MORAL CHARACTER

LESSON 4
 OBJECTIVES:

• Understand the meaning of

character.
• Illustrate the development of
moral character.
• Explain the stages of moral
development.
MORAL AGENTS
• Expected to meet the demands of morality. Not
all agents are moral agents.
• They can obey moral laws such as “MURDER IS
WRONG” or “STEALING IS WRONG.
• One can be a moral agent even if he respond
only to prudential reasons such as fear of
punishment and even if he is incapable of
acting for the sake of moral considerations.
• Has the ability to discern right from wrong and
to be held accountable for his own actions.
MORAL AGENTS
• Judgment regarding the morality of an action
is based on the person who did the action.
• Goodness of an action can be based on the
kind of person who did the action; from the
intention of doing the act; from the
character of the moral agent.
• To determine the kind of person one is, one
should base himself on the character that
one person possesses.
CHARACTER
•From ancient Greek term charakter,
which referred to the mark impressed
upon a coin and determined coin’s
value.
•Person’s value will be determined by the
character that a person possesses.
•In philosophy, person’s character refers
to the moral aspect of a person.
• Aristotle often used the term “ethe” in order
to refer to his idea of the character.
• His concept of morality is connected with his
concept of “arete”, which he translated as
excellence.
• To make the person moral, his action must be
an act done in the most excellent way.
• Person is considered to be an excellent man if
he is functioning in the most excellent way.
• Person will have a greater value if he keeps
on acting as a person excellently.
• When a person is acting excellently
consistently, then he is said to have a great
character.
• Person who has shown greatness in his
character is surely going to obtain a certain
level of success.
• Person who is aiming for success should live a
moral life because a moral person will develop
his character that will determine his destiny.
• Moral character is the force behind moral
action.
MORAL IDEAS OF LAWRENCE KOHLBERG
• Moral character serves as the basis for moral action.
• What kind of character should one have in order to
have his action be considered moral?
• Ethical relativism claims that the morality of an acts
depends upon one’s particular culture or society.
• Lawrence Kohlberg denied the claim of ethical
relativists and upheld the idea that there should be a
consensus of morality.
• In the case of differences on moral perspective, he
held that there must be consensus of rightness.
CONSENSUS THEORY OF RIGHTNESS
…rightness is the ideal limit of dialogue. In any
case, it seemed to me very important that we have a
focus upon rightness because this is an area where
there is a requirement to reach a consensus about
rightness, where there isn’t a requirement to reach
consensus about the good, the ideals of the good
and their basis perhaps in ontology or religion. That
is, that regardless of the varying ideals of the good,
we still need to have a consensus on issue of justice,
that is where individual’s competing ideals of the
good come into conflict with one another. There
needs to be some resolution to this problem.
LIFE OF LAWRENCE KOHLBERG
• Born on Oct. 25, 1927,at Broxville, New York,
USA.
• American psychologist and educator, who is
known for his theory of moral development.
• Youngest of the four children of Alfred
Kohlberg, a successful silk merchant of Jewish
ancestry, and Charlotte Albrecht Kohlberg, a
Protestant and skilled amateur chemist.
• Completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in
Psychology and Ph.D. in Psychology at
University of Chicago.
LIFE OF LAWRENCE KOHLBERG
• His theory is said to be the only one that
provided a very detailed explanation
regarding the moral development of children.
• In 1971, while he was doing research in
Belize, Kohlberg was said to have contracted a
parasitic infection that lead him to develop
severe illness and depression for the rest of
his life.
• January 17, 1987, Kohlberg committed
suicide.
How did Kohlberg come up with his idea of morality?
• Used storytelling technique of Jean Piaget and
narrated what he called the Heinz dilemma.
• He interviewed 72 boys aged 10-16 years old, 58 of
these boys were followed up at three-yearly
intervals for 20 years.
• Questions: (1) Should Heinz have stolen the drug?
(2) Would it change anything if Heinz did not love
his wife? (3) What if the person dying is stranger,
would it make difference? (4) Should the police
arrest the chemist for murder if the woman died?
STAGES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT

1. Pre-Conventional Stage
• Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment Orientation
• Stage 2: Pleasure Orientation or Instrumental-Purposive
Orientation
2. Conventional Stage
• Stage 3: Peer and Group Acceptance Orientation
• Stage 4: Social Structure Orientation
• 3. Post-Conventional Stage
• Stage 5: Social-contract Orientation
• Stage 6: The Universal Ethical Principle
PRE-CONVENTIONAL

• Self-Focused stage
• Concerned with concrete consequences to
individuals and it is focusing on pursuing a concrete
interest while avoiding sanctions.
• No personal code of morality.
• Moral code is shaped by the standards of adults
and the consequences of following or breaking their
rules.
• Authority is outside the individual and reasoning is
based on the physical consequences of action.
STAGE 1: Obedience and Punishment Orientation

• Orientation to punishment and reward and to

physical and material power.
• Respondent: “Heinz shouldn’t steal; he should buy
the drug. If he steals the drug, he might get put in
jail and have to put the drug back anyway.”
• What is right for the person to do is to obey the
rules and avoid physical damage to persons and
property.
• Reason for making moral decision: avoid
punishment.
STAGE 2: Pleasure Orientation or Instrumental-
Purposive Orientation
• Characterized by hedonistic orientation with an instrumental
view of human relations.
• Focus in this stage is placed on the idea of reciprocity, i.e., on
the exchange of favors.
• Respondent: “Heinz should steal the drug to save his wife’s life.
He might go to jail, but he will still have his wife. If it was a pet
he could get a new pet, but it is not easy to get a new wife. ”
• Individual, egoistic conception that he values his wife’s life more
than the values going to jail for a while.
• Reason for acting morally is to satisfy one’s need and admit the
needs of others in their own interest.
• If I do what is wrong, I might not obtain my own interest.
CONVENTIONAL

• Group-Focused stage
• Concerned with fulfilling role expectations, as well
as maintaining and supporting the social order.
• Begin to internalize the moral standards of valued
adult role models.
• Authority is internalized but not questioned, and
reasoning is based on the norms of the group to
which the person belongs.
 STAGE 3: Peer and Group Acceptance
Orientation
• “Good Boy” orientation as it seeks to maintain expectations and
win approval of one’s immediate group.
• Respondent: “If I was Heinz, I would have stolen the drug for my
wife. You cannot put a price on love , no amount of gifts make
love, you cannot put a price on life either.”
• What is considered morally right is what pleases or helps
others and what is approved by others.
• Reason for helping and for pleasing others is his own need to be
seen by others as loyal and caring person.
• Taking third person’s perspective; hence, one should be aware
of shared feelings and group expectations.
 STAGE 4: Social Structure Orientation
• Individual becomes aware of the wider rules of society, so
judgments concern obeying the rules in order to uphold the law
and to avoid guilt.
• Characterized by an orientation to authority, law and duty.
• Maintain a fixed order, whether social or religious.
• Respondent: “When you get married, you take a vow, love and
cherish your wife. Marriage is not only love, it is an obligation
like a legal contract. But it is also a contract before God.”
• One has already a notion of religious and legal order.
• A person is expected to show respect for laws, authority and
society.
POST-CONVENTIONAL

• Individual judgement is based on self chosen

principles and moral reasoning is based on
individual rights and justice.
• Only 10 t0 15% are capable of the kind of abstract
thinking necessary for stage 5 or 6.
• Most people take their moral views from those
around them and only minority think through
ethical principles for themselves.
 STAGE 5: Social-Contract Orientation
• Puts emphasis on equality and mutual obligation within
a democratically established order.
• Respondent: “I think he was justified in breaking in
because there was a human life at stake. I think that
transcends any right that the druggist had to the drug.”
• Morality as a way of recognizing the rights of the
individual, the rights of other individuals, and not
interfering with the rights of others.
• One is concerned that obligations be based on
calculations of overall utility and on what is really good
for all.
 STAGE 6: The Universal Ethical Principle
• Focused on the principles of conscience that have
logical comprehensiveness and universality.
• Highest value is placed on human life, equality and
dignity.
• Developed their own set of moral guidelines which
may or may not fit the law.
• Prepared to act to defend the moral principles even if
it means going against the rest of society in the
process and having to pay the consequences of
disapproval or even imprisonment.
CRITIQUE:
• Ethicists: Kohlberg’s respondents would never
know whether Heinz should steal the drug.
(dilemma is unfamiliar and they are not
married)
• Gilligan: Kohlberg’s theory was based on all-
male sample. (different from women’s point of
view)
• Moralists: Kohlberg’s dilemma is hypothetical.
(may not produce valid result)
CONCLUSION:
• Kohlberg’s study was a proof that human
person is capable of making moral
decisions and such decisions can be for the
benefit not only of one’s self but of the
others.
• Every human person can grow to maturity
on the kind of education one receives or
the environment where one lives in.