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Everyone has their own morals, and whilst these will certainly vary from person to person, many are universally agreed upon and people will act in certain ways that are considered as moral. For example, most people will not speak on their mobile whilst someone is trying to tell them something important, nor will they push into the front of a queue or try to leave a shop without paying for something.
Given these examples, it is important to understand precisely what is meant by both morals and morality, as these may come up in your exam and you must be able to confidently differentiate between the two:
- Morality: this is a general term for human conduct which comes about because of their morals – it is largely concerned with the separation of good and bad behaviour
- Morals: these are the specific ‘rules’ that govern the behaviour and actions that a person will take on a daily basis
Therefore, we might say that a person’s morality results due to their morals – someone thought it was ok to rob a bank because their morals are not in line with what is socially acceptable.
Morals are thought to be influenced by several sources:
- Parents
- Peers
- Teachers
- Religion
- Culture
- The media
Moral dilemmas
One way of ascertaining our own morals is to look at the way in which we would respond to what are known as moral dilemmas; this refers to a situation in which there is a conflict in determining what decision should be made. Often in a moral dilemma, one thing will benefit at the cost of another and so it is always interesting to see how people respond. Consider the following two moral dilemmas and think about how you would react:
- A week before their wedding, you see your best friend out with another person and it is clear that they are on a date. Do you tell them?
- You accidentally hit a pedestrian when out driving one day. When you get out of the car, a woman comes running towards you saying she has killed someone by running them over. It is clear she is talking about the same person that you know you have just hit. Do you let her take the blame or do you confess?
You may or may not have been able to make a decision. Some people will be able to ascertain what they would do straight away whilst others would agonise over the decision. This may be because of the way in which their morality developed as a child, and there is one specific theory by researcher Lawrence Kohlberg which is thought to be very influential in this area, which we will look at shortly.
Piaget’s ideas about moral development
Piaget argued that moral development was in line with his cognitive stages of development and theorised that children between the ages of five and ten have fixed beliefs about rules, which they see as being unchangeable. During this stage, their moral development is thought to be heteronomous, which means that it is determined by others.
By age ten, however, children become more aware of actions having consequences and they know that rules can be changed as long as everyone is agreeable to this. This stage is referred to as an autonomous stage because children are able to make individual decisions about their own actions.
Kohlberg’s ideas about moral development – stages of morality
According to Kohlberg, morality is developed in three stages, as outlined in the table below:
| Stage | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Preconventional morality (usually in children up to age 8) | In this stage, morality is based on simply getting rewards and avoiding punishment. Children think along the lines of ‘what is in this for me?’ and are much less able to see consequences from the viewpoints of others. |
| Conventional morality (usually in children from ages 8-13) | This stage means that someone (usually an adolescent) will obey rules and regulations and try to fit in and be accepted – they are developing ideas of social norms and therefore how to conform to the expectations of society. |
| Postconventional morality (usually from ages 13 onwards) | This stage involves the making and keeping of promises and living a suitably moral life. Children understand that rules are universal and that they are for the benefit of society rather than for individuals. |
How are cognitive development and the development of morality linked?
One theory of moral development is that it occurs as part of a child’s cognitive development, and Kohlberg was able to draw upon the work of Piaget in order to form his own theories about how moral development transpires.
Piaget argued that part of cognitive development is the ability to reason; this means that people are able to formulate an argument and arrive at a suitable conclusion. Given that we have seen that part of being a human means that we have to resolve moral dilemmas, it is easy to see how these two things are linked.
When faced with a moral dilemma, we need to think about the component parts of the dilemma, determine what one or more outcomes might be by developing a balanced argument and then drawing a conclusion, which will guide our decision on how to act.
When presenting this moral dilemma, Kohlberg was interested in four specific questions:
- Should Heinz have stolen the drug?
- If Heinz had no feelings for his wife, would this have affected his actions?
- If a stranger were the person who had cancer, would this have affected Heinz’s actions?
- Would the chemist have committed murder if Heinz had not stolen the drug and his wife had subsequently died?
These questions were posed to children of varying ages and this is how Kohlberg was able to formulate his stages of moral development theory. It was thought that each child used their varying ability to cognitively reason when coming to their decisions; Kohlberg was not really interested in if the children thought that Heinz had done the right thing but what reasons they gave for their decisions.
