Answer: Austin's response is typical of PRE-CONVENTIONAL MORALITY
Explanation:
Lawrence Kohlberg identified three different stages of moral reasoning and they are:
**The pre-conventional morality stage
**The conventional morality stage and
**The post-conventional stage.
He believes that people only go through these stages in this particular order. According to him, the instance one enters into a new stage, the current stage then replaces the reasoning that is peculiar to the previous stage; although he believes that it is not everyone that goes through all these stages.
During the pre-conventional morality stage (peculiar to nine year olds and younger), there is no personal code of morality; rather, the moral code of people in this stage is moulded by the standards set by adults and the outcome of either obeying or flouting their orders. Here, authority is not within the individual. The individual's reasoning has to do with the repercussions or consequences of his actions or inactions.
The pre-conventional morality stage also has two sub-stages which are:-
a. The obedient and punishment orientation stage and
b. The individualism and Exchange stage.
In the obedience and punishment orientation stage, the individuals become good and well behaved so as to avoid any sort of punishment. They believe that they will be punished if they did something wrong or unacceptable.
Summarily, if Austin is angry with his sister but will still not hit her because he doesn't want his mother to spank him in retaliation for beating his sister, then it's clear that Austin's action is typical of one who is in the pre-conventional morality stage of moral reasoning.
