- 17/02/2013
- Posted by: essay
- Category: Free essays
Comparing Piaget’s Postformal Thought with Kohlberg’s Postconventional morality, I should say that Kohlberg singled six stages of moral development. The first stage which is called “Obedience and Punishment Orientation” is very similar to the first stage of Piaget’s moral thought. At this stage children think of what is right as that what the adults, the authority say is right. They are sure that doing the right things is doing what authority wants and avoiding punishment. But on the second Kohlberg’s stage “Individualism and Exchange” children don’t care so much about the opinion of authority, they understand that there are different sides of any point. Children prefer to do what they think is right, pursue their own interests (Sinnott 24).
Kohlberg emphasizes the second level of morality “Conventional”, which consists of two stages, such as “Good Interpersonal Relationships” and “Maintaining the social Order”. At these stages young people usually think as the representatives of the conventional society, havening their norms, values and principles. They try to be good people, have helpful motives towards other people, but they have a concern toward obeying laws.
The last level in Kohlberg’s morality is “Post conventional”, which has two stages “Social Contract and Individual Rights” and “Universal Principles”. At the fifth stage people are not so concerned with maintaining society for it own sake, but they worry about values that make good for their society. At this stage people emphasize basic rights and the democratic processes which help everyone to understand, that at stage 6 they accept the principles of any agreement (Kohlberg 153).
At the same time Piaget mentions the characteristics of postformal thought, such as: pragmatism, shifting gears, multiple solutions and awareness of paradox (Ginsburg 112).
Piaget is sure that Formal operations overemphasize the meaning of problem solving and pure logic, but they underemphasize the pragmatic quality of real life cognitive activity.
As we see, both, Piaget and Kohlberg have their own points of view on thinking process and morality, but at the same time they have some common ideas.
Work Cited
Sinnott, Jan D. The development of logic in adulthood: postformal thought and its applications. (1998). P. 24. Print.
Kohlberg, Lawrence., Levine, Charles., Hewer, Alexandra. Moral stages: a current formulation and a response to critics. (1983). p. 153. Print.
Ginsburg, Herbert., Opper, Sylvia. Piaget’s theory of intellectual development: an introduction. (1976). P. 112. Print.
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