DEV Lecture 8 - Moral Development

Moral Development Overview

• Topics include moral intuitions via the trolley problem, Piaget's and Kohlberg's theories, and the concept of a potential moral core.
• Key questions to consider:
• Do one's actions really align with easily stated principles?
• Is behavior consistent across different situations?
• Are humans morally rational or irrational?

The Trolley Problem

• A trolley is out of control on a track where five people are tied up by a mad philosopher.
• Flipping a switch could divert the trolley to another track where only one person is tied up.
• The question is whether or not to flip the switch.
• The common intuition is that it is okay to flip the switch in the trolley scenario.

The Surgeon Problem

• David is a transplant surgeon with five patients needing different organs, all with a rare blood type.
• David learns of a healthy person with the same blood type
• He can take the healthy person's organs, killing him to save his five patients, or refrain and let his patients die.

The A-Bomb Problem

• Irving, as President, gets word of an atom bomb launched by the Russians towards New York.
• The only way to stop it is to drop an American bomb on Worcester, MA, which would pulverize the Russian bomb, but kill everyone in Worcester.
• Irving can do nothing, letting New York die, or press a button to bomb Worcester.

Understanding Moral Dilemmas

• Need to consider whether the consequences of an action are all that matters.
• The ‘doctrine of the double effect’ suggests there may be a moral difference between intending harm and foreseeing harm as a result of intentions.
• Nuking your own cities is less okay.

Morality and Moral Intuitions

• There may not be a set of easily explainable moral principles, instead humans have hardwired moral intuitions from evolutionary processes (Mikhail, 2011; Haidt 2001; Singer 2009).
• Responses to certain dilemmas are consistent across cultures (Mikhail, 2007).
• Children could have moral intuition.

Piaget's Theory

• Morality is defined as a set of principles for action derived from social ideas of right and wrong.
• Moral reasoning refers to the cognitive processes that underlie the consideration of moral rules, their basis, and related conflicts.
• In 1932, Piaget examined children’s moral reasoning through clinical interviews, asking about games, rules, and moral dilemmas.
• Piaget studied children's knowledge of game rules by approaching them in playgrounds, playing games with them, and questioning the origins and alterability of rules.

Stages of Moral Development

• Using these methods, Piaget identified three stages of moral development:
• 0-5 years: Amoral/premoral stage involving playing games without understanding rules.
• 5-10 years: Heteronomous morality/moral realism, with children understanding rules but seeing them as absolute and unchangeable.
• 10+ years: Autonomous morality/moral relativism, where children understand rules are conventional and changeable by social consent.

Moral Dilemmas and Intentions

• In a moral dilemma, Ion accidentally breaks 15 cups, while Henry intentionally breaks only one cup.
• Heteronomous children, aged 5-10, would consider John naughtier due to the greater consequence of breaking more cups.
• Autonomous children, those 10 years and older, would consider Henry naughtier due to the intention behind breaking the cup.
• The Piagetian shift occurs when children start to differentiate intentions from consequences.
• This involves understanding that rules are social agreements rather than inviolable truths, and that the principle behind a rule may matter more than the rule itself.

Kohlberg's Extension

• Kohlberg extended Piaget's work in 1984 by posing more complex dilemmas, allowing for the stage-theory extension into adulthood.
• Cognitive development drives moral reasoning.

Dilemma Sample

• In Europe, a woman near death from cancer needs a radium drug that is overpriced by a druggist.
• Heinz, the sick woman's husband, borrows about half the required $2,000 and asks the druggist to sell the drug cheaper or allow him to pay later, but is refused.
• Heinz then breaks into the store to steal the drug for his wife, raising the question of whether he should have done this and why.

Kohlberg's Levels and Stages of Moral Reasoning

• Level 1: Pre-Conventional
• Stage 1 - Heteronomous morality: Obedience and punishment orientation (avoiding punishment). A bad action is one you are punished for.
• Stage 2 - Individualistic, Instrumental morality: Self-interest orientation (what's in it for me?).
• Most children are in stages 1 and 2.
• Level 2: Conventional
• Stage 3 - Interpersonally normative morality: Interpersonal accord and conformity (appearing like a 'good boy').
• Stage 4 - Social system morality: Authority and maintaining social-order (law and order).
• Individuals typically reach this level around adolescence.
• People start to become concerned with the approval of others.
• Level 3: Post-Conventional
• Stage 5 - Human right and social welfare morality: Evaluating if laws are in accord with human rights and values (uphold the spirit of the social contract).
• Stage 6 - Morality of universalizable, reversible, prescriptive general ethical principles: Universal ethical principles (principled conscience).
• Not all adults reach stage 5, and very few reach stage 6.
• This stage requires recognizing that Heinz must steal the drug.
• Research from Walker in 1988 supports the move from punishment to social rules to ethical principles.
• However, movement from one to the other depends on the situation.
• It might be acquiring skills rather than reaching a stage.

Kohlberg and Gender

• Kohlberg only studied boys.
• Gilligan in 1982 suggested gender differences, with men seeing morality in terms of justice and abstract rules.
• Women see morality in terms of compassion.
• Be wary of gendered expectations based on one culture.

Kohlberg and Culture

• Making universal claims about morality is complex and problematic across cultures (Simpson 1974).
• Differing cultural emphases on liberty/freedom versus obedience/community can make cultures appear to be at different stages.
• There's a need to distinguish moral behavior and moral reasoning.

Core Morality

• Hamlin (2013) suggests that young children and babies possess a 'moral core' evolved for facilitating cooperation.
• This implies some aspects of morality emerge without extensive experience.
• There is a parallel between a cognitive core and a moral core.

Toddler Morality

• Young children (2-3 years) are implicitly aware of rules, even if not explicitly told (Rakoczy, 2008).
• Given a choice between taking a treat from a good versus naughty puppet, most 1-year-olds take from the naughty puppet.
• By age 3, children show awareness of rules and understanding that rules may change depending on the context.
• Toddlers are rigid and insist on their version of a rule.

Infant Morality

• A moral sense should encompass three abilities (Hamlin, 2013):
• Moral goodness: Feeling concern for others despite moral costs (empathy).
• Moral evaluation: Identifying and disliking uncooperative others by analyzing behaviors.
• Moral retribution: Punishing those who misbehave.

Moral Goodness

• This involves feeling concern for others despite moral costs, such as empathy.
• By 13-14 months, prosocial behavior can be observed, including sharing, showing, and comforting a child in distress (Hastings, 2007).

Moral Evaluation

• Infants can start evaluating others.
• This is the morality plays for 6-8 month olds (Hamlin, Wynn & Bloom 2007).
• Babies watched a protagonist trying but failing to reach a goal with helper & hinderer agents.
• In tests, 14/16 10-month-olds and 12/12 6-month-olds chose the helper over the hinderer.
• 3-month-olds avoid the hinderer, while 6-month-olds actively prefer the helper.
• There is some development of moral evaluation occurs from 3-6 months (Hamlin et al 2011).

Moral Retribution

• Hamlin et al (2011) showed infants prefer appropriately antisocial characters, which help bad agents.
• It has been demonstrated even as young as 5 months (Hamlin, 2012).
• Moral retribution can be seen around 5 months.

Morality in Development

• Continued development leads to a sense of fairness at 19 months .
• ManyBabies4 tested the hill paradigm with Hamlin as a lead.
• In the study, 567 participants across 37 labs, with setups, approved by leads.

Summary

• Stage-like progression can be seen in moral reasoning (Piaget & Kohlberg).
• Humans have innate, evolved moral drives and intuitions.
• There may be two modes of thought (Kahneman 2012):
  • Emotion vs. reason/calculation.
  • A "fast system" vs. a "slow system".
• Children and adults are both morally rational and morally irrational.