Discussion:
Kohlberg and Moral Dilemmas
Kohlberg asked people to respond to moral dilemmas and then used their responses to determine their level of moral reasoning. Your task here is to write your own Moral Dilemma. Some advice on dilemmas;
1) Kohlberg's dilemmas focus on a person having to choose between obeying a rule, law, or authority figure on one hand or taking some action to serve a human need on the other. These are NOT just difficult choices, they need to address some moral issue. In the Heinz dilemma, the choice is to obey the law of not stealing or to give his wife the chance at life.
2) You need to present the positive and negative aspects to the dilemmas. For example, in the Heinz dilemma, if he steals the drug, he is breaking the law and could go to jail but will be giving his wife a chance at life. If he does not steal the drug, he will be obeying the law and will not get himself in trouble but will have to watch his wife die.
3) Give your characters names and action. The character who is facing the dilemma should make a decision to act in one way or the other at the end of the dilemma.
4) Your dilemma should end with the question, "Should (name of the character) have done that?"
Once you have written the dilemma, go through and generate 2 sample response for each level (pre-conventional, conventional, post-conventional). One response at each level should be for a person who agrees with the action and one response should be for a person who disagrees with the action. This means you will have a total of 6 responses. After each response, identify why it fits at that level.