Kohlberg and The Most Dangerous Game Richard Connell’s short story The Most Dangerous Game exhibits a morally undeveloped character who owns an island. The character, General Zaroff, shows characteristics from the Theories of Moral Development by Lawrence Kohlberg, which describes how a human being progresses through six moral stages. In Connell’s story a man named Rainsford is shipwrecked on an island where the madman Zaroff hunts him. General Zaroff displays the moral stages of zero and one when he meets Rainsford on the island. General Zaroff demonstrates stage zero of moral development which Kohlberg states: “Pleasure-Pain (Exciting-Fearful) determines behavior[...] Take what is pleasant; avoid what is unpleasant” (Kohlberg, 1). General
