Piaget/Kohlberg/Gilligan Moral Dilemma Assignment
For this assignment, please ask two or more people to respond to one of the following dilemmas. The more people you ask the more interesting your paper will be! Try to ask people of different ages and genders, so that you can get variability in the answers received.
If you deal with older children, or wish to ask adults, use Kohlberg’s “Heinz dilemma”. If you deal with younger children (say, 9 or younger) use the “cup breaking dilemma”.
After you receive their response, prompt for further information about the respondent’s reasoning. Questions such as “Did Heinz have the right to steal the drug?” “Is he violating the druggist’s rights?” “What sentence should he be given if convicted?” or with the cup dilemma: “Why was one child naughtier than another?” “What should the punishments be for the different children?” and any other probing questions you can think of are of interest.
You will then analyze responses to see what stage of moral judgment, according to Piaget’s, Kohlberg’s, and/or Gilligan’s theories, these respondents have achieved.
Please transcribe responses as best as you can, since you will use these as case studies to analyze for this paper.
Paper should include:
4-6 (or more) paragraphs background/description of “moral development” according to Kohlberg, Piaget and Gilligan. Summarize each, and compare and contrast all 3.
Description of your research “methods” including a description of your “participants” and a description of how you conducted the case study (which dilemma, how delivered, how answers were recorded).
A report of your findings/results. For this part you are impartial, reporting on what participants did or said. If you worked with a child who might be transitional, note any behaviors that would indicate this – such as indecisiveness or “aha” moments – without linking their responses to your perception of their level. You are just sharing your data here.
An analysis of the findings in light of the theories. Where do you feel your participants are in their development according to the stages? Analyze each participant’s responses and determine their moral developmental level. You can assign levels based on Kohlberg or Gilligan; only use Piaget if your participants include a child. Be sure to incorporate theories into your inference of participants’ levels of development. Present evidence from their responses with concepts from the theories.
Heinz Steals the Drug
In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together $1,000. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.” So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife. Should the husband have done that? Explain your thinking.
The Cup Dilemma
Ali was outside when his mother called him in to ask him to help with some chores. As he hurriedly opened the front door to come help, he accidentally knocked over a tray of cups, breaking all eight of them.
Osman knew it was time for dinner. Though his mother told him not to eat before dinner, he climbed up the cupboard anyway to get some cookies; while up there, he broke one cup. Who is naughtier, Ali or Osman? Please explain why you think so.
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