Essay On Kohlberg's Dilemma

Kohlberg’s Dilemma are hypothetical, moral problems used by Lawrence Kohlberg to illustrate the stages of moral development within adolescents to adults, which is explained using the Theory of stages of moral development. Kohlberg claims his theory can be applied universally; however, research have shown that culture has an influence on moral reasoning (Snarey, 1985, Shweder, Mahapatra & Miller 1990). His theory also states that moral judgement is based almost purely on cognition. However, experiments by other researchers have shown that other variables does affect moral judgements (Krebs & Denton, 2005). This has led to the moral stages being inconsistently applied in different circumstances. This literature review will attempt to evaluate the relevance of Kohlberg’s Theory, by juxtaposing it with the actions of the characters in John Q - a film whose main character is trying to get a heart transplant for his son to save his life (Burg & Cassavetes, 2002). He took a hospital emergency room hostage when he was unable to fund his son’s surgery expenses, through financial aids and lawful means. This scenario is somewhat similar to the Heinz Dilemma, which is one of Kohlberg’s better-known Dilemmas to illustrate moral development stages. A comparison of Kohlberg’s theory will be done against other research on morality (Krebs & Denton, 2005; …show more content…
Kohlberg emphasized on the cognitive influences on moral behaviour, while neglecting the influence of other variables on moral behaviour. These variables are identified as the context of the situation, the consequences and emotions (Krebs & Denton, 2005). Other theories that are more holistic in approach have been identified to be more appropriate for illustrating moral development (Blasi, 1983; Youniss and Yates,