Truman Moral Development

Life’s What You Make It Life is filled with countless opportunities that will more or less make or break the pathway to humanity. Sometimes an individual may question his or her values and beliefs because society does not idolize them, but that does not mean they are not true. In order to live a good life one must have their own free will to make decisions and put meaning in their own life. Also, when thinking about what it means to live a good life, maintaining social order becomes completely insignificant. In fact, going against society to benefit oneself is how many heros succeed whether in film or in real life. Philosophy is revealed in film through a character’s motives, the perception of illusion and reality, and intuition. Overall …show more content…
An example of Kohlberg’s stages of moral development is when Truman runs into a runner who looked like the homeless man that was in a wheelchair a few weeks ago. Truman tries to chase the runner but a huge swarm of people come to distract him from chasing the runner. Truman’s realization of his so called fake life represents Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. This scene marks the start of Truman’s investigation of his life. He is slowly maturing and progressing through Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. In order for Truman to successfully progress through Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, he must learn to make his own set of rules for his own moral good. Kohlberg’s stages of moral development are also shown during the scene with Truman’s best friend Marlon. Marlon finds Truman while he is trying to escape his life and they are golfing in the street. Truman asks Marlon if this whole life is a big lie and Marlon says “I’ve known you since we were kids...I would never lie to you, Truman”. Even though Marlon feels bad about lying to Truman, he wants to follow the rules and keep his job on the reality tv show. This shows that Marlon is only at stage four in Kohlberg’s stages of moral development because he is maintaining social order with Christoph by following his rules in keeping Truman from knowing the truth. Due to lie, Marlon’s motive to maintain social order relates to Kohlberg’s stages of moral development which sets expectations for moral development. As seen in the film, Truman wants to be his own person. He indeed was successful at the end of the film because overtime he morally developed from stage four to stage six in Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. His intuition lead him to make the right decision of going through the door at the end of the film, even though he did not know the kind of world he was entering