Discuss one or more theories of Moral Understanding and evaluate its conclusions Essay

The term honourableity, according to Shaffer (1993) message a set of principles or ideals that help oneself the exclusive to distinguish right from wrong and to act on this distinction. ethical motive is big to society, as it would not function effectively unless there is several(prenominal) agreement of what is right and wrong. There argon m any underlying exploites and environmental factors, which limit or promote social, cognitive and moral phylogenesis in boorren. In modern society, television could be studyed to be one of the major(ip) exercises on a babes moral festering.There are common chord approaches to moral development the cognitive approach, the psychodynamic approach and the social erudition conjecture. The Cognitive-Developmental approach of Piaget and Kohlberg studies how churlren become to a greater extent than able to reason morally and put on moral judgements, whereas the Freuds psychodynamic approach is more concerned with the development of t he moral sense and moral feelings such as guilt and anxiety. The social learning guess of Bandura and Mischel investigates the development of moral behavior and how role models in the family, society and the media, influence it.The possibleness I am going to discuss is Piagets Cognitive-Developmental Approach. His surmise of moral development is concerned with how the childs moral noesis and understanding change with age. Piaget saw morality as any constitution of rules, which governs interaction between people. The methods of investigation he used to develop his theories were, he looked at the way children imposed rules in their games. He used games to chew over the development of childrens moral development as he estimation that by subject areaing rules in the context of a game, he could study the childs spontaneous though directly. He besides, assessed changes in the childs moral judgements by telling hypothetical stories nigh children who lied, steal or broke mostthi ng. When using hypothetical stories, Piaget was generally more enkindle in the reasons why the children give the answers they did and not particularly the answers.Piaget identifies phase angles of moral development just as he identified stages with cognitive development. His theories of the way children find and their moral reason goes through a series of stages, as they are adapting to the world, these are also kn experience as the processes of accommodation and assimilation. He believed that as childrens reasoning rough the world changes when they grow older and deduct more experience, so does their reasoning about morality. Their ability to think about the world in more complex ways is what causes them to move on from one stage to the next. This is known as cognitive development.Piaget stated that infants get intot understand much about morality until they are about third or four years of age. Their development divides into twain principal(prenominal) stages after infan cy. His stages of moral development arePre Moral Stage (up to ternary or four years)Children dont understand about rules, and so they dont make moral judgementsStage of Heteronomous Morality (aged three half-dozen years)Children at this stage think rules are absolute and unchangeable, and the duty and badness of an action is judged largely on the basis of its consequences rather than by taking intent into account.Stage of Autonomous Morality (from around six or seven)Children at this stage now see rules as more changeable and intentions are taken into account. Children also start to believe that it is realizable to break rules and get away with it, whereas earlier they tended to think they will unendingly be found out and possibly punished.Researchers from Europe and America take hold tested some of Piagets theories and look at come to an endd that distinct stages of development do seem to exist however, other research found that children do not see all rules as being equal ly important as Piaget thought they did.Heteronomous Morality, also known as moral realism, means when the child is subject to anothers laws or rules. Children think that rules must be obeyed no matter what the circumstances. A child at this stage will think that rules are only made by delegacy figures, such as, parents and teachers. Two other features that are displayed in moral reasoning at this stage are, first they expect bad behaviour to be punished in some way, they believe that the penalisation should be expiative the wrongdoer must make amends for the crime by pay with some kind of suffering.They have the view that the amount of punishment should hit the badness of the behaviour. Secondly, if the bad behaviour goes undetected then the child believes in immanent justice where any misfortune occurring after the bad behaviour can be seen as a punishment. For example, if a child tells a lie and gets away with it, then later trips and falls, the younger child could consid er this as a punishment. In general, they believe punishment should be medium and that wrongdoing will always be punished in some way.Autonomous Morality, which means when the child is subject to ones own laws and rules. It involves moral relativism whereby the child comes to realise that rules evolve from social relationships. Due to the child decentring and their develop ability to think more flexibly about moral issues, they have began to realise it is important to take other peoples opinions into account. At this stage a child will have developed the understanding that sometimes rules of morality can be broken in certain reasonable circumstances.They believe in reciprocal punishment, whereby the punishment should give out the crime. For example, if a child takes another childs sweets, the first child should be deprived of their sweets or should make it up to the victim in some other way. This is known as the principle of reciprocity. Children will also have learnt at this sta ge that wrongdoers often avoid punishment, diminishing any belief in immanent justice. They see punishment as a method of making the offender understand the nature of the crime and that punishment is also a deterrent.The move from heteronomous morality to autonomous morality is influenced by two factors. Children around the age of seven begin to move on from the pre operational stage of an illogical and an egocentric way of thinking to more logical and flexible way of thinking, in the operational stage. Their growing ken that other people have different views allows them to develop more come along moral reasoning. However, moral development lags at least one to two years behind cognitive development because the whole process depends on the cognitive changes occurring first.Kohlberg expanded Piagets theory to form a theory that also explained the development of moral reasoning. While Piaget described a two-stage process of moral development, Kohlbergs theory outlined six stages wit hin three different directs. Kohlberg extended Piagets theory, proposing that moral development is a perpetual process that occurs throughout the lifespan. A study by Colby et al (1983) criticised Piagets assumption that children of ten and eleven years old had reached an adult level of moral reasoning.Piaget was always focusing on what an average child was adequate to(p) of achieving so he neglected the idea of great variations between the individual childs ways of thinking.In general, Piagets cognitive theory has been criticised for the methods of investigation not being as precise as they could have been. Methods he used were seen as complicated, leading critics to think he under estimated younger childrens capabilities of what they could and could not do. This was because later research went on to conclude that children could actually take other motives into consideration, when they understood what motives were involved.Despite criticism, Piagets utilization is still regarde d as a revolutionary step forward in the way we understand how children think. It has led to a much more down-to-earth ways of understanding childrens moral development. Many attempts to test Piagets theories from researchers around the world have resulted in acceptance that some of his views and methods do appear to exist.