Moral Dilemmas In Siddhartha

Growing up is an essential part of humans’ lives. Yet, one could state that it is the decisions and their impacts, which reveal people’s inner selves as well as make them who they ultimately are meant to be. To understand Siddhartha, one should continually be aware of the process of synthesis, which stands for a mental process of reconciling dualities of antithetical elements. Hermann Hesse, the author of the mentioned book, was aware of this process of unifying opposites, which is evident in his psychoanalytic literature. Accordingly, there is an apparent similarity between the Theory of Moral Development by Lawrence Kohlberg and Hesse’s work. Kohlberg theorized that human beings progress consecutively from one stage to the next in an invariant sequence, not to say nothing of skipping any of the stages. Moreover, key factors in development of moral reasoning are both; the consistence with which one encounters moral dilemmas and the desire of looking for answers on questions and problems of a higher level than the present one, which perfectly reflects Siddhartha’s challenges throughout his journey.
Presumably, many readers, having read Siddhartha, would state that its main character was a strong and independent person who was not afraid of leaving their home and family. Not only did he desired answers to his …show more content…
He earned her approval by obeying her rules and restrictions, for which he, in turn, got a reward. Under those circumstances, Siddhartha underwent the second stage of Theory of Moral Development – the Conventional Morality, in which one earns reward by being conventionally “respectable”; in this case, for the Samanas and Kamala. Siddhartha was making decisions based on what would please people around him, especially authority figures or individuals guaranteeing him some benefit, which reflects the Conventional Morality by