Discuss Piaget's stage theory of moral development

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Piaget suggests that children's moral reasoning develops in stages closely tied to cognitive growth.

The premoral period. According to Piaget, preschool children show little concern for or awareness of rules. In a game of marbles, these premoral children do not play systematically with the intent of winning. Instead, they seem to make up their own rules, and they think the point of the game is to take turns and have fun.

Heteronomous morality. Between the ages of five and 10, the child develops a strong respect for rules as they enter Piaget's stage of heteronomous morality ("heteronomous" means "under the rule of another"). Children now believe that rules are laid down by powerful authority figures such as God, the police, or their parents, and they think that these regulations are sacred and unalterable.

Autonomous morality. By age 10 or 11, most children have reached Piaget's second moral stage—autonomous morality. Older, autonomous children now realize that social rules are arbitrary agreements that can be challenged and even changed with the consent of the people they govern. They also feel that rules can be violated in the service of human needs. Thus, a driver who speeds during a medical emergency is no longer considered immoral, even though she is breaking the law. Judgments of right and wrong now depend more on the actor's intent to deceive or to violate social rules rather than the objective consequences of the act itself.