A Hypothetical Analysis of a Moral Dilemma by Katie Maude

      I want you to picture something.  Imagine you are a college student sitting on a park bench on a lovely spring day.   There are plenty of people at the park and people to watch.  You find yourself focused on one man in particular.  He is an older man, and seems to be a little worse for wear. His shoes are worn almost all the way through; his coat is tattered and torn; and he looks as though he doesn’t eat enough. As you watch him, you notice him being rude to other people at the park, he even yells at a young woman who got in his way. As he walks past you, you see something fall out of his pocket…It is a crumpled up $100 bill.  What do you do?

A)    Give the grumpy man his money back before he notices it’s gone? If he sees it in front of you and don’t return it, he will yell at you, BIG TIME.
B)    That man is mean, and I am a college student who could use the money as much as he could. Finders keepers.
C)    Give the man his money back because there are many people in this park watching, and you couldn’t get away with taking it.  Plus, they will think you’re a good person if you give it back.
D)    Just pretend not to notice it. Someone else can choose to be the hero or the villain. Every story needs bystanders too.
E)    Give this man his money back, even though he seems to be cruel hearted. He clearly needs the money, and he could have a heart-wrenching reason for being in a bad mood that I wouldn’t be aware of unless I knew him.
F)    Call after the man, and give him his money back. This man is living in devastation. He needs that money, and losing it will only devastate him further.  Maybe he needs someone to talk to. Offer to buy him a cup of coffee.

     Each of these points was illustrative of a level in Kohlberg’s theory of moral development (Boeree, 2009; Flemming, 2011). Kohlberg’s theory is comprised of three levels, with each level having two sub-levels.

·         If you answered “A”- you are in the first tier of the pre-conventional level.  This is where actions are determined to be good or bad depending on how they will be punished. You gave the man the money back to avoid the humiliation of being yelled at, not because it was the right thing to do.

·         If you answered “B” you are in the second tier of the pre-conventional level. This is where “the exchange principle” enters the equation. Basically “treat others the way you want to be treated.” You didn’t want to give the money back because he was mean, so he deserved it when you were mean by not giving back his money.

·         If you answered “C” you are in the first tier of the conventional level. Here the morality of the action is dependent on peer approval.  You wanted to give the money back to the man not because he needs it, but because you wanted to avoid negative judgement from the other people in the park, and be seen by them as doing something positive.

·         If you answered “D” you are in the second tier of the conventional level. Here is where the morality of an action is dependent on how well it conforms to society’s rules; the emphasis at this level is maintaining social order. You didn’t want to give the money back so as not to make a scene, not a strong sense of “standing up for what is right” even if you know what the right thing to do is.

·         If you answered “E” you are in the first tier of the post-conventional level. Many adults do not reach this level. Moral behavior at this level might include arguing in favor of customs or laws being changed to preserve the health of the society; blind obedience is more forcefully questioned and cultural differences in what is ethical behavior are recognized. You are giving the money back to this man despite what the social constructs of “what is right” told you is right. You are acting based on what you know in your heart is the right thing to do.

·         If you answered “F” you are in the second tier of the post-conventional level, a level that psychologist argue might not be truly reachable. At this level, people follow a moral code based on universal principles that grant all individuals certain basic rights. Society’s rules take a back seat if they contradict those principles, as was the case of those who challenged slavery even when the law allowed it. In this hypothetical, you aren’t truly going against society’s laws and constructs. You are, however making a sacrifice in the terms of not keeping this money, and further trying to understand this man’s pain.

     Kohlberg developed his theory by presenting people with the famous hypothetical situation called the Heinz’s Dilemma (OpenStax College, 2014).  Read the famous scenario below and based on how you would justify your actions, can you identify which stage of moral development you are in?

“In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it.” So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's laboratory to steal the drug for his wife. Should the husband have done that?” (Kohlberg, 1969 as cited in OpenStax College, 2014, p. 301).

Discuss!

References

Boeree, G. (2009) Moral development. Retrieved from: http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/genpsymoraldev.html

Flemming, L. (2011) Lawrence Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development. Retrieved from:  http://www.laflemm.com/snippets/KohlbergSnippets.html

OpenStax College. (2014). Psychology. Houston, TX: Rice University. Retrieved from http:cnx.org/content/co111629/latest/>