Lawrence Colberg was a famous psychologist born in 1927 in New York he attended the University of Chicago where his interest in developmental psychology began developmental psychology is basically what it sounds like it's the study of how the brain develops but in graduate school Colberg became interested in a specific type of Developmental Psychology called moral development moral development is it's a type of development in the brain that has to do with how you think about moral issues and what you think is right or wrong another very famous developmental psychologist was named Jean P although my research for this project is not focused directly on him he's still really important because he was Lawrence Goldberg's inspiration and influence jeene P was known for his studies and research in a lot of different areas of developmental psychology one being cognitive development which has to do with how the brain thinks perceives and gains knowledge about the world around it although jeene P didn't Focus his studies and research specifically on moral development like Colberg did he did come up with two sort of stages of moral development which Define how most people at a certain age think about what's right or wrong he said that younger children ages 11 and under believe that rules R are absolute things that they must always follow because their teacher or authority says so but older kids understand that rules are just devices to help people get along and they can be changed but Lawrence Colberg later came up with six much more accurate and specific stages they gave a whole new definition to moral development he even came up with a device to help judge which of his six stages a certain person was at this is a story about a couple in Europe called the Hines dilemma it is as follows hin wife was near death from cancer there was one drug that the doctors thought might save her there was only one pharmacist who sold the drug since he discovered the drug and was the only person who had it he decided to charge 10 times what the drug cost him to make for a small dose of the drug it cost him $200 but he charged Hines $2,000 for that dose Hines didn't have $2,000 so he tried everything he could think of to raise the money but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost he told the pharmacist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it to him cheaper or let him pay later but the pharmacist said no I discover the drug and I'm going to make money from it so Hines got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife should hindes have broken into the store to steal the drug for his wife life why or why not by analyzing people's responses to this passage Colberg was able to classify people's moral thinking into one of his six stages you'll learn about the stages now stage one is called obedience and Punishment at this stage children assume that authorities in their life such as teachers and parents lay down a set of rules that they must unquestionably follow they hardly even realize realize that viewpoints differ morally they're just interested in abiding by their rules to avoid punishment so in response to the Hines dilemma children with moral thinking at stage one almost always say that Hines did not do the right thing because stealing is bad it's against the law and you can go to jail and that sort of reflects what the whole stage is about he didn't do the right thing because um he you shouldn't steal things steal things stealing isad thing if you steal stuff and mean it means you can like you have to buy it but not steal it I think he shouldn't have broke in because he could have went to jail stage two is called individualism and exchange at this stage children realize that Authority's rules aren't the only right point of view they realize that everybody in life naturally wants their own way of things and everybody wants to pursue their life in their own different way based on their own self-interests punishment is just a risk that everybody wants to avoid so in response to the hein's Dilemma children with moral thinking at this stage often think well what was right for Hines is what met his self-interests which means stealing the drug for his wife and what was right for the druggist is what met his self-interests which means making the money off the drug they also often point out that the drug was being unfair for charging too much money for the drug it would have been nicer for man to um to just let him buy the J for $1,000 I mean that that's a lot too and that'd be better if if his wife didn't die it was right for him to steal and it was wasn't because he he but but he didn't have the money so he stole it but also he he didn't have the money so he he couldn't buy it so he just stole it stage three is called good interpersonal relationships at this stage people not just children anymore believe that you should live up to the values of family and community and that you should have trust empathy and compassion for one another um cuz my grandma she's going through breast cancer right now so if my grandma needed it I would definitely I would break into a building stores just to get that um cuz my grandma is everything to me so I'm pretty sure that H's his wife means a lot to him he should have done it because if I had a um if I had someone who I love then um I would go do anything to same stage four is called maintaining the social order at this stage people are concerned with society as a whole they want the world to function correctly which means they usually want everybody to abide by rules and laws although they are essentially taking the same side as stage one obedience and Punishment stage one children have no grasp for how Society works as a whole so in response to the hein's Dilemma stage four people almost always say that it was wrong for hindes to steal the drug because what he's doing is not keeping Society function orderly and properly and they also often point out that if everybody stole what they wanted the world would be chaos I think it was wrong for Hines to steal the medicine because uh theft is simply a wrong thing to do and if he could justify it by the fact that his wife was dying then anyone could think of a different reason to to justify it um and then the world is chaos stage five is called social contract and individual rights at this stage people Define what a good society means for them realizing that there isn't only one straight answer to the way the society should be they compare human rights to the law and are very theoretical about the way the world should be so when responding to the hein's Dilemma people from stage five aren't usually in favor of breaking the law but their responses usually come down to saying yes it was okay for Hines to steal the drug from the pharmacist because life is more important than property their responses to the hein's Dilemma also often contain a lot of references between the way Society is and the way they think Society should be so I guess in a way for me the you know the greatest good is the sanctity of human life and although one can understand from the pharmacist standpoint that he had his rights and certainly those were protected under the law in other words the law was behind the pharmacist not behind times um there are lots of instances most prominently that comes to mind with me is the Civil Rights Movement where the law was really on the wrong side of of morality and doing the right thing it took someone like Martin Luther King and the people surrounding him to realize that just because there were laws in place that uh in a sense um created this social order in the South they saw that um that that wasn't the greatest good the greatest good was to in a sense assert the Dignity of of human beings uh in this case African-Americans and and if that meant breaking the law and so be it there was originally a stage six called Universal principles that sort of went above and beyond all the other stages but after a few years Lawrence Colberg discarded the stage realizing that it wasn't very much used to him