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Workshop on Kohlberg's theory of moral development and Mills' Sociology of Small Groups
by Don Finkel - Teacher Education 1988

Divide up into groups of 3 or 4.

1. (20 minutes)
Kohlberg's six stages of moral development are stages that describe the kind of reasoning people perform in making moral judgments. They are stages of thinking, not of behaving. The six stages are labeled:

• 1. punishment-and-obedience orientation
• 2. instrumental-relativist orientation
• 3. interpersonal concordance orientation
• 4. "law and order" orientation
• 5. social contract, legalistic orientation
• 6. universal-ethical principle orientation

Without looking at your book, write down individually on paper how you think of each stage based on your reading. (One way to do this is by defining what ''right'' or ''wrong is at this stage.)

2. (25 minutes)
Share and discuss these, and by referring to the reading, make sure you are clear on the meaning of each stage.

3. (30 minutes)
Consider the following moral dilemma used by Kohlberg in his research.

HEINZ

In Europe, a woman was near death from a very bad disease, a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium for which a druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1000, which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, "No, I discovered the drug, and I'm going to make money from it." So Heinz became desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife. Should the husband have done that? Why?

The stage a person is in will not determine what they think Heinz ought to do; it will determine how they argue for what they think he ought to do, what kinds of reasons they use to support their views. Construct together brief reasons a person might give at each stage, for both a "yes" and a "no" answer to the question: "Should the husband have done that?" Thus you need to come up with 12 brief arguments or reasons.

4. (15 minutes)

Kohlberg groups the six stages into the following three levels:

• 1. pre-coventional
• 2. conventional
• 3. post-conventional

5. (15 minutes)

Each of these 3 levels contains within it an implicit theory of social interaction (a theory of groups, a theory of society). That is, assumptions about what makes right and wrong derive in part from assumptions about what constitutes a social grouping, and about how groups function. Write an informal sketch of the implicit view of social interaction implied by each of these levels. You may find it helpful to supplement these sketches with schematic diagrams of group organization.

If you have struggled with this question for a while, and find it too difficult, then go to the next question.

6. (10 minutes)

Mills describes complex interpersonal processes as occurring at five levels:

• 1. behavior (interaction system)
• 2. emotions (group emotion)
• 3. norms (normative system)
• 4. goals (technical system)
• 5. values (executive system)

Try to use these levels of sub-systems of group functioning to flesh out  the implicit social theories you have outlined in 5 above. Use them as a way of clarifying and revising your answers to 5.

BREAK--- (15 minutes)

Part II (30 minutes)

You will be handed a packet of 9 protocols, answers to "Martha's dilemma" written by the class last week. Try to agree on a sorting of these protocols into Kohlberg's six stages. First try to establish which level the protocol belongs in; then decide on which of the two stages within that level.

Don't try to guess or figure out who wrote which paragraph. Please don't reveal yourself as the author of your paragraph. Don't get involved in the issue of personalities. REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE MAKING JUDGMENTS ABOUT ARGUMENTS, NOT PEOPLE. Also recall that there may be forms of reasoning from several stages on one sheet of paper. You have to try to figure out, if possible, which is the preponderant type of reasoning.

Do not feel the need to get through all nine protocols. It is more important to think through and discuss a small number, than to try to hurry for the sake of doing them all.


Part III (40 minutes)

Discussion by the whole class on the workshop and its results.