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The Levels of Cognitive Moral Development According to Kohlberg

Lawrence Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development began as graduate student research to expand on the ideas of Swiss professor Jean Piaget. Broadly, it seeks to explain or account for the accumulation of moral ideals throughout a person's life. This theory provides a general framework for understanding how morality is understood to be taught by a variety of societal and cultural influences.

Pre-Conventional
- The pre-conventional stage begins at the pre-adolescent stage of human development, and consists of two components that are closely related: punishment orientation and self-interest orientation. Punishment orientation teaches children that whatever they are punished for is bad. The severity of the punishment is also instructive in determining which acts are worse. Consequently, what is right may be defined as what is in an individual's best interest ̵2; for instance, what that individual will be personally rewarded for. This limited moral universe can be described as completely relative.
Conventional
- In the next stage of human development, the adolescent stage, individuals learn to convert their relative, private morality into a socially formed notion of morality. Firstly, adolescents learn to reciprocate behavior, based on the approval and disapproval of others, mostly limited to peers and superiors. This social conformity in a limited sense also leads to an implicit acceptance of the "social contract," in which adolescents learn to obey authority, whether represented by individuals or abstract ideas, such as law and justice.
Post-Conventional
- As adults, individuals gain a wider appreciation of the world, recognizing that the world contains many different cultures, customs and ideologies. Many people realize that despite differences, these various ideas can be respected and accounted for, even if an individual finds them to be foreign or difficult to empathize with. These can be reconciled with a sense that there are universally held values that are felt to be common to all (ostensibly rational) human beings.
Possible Further Stages
- Kohlberg's research indicated two potential further stages in cognitive development. One path seems to indicate that some people undergo moral regression later in life, possibly due to disillusionment with the conception of an orderly moral universe. Another possibility is the appreciation of a person's "morality of cosmic orientation," implying the link between spirituality and morality. This is thought to come from the independent contemplation of some sense of ultimate right and wrong, which governs and encompasses all human ideas about morality.

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