. I have known people who have had one
and regretted it and some who haven’t. I would encourage them to go to a
counselor. It’s a hard decision, and it shouldn’t be decided lightly.” This
also helped me to gain some perspective on why X stood at level 3, stage 5 or
otherwise known as the conventional level. By saying what X said they are not
taking away the right of the relative, but they are giving advice that could
help them to make the decision.
Altogether, the
questions that I asked “X” , from the moral dilemmas to the choices they made
every day helped me to determine what kind of moral theorist that X was and
what stages on the moral development scale that X stood on. Getting to learn
why X did the certain actions that X did and X’s reasoning behind those actions
helped me to gain a lot of insight on how every person justifies their actions
differently and that everyone is at a different stage on the moral development
scale and a different moral theorist. This interview also helped me to further
expand my knowledge on what defines different moral theories and stages on the
Moral development scale.
