The three stages of moral development identified by Kohlberg are pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional. Each of the stages has 2 sub-stages.
EXPLANATION
Stage 1: Preconventional
In this stage, a child’s morality is being controlled. Children in pre-conventional morality focused on how their behavior gives them consequences and has not understood about society’s morality about what is wrong and right.
The sub-stages of pre-conventional are obedience & punishment orientation and instrumental orientation. In obedience and punishment orientation, the child only does a behavior for the purpose of avoiding being punished. They think the act is bad if the punishment is worse. In instrumental orientation, child obeys rules for their own goods. The child always asks what they will get if they do a certain behavior.
Stage 2: Conventional
In conventional, a child’s behavior is mostly to ensure that they will maintain a positive relationship with others. A child will also question a lot of rule’s appropriateness in this stage.
The sub-stages of conventional are a good boy - nice girl orientation and law & order orientation. In a good boy - a nice girl orientation, children do things to avoid disapproval of other people. They want to be perceived as nice to others. In the law and order orientation, a child follows a rule to maintain their function in society.
Stage 3: Postconventional
In the post-conventional level, their morality is more abstract in values and principles. They can already think that some laws are unfair and should be eliminated. This level believes that individuals are separated from society.
The sub-stages are social-contract orientation and universal ethical principle orientation. In social-contract orientation, people believe that each individual in this world has different values, rights, and opinions. People should respect other people’s views on morality. In universal ethical principle orientation, moral reasoning is using universal ethical principles. The chosen principle in this stage is more abstract.
LEARN MORE
If you’re interested in learning more about this topic, we recommend you to also take a look at the following questions:
Autonomy by ethical theorists: brainly.com/question/9810153
Moralistic political cultures: brainly.com/question/11056312
KEYWORD: three stages of moral development, pre-conventional, conventional, post-conventional, Kohlberg
Subject: Social Studies
Class: College
Subchapter: Moral Stages by Kohlberg
