9. Conscience: Piaget and Kohlberg - the Developmental Conscience
- Created by: Alasdair
- Created on: 26-06-17 20:14
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- 9. Piaget and Kohlberg - the Developmental Conscience
- A child's moral development grows and the ability to reason morally depends on cognitive development
- Two stages of moral development:
- Heteronomous morality
- Between 5 and 10 years
- Conscience is still immature
- Rules are not to be broken and punishment is expected if a rule is broken
- The consequences of an action will show if it is right or wrong
- Autonomous morality
- Aged 10+
- Children develop their own rules and understand how rules operate in and helps society
- The move towards autonomous morality occurs when the child is less dependent on others for moral authority
- Heteronomous morality
- Kohlberg followed Piaget's ideas
- People move from behaving in socially acceptable ways because they are told to do so by authority figures and want to gain approval, to keeping the law, to caring for others and finally to respect for universal principles and demands of an individual conscience
- Both Piaget and Kohlberg believed that most moral development and the development of a conscience occur through social interaction
- Strength of Piaget
- Children don't understand motives - only see consequences
- Weaknesses of Piaget
- It is difficult to simply trace development that easily - too specific with ages
- Learning disabilities are not accounted for
- Does not account for external influences throughout life
- Your conscience is always developing
- Strengths of Kohlberg
- A truly universal theory can apply to those of religious faith as well as those of secular faith
- The theory is logical
- It explains why people make mistakes even though they follow their conscience
- This makes the theory realistic and practical
- Agrees with Aquinas's ideas that conscience is manufactured from experiences and external conditions and that children do not have fully formed consciences
- Weaknesses of Kohlberg
- It seems incorrect to say accurately that by the age of ten, children will start to acquire autonomous morality.
- Is it fair to compare someone with learning problems the same with someone who has none?
- It seems incorrect to say accurately that by the age of ten, children will start to acquire autonomous morality.
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