Piaget’s view on the conscience was that before the age of ten children followed the morality of their parents, teachers, society and so on. This he termed heteronomous morality. After the age of ten he believed that people took their own decisions as opposed to ones told to them. This he called autonomous morality. After the age of 16 are people able to take decisions without being able to be affected by external factors one bit! Lawrence Kohlberg added to Piaget’s model by suggesting for this development to take place six stages need to be fulfilled. He argued that most people do not go through these six stages to achieve an ethical conscience for the wrong reasons e.g. being caught. The six stages put forward by Kohlberg are:
- Obedience and punishment - how can I avoid punishment?
- Self-interest- What will I gain?
- Conformity - good-girl/good-boy attitude
- Law and order
- Social contract - whats in it for society?
- Universal ethical principles
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