A Review Of The Role Of Moral Reasoning In Burglary Offences - 1

A Review Of The Role Of Moral Reasoning In Burglary Offences' - 1 A Review Of The Role Of Moral Reasoning In Burglary Offences' â€" Assignment Example > IntroductionTo understand vividly burglary in relation to moral development, it is important to review work done by great psychologist like Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan and Howitt Dennis among other renowned writers. Lawrence Kohlberg actually developed his argument from Jean Piaget’s work to illustrate maturity of moral reasoning. While Piaget explained two stage of moral development, Kohlberg gave a six stage model executed within pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional levels. From the six stages, it is obvious that moral development occurs continuously through life of an individual. This literature will start by reviewing Piaget’s work which acted as basis for Kohlberg. Piaget’s TheoryResearch done by Piaget contributed a lot to understanding moral development in children. Originally, Piaget focused on moral lives of young children by studying how they played with intent of comprehending child’s belief of right and wrong. Piaget made a c onclusion that development starts when a child constructs and reconstructs own awareness after interacting with environment (Piaget, 1932). When children are playing, they usually integrate their own rules so that the game is fairly completed. Piaget further interviewed children on the topic of stealing and lying. Response indicated that children were able to discriminate meaning of the words and real action. This mean that children begin from heteronomous stage of moral reasoning which has the characteristic of following rules and duties to the latter while also obeying the authorities. The heteronomy emanates from a child’s cognitive structure where the thinking of young children has features of egocentrism. This means that children cannot take into consideration their own views with the perception of others. Egocentrism makes children project their individual thoughts onto others. It also has relationship with uni-directional view of regulations and command associated with mo ral idea. In a nutshell, moral idea values the results of an action rather than intents. A young child belief in immanent justice has close association with moral realism. It means that a child expects punishment as a result of any immoral act like burglary. Another specific factor contributing to heteronomous moral thoughts in children is socialization process with adults. Normally, power is handed down from adults to children during a socialization process. In such a case, powerless young children with their egocentrism contribute to heteronomous ethical orientation. As children look for fair play during games, they find strict heteronomous observance to rules challenging. This makes them consider those rules critically and eventually apply them with an objective of deriving respect and cooperation among participants. It then represents a shift from egocentrism to a stage of perspective thinking where reciprocity and mutual respect forms the base. From this analysis, it is appare nt that Piaget viewed moral development as a product of interpersonal development. Kohlberg’s theoryKohlberg agreed with Piaget that children form approaches to thinking as a result of their daily experiences. Research done by Kohlberg went beyond the age bracket studied by Piaget to determine that moral maturity took longer time and assumes a gradual process. As a result, Kohlberg Identified Six stages of attaining moral reasoning which are discussed in subsequent paragraphs.