Lawrence Kohlberg: Why Johnny Can Be Good without Being Religious

A name that often crops up in Christian education these days is that of Lawrence Kohlberg. Kohlberg is with the School of Education at Harvard, and he has done some important research into moral education. Christian educators who hear of this research have varying reactions, ranging from “Now we know how to teach morals” to “We can’t follow Kohlberg; we must follow the Bible.” Clearly, here is a theory to be reckoned with in the field of Christian education.

The theory of moral development proposed by Kohlberg uses Jean Piaget’s concept of developmental stages. In the area of moral development, Kohlberg has worked out the stages more thoroughly than Piaget did. These stages, grouped into four levels, may be described as follows:

Premoral Level

Stage O: Does not understand or reason about moral issues. Has no conception of obligation to others or to authority. Good is what is pleasant, and bad is what is painful. Does what he can do or wants to do.

Preconventional Level

Responds to the way society labels good and bad or right and wrong, but only because of consequences to himself.

Stage 1: Guided by consequences—punishment or reward. Defers to authority or power not out of respect but because avoiding punishment is a “good” in itself.

Stage 2: Guided by personal satisfaction and occasionally the satisfaction of others. Actions are an instrument for achieving satisfaction. “You be good to me, and I’ll be good to you.”

Conventional Level

Responds to society’s expectations for reasons beyond himself—for loyalty.

Stage 3: Guided by the expectations of others. Acts for the approval of others. The “good boy” stage.

Stage 4: Understands something of the need for authority, rules, and social order. Respect for these is a “good.” Duty is a “good.”

Principled Level

Tries to find values that have justification in their own right, apart from any supporting person or group.

Stage 5: Somewhat legalistic view of the social-contract idea. Standards tend to be those that have been evaluated and agreed upon by the whole society. But open to changing law when this seems best.

Stage 6: Standards are in the individual conscience rather than in laws or social agreements. Principles are self-chosen on the basis of universality and logical consistency. These principles are abstractions, such as justice, and are not concrete rules found in religions or philosophies or elsewhere.

Teachers who want to make use of these must understand that they are cognitive levels—that is, levels of moral reasoning not of moral behavior. The very young child at the premoral level may not take a piece of candy because he cannot reach it. He is not able to reason at all about whether or not he should take it; he is guided merely by whether or not he wants it and is able to take it. The child at the preconventional level may refrain from taking the candy because previously he was punished for that behavior. An older child at the conventional level may refrain from taking the candy because that is the “rule,” or because he wants to be a “good boy.” On the other hand, he just may take it if circumstances are such that no one will know he was not a good boy. The man at the principled level will not pick up the private letter that is none of his business, because he respects the privacy of the other person. If this truly is a principle with him, it does not matter whether or not his action will ever be known; he acts on his principle and not on the possibility of getting caught.

In all the above illustrations the action was the same: not touching the object. However, it is not the action that determines a person’s moral level but the reasoning involved, according to the Kolhberg theory. Knowing what is right does not insure doing right. But according to Kohlberg, those who reach a principled level are more likely to act on what they believe is right than are those at lower levels.

In the United States many people reach the conventional level by about age thirteen. The principled level is reached, if at all, by late adolescence or the early twenties. Kohlberg has some evidence that those who do not reach these levels by more or less “normal” ages are likely to be thwarted in development and never attain higher levels.

What shall Christian educators do with this theory? Some, pointing to the late ages that Kohlberg gives, have accused him of saying there is no advantage in moral education at early ages. But Kohlberg says no such thing and his theory implies no such thing. This is a false criticism.

Kohlberg has done some research into the problems of helping children move up to a higher level of moral reasoning. He has found, for instance, that children often prefer the reasoning one or two stages above their own but do not even understand the reasoning beyond that. For example, in studying a historical or social problem and being presented with several alternative courses of action, children see the higher course as being better, provided it is not more than two stages above the stage of reasoning they have reached.

Teachers who understand this can do much to help their students develop higher levels. Discussion is perhaps the best technique to use; also effective is roleplaying followed by discussion. History teachers can lead discussions of moral dilemmas such as those the Germans had in Hitler’s time. What about disobeying the law and helping the Jews to escape? Or what about the underground railroad in our own pre-Civil War days? Bible teachers have many situations to use, also. What about Lot’s “rights” in the matter of the wells? Or Abraham’s going to war to rescue Lot? Through much experience with moral decisions students can grow in their level of moral reasoning, but only if guided by teachers who themselves are on a high, principled level and who understand that the route there is long and difficult. They must help pupils see from a perspective just one, sometimes two, stages above their present stages. Teachers who deal with the behavior of stage-three children by appealing to a stage-one punishment orientation will do nothing to advance the moral reasoning of those children.

Christian educators can certainly make use of what Kohlberg has told us. We might also do research of our own, in a Christian context, to find better ways of helping children develop their moral reasoning. Research has shown, for instance, that in parochial schools children’s levels tend to be higher. If we could, find out why, perhaps we would do an even better job. Kohlberg’s findings can be useful tools for us, and there need be no controversy about the stages and the ages he has identified.

But even those who accept Kohlberg’s stages and ages may have questions about his approach. Some of his critics among the psychologists ask, “Is reasoning enough?” They point to some of our knowledge about affective learning, about parent identification and internalization of parental values. Such psychologists are not ready to operate only with the cognitive model Kohlberg presents, and Christian educators should not be, either. We have our own particular beliefs that must be taken into account in our approach to moral teaching—beliefs such as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes we forget this. Sometimes Christian educators jump into new educational propositions that are not necessarily compatible with their own beliefs. The widespread interest in “values clarification” is an example of this. Values clarification is a cognitive approach in which people learn to understand their own values and those of others. It stops at that. This is not enough. We must go beyond helping a person know his values; we must help him learn and accept ever higher values.

A more substantial problem with Kohlberg’s theory lies in the philosophical realm. In identifying the kind of moral reasoning people do, Kohlberg has found that at his highest level people make judgments based on internalized principles. And the highest of these principles is justice and the welfare of others. Then he goes beyond the science of identifying what is; he turns philosopher by claiming that what “is” is what “ought” to be. Philosophers have criticized him in this area. And Christians also will object to this humanistic approach to identifying the highest values.

Kohlberg does argue, along with Christians, that values cannot be relative. That is, he sees problems in the system of “You do what you think is right and I’ll do what I think is right.” He sees that there must be a standard, that there must be positivism in ethics. But he would derive this standard by scientific means: what science finds is true in people becomes the thing that ought to be true. Science thereby takes the place of religion. Or for Christians, it takes the place of God and his Word.

Christians will find their highest values in God and his revelation. They will not expect to find them in the study of man. And so Christians who want to make use of Kohlberg’s theory will have to use the Bible first and the theory second.

At Kohlberg’s “premoral” and “preconventional” levels, a Christian parent will already be teaching what he believes to be right, even while realizing that his child has no such high principles but is only responding according to his punishment-obedience orientation. At the “conventional” level, which includes the “good boy” and “law and order” stages, Christian parents and teachers will want to make certain that children are well taught in the “laws” of the Bible. The Bible teaches us things we are supposed to do and not do—we are to love our neighbor, we are not to steal, and so on.

A good grounding at the “law” level is a prerequisite for living later at the principled level. In order to learn to live by his own internalized principles, a person must first have learned to live under the authority of good rules and law.

Kohlberg’s theory requires that each stage be learned and lived before the next is reached; there is no skipping. So it might be said that Kohlberg has found in the psychological realm a counterpart to what Paul stated long ago in the spiritual realm, that the law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, who is our righteousness.

Kohlberg is trying to separate moral teaching from religion. He thinks that if he can show scientifically what moral development is, apart from religion, he will have an acceptable base for bringing moral teaching into the schools. No one could then argue that it is the same thing as bringing religion into the schools.

So if we want to use Kohlberg’s theory in Christian education, we must see clearly what he is doing. We must understand that he is trying to separate moral development from any religious base. And then we must put his psychological knowledge together with biblical principles to develop our own theory of Christian moral education.

D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

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