Moral Reasoning Across Cultures

From my psychology text in class

 

His perspective is based on an individualistic notion of justice.

 

The first two stages represent preconventional morality in which the man child’s primary motivation is to avoid immediate punishment and receive immediate rewards.

 

Conventional morality emphasizes adherence to social rules.

 

A person at this level of morality might be very troubled by circumstances that make him or her different from other people.

 

Many people never move beyond this level to postconventional morality which is characterized by a concern with moral principles transcending those of their own society.

 

One limitation of Kohlberg’s theory is that it does not take into account gender differences (his subjects were all male). In fact, he claims that women do not advance through all six stages as often as men. Addressing this issue, Gilligan (1982, 1988) notes that boys tend to emphasize independence, autonomy, and the rights of others in their moral thinking, using a justice-oriented approach. Girls, on the other hand, develop an ethic of care and interdependence that grows out of a concern for the needs of others rather than the value of independence.

 

The research findings on gender differences in moral reasoning are inconsistent. It is possible that gender differences in moral reasoning when they do occur are related to power differences and differences in the typical ethical dilemmas faced by males and females. Researchers have also found evidence that culture may have a greater influence on moral reasoning than gender does, with Anglo Americans putting less emphasis on an ethic of care than members of other ethnic groups. (Gardiner and Kosmitzki 2011) For understanding moral reasoning across cultures they recommend a social constructionist theory of moral development proposed by Neff and Helwig (2002) and Haan (1991), who suggest that moral reasoning comes from the understanding of the interdependence of self and others that develops through social interactions.

 

They propose that the most mature moral reasoner is the one who makes moral decisions that balance the person’s own needs and desires with those of others affected by the issue at hand. Haan found that people who are able to control their own emotions in order to think about possible solutions engage in higher levels of moral action than people who are not able to control their emotions. In this view, moral reasoning would take different forms in different cultures, based on diffeent definitions of needs and desires. Even so, research has tended to support the idea that moral development unfolds in stages across cultures (Gibbs, Gasinger, Grime, & Snarey, 2007).