Kohlberg and Gilligan’s Interpretation of Morality, Essay Example

Morality, per se, is defined to be the elemental factor that separates humans from other creatures. It sets a form of rule or guideline that helps human individuals live alongside the others amidst their differences. It serves as a rule of generality that humans tend to subject themselves into. Through time, the gauge of social morality changes in accordance to the needs and demands of the people living in one particular community. Observably, what was unacceptable in at least ten years in the past have now become a common matter in the society; one example of which is premarital sex which was observed before as taboo or an extensive sinful act, but is now noted to be a normal drive among teens.

Why is there such a change in pattern as to how humans envision the role of morality in their lives and their connection with others? Kohlberg and Gilligan tried to outline the said approach to development in three separate stages which they both interpreted differently. In the discussion that follows, these particular indications of moral development shall be better introduced according to their comparison and differences between each other.

To note, it should be realized that the three stages both Kohlberg and Gilligan used involved the pre-conventional level, the conventional level and the post conventional level. These three stages have been separately depicted by each sociologist. For Kohlberg as for example, he characterizes the emergence of morality based on one’s attention to the authority that has been placed above him. In a way, this indicate how one tends to follow rules as much as possible especially if the said rules were established by someone who is set in power. This stage later on develops to one’s consideration over himself and the conditional process by which his desires are given attention to. Meanwhile, the conventional level of this development according to Kohlberg involves the consideration of one over stereotypical roles and how one recognizes himself to be a part of a larger social group based on the contribution he provides to the said community. The last stage involves one’s acceptance of moral rules based on how the society is convinced for one particular matter to be normal and acceptable.

On the other hand, taking note of the stages of moral development considered by Gilligan, she immediately considers one’s value for self satisfaction; then followed by self-sacrifice which is equated as the element that makes one “good”. From here the development of inequality between self and others become evident hence creating a sense of equal definition of personal levelling becomes evident. The last stage is one’s realization of his own worth based on how much he was able to sacrifice his own life or his own desires for the sake of responding to the needs and demands of others. At some point, Gilligan suggests that apart from being accepted, being able to create one’s worth towards the others should be realized before morality is considered existent.

Both sourced out from one’s vision of himself, Gilligan and Kohlberg provides a patter on how one extends himself towards the others based on the relationships they create and the actuations they conceive when dealing with other individuals in the society. In line with this, it is specifically defined that the separation of one’s self from the others through identifying his personal demands and making the best out of it for the welfare of others is what Gilligan considers to be a sense of goodness in every individual which later on gives birth to the real meaning of morality. On the contrary, Kohlberg suggests that one’s desire to manifest social oneness through uniting himself with the others through utilizing general rules and regulations is the source of equality, a matter that makes every element morally acceptable hence prompting individuals to follow through.

References

Kohlberg, Lawrence (1971). “From ‘is’ to ‘ought’: How to commit the naturalistic fallacy and get away with it in the study of moral development”. In Theodore Mischel (ed.). Cognitive development and epistemology. New York: Academic Press. pp. 151–284.

Blum, Lawrence. (1988). Gilligan and Kohlberg: Implications for Moral Theory. Ethics, Vol. 98, No. 3 (Apr., 1988), pp. 472-491. The University of Chicago Press.