Lawrence Kohlberg (1927–1987) was an American psychologist who developed the most influential stage theory of moral development. His model, extending Jean Piaget’s work, proposed six stages of moral reasoning progressing from self-interest (pre-conventional) through social conformity (conventional) to principled reasoning about justice and rights (post-conventional).
Core ideas
- Stage theory of moral development: moral reasoning develops through invariant, hierarchical stages, with abstract justice reasoning at the apex.
- Heinz dilemma: Kohlberg’s research method used hypothetical moral dilemmas and scored subjects’ reasoning according to the stage model.
- Justice as moral maturity: the highest stages of development are characterized by reasoning from universal principles of justice, rights, and fairness.
Significance for this research
Kohlberg matters for this research primarily as the framework that Carol Gilligan critiqued. His model exemplifies what care ethics identifies as a systematic bias: treating one mode of moral reasoning (abstract, principled, justice-oriented) as the neutral standard of maturity, and scoring other modes (relational, contextual, care-oriented) as developmentally inferior. This connects to the broader critique of procedural liberalism — the assumption that neutral procedures are the highest form of political reasoning.
Notable works
- The Philosophy of Moral Development (1981)
- The Psychology of Moral Development (1984)
Related
- Carol Gilligan — who critiqued his model
- Care Ethics — the tradition that emerged from critiquing his framework