Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development: 3 Levels and 6 Stages Explained

Lawrence Kohlberg proposed a Theory of Moral Development. His theory is divided into 3 levels and 6 stages. It explains how moral reasoning evolves across the lifespan. Kohlberg’s main focus was to know why people make moral decisions rather than focusing on what they decide. This theory is one of the most cited frameworks in psychology, education, ethics, and neuroscience, and continues to shape how we understand morality, justice, and ethical reasoning. Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development has answers to questions like:

“Why do children obey rules to avoid punishment?”
“How does one learn the difference between right and wrong?”
“Why are some adults willing to break laws to defend human rights?”

In this article we explore more about the theory, its ideas, real-life applications, limitations and more.

Kohlberg's theory of moral development

What Is Moral Development?

Moral Development is the process through which individuals develop reasoning about fairness, justice, right and wrong, and ethical responsibility.

According to Kohlberg’s theory, moral reasoning:

Starts developing in stages
It progresses sequentially
Shaped by cognitive maturity and not age alone
Shows how people think and not necessarily how they behave

This definition aligns with classic developmental psychology descriptions of morality

Kohlberg’s Theory- Overview:

Kohlberg proposed three levels of moral development, divided into six stages:

Three Levels of Moral Development:

Level	Focus	Typical Age Range
Level 1 - Preconventional	Is to avoid punishment & self-interest	Childhood (0–9 years)
Level 2 - Conventional	Seeking social approval & law	Adolescence to adulthood
Level 3 - Postconventional	For ethical principles & human rights	Only some adults

Every level has two stages, and individuals progress in order, without skipping the stages.

Level 1: Preconventional Morality

The focus is on - Self-interest and consequences
And the primary question is : “What happens to me if I do this?”

Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment Orientation

The rules are fixed and absolute
Authority has to be obeyed
Actions are determined by consequences

For example, if a child avoids stealing cookies because they fear punishment, not because stealing is wrong.

Stage 2: Individualism and Exchange

Morality is only dependent on personal benefit
Only for gain, reciprocity exists

For instance someone saying, “I’ll help you if you help me.”

Level 2: Conventional Morality

In this level it is more about - Social rules, relationships, and authority
The most important question is: “What will others think?”

Stage 3: Good Interpersonal Relationships

The desire to be seen as “good”
Moral decisions taken to please others
In this stage intentions matter

For instance - A teenager volunteers because friends admire helpful people.

Stage 4: Maintaining Social Order

Stage where laws and rules must be followed
The functions only if order is preserved

For example: An adult refuses to speed because traffic laws maintain public safety.

Level 3: Postconventional Morality

The only focus in this level is - Universal principles and ethics
The primary question is: “What is just?”

Only a few adults reach this level.

Stage 5: Social Contract and Individual Rights

The laws are important but not absolute
In this case human rights may override rules

For example: Supporting civil protest to change unjust laws.

Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principles

Morality is guided by internal principles
Justice, dignity, and equality is considered more than law

For instance - A whistleblower exposes corruption despite personal risk.

The Heinz Dilemma - Core Experiment

Kohlberg’s approach was to test moral reasoning using dilemmas, the most famous being the Heinz Dilemma:

Heinz considers stealing as an overpriced drug to save his dying wife.

In this experiment, the decision mattered less than how participants justified their answer, which allowed Kohlberg to classify moral reasoning stages

Does Everyone Reach the Final Stage Of Moral Development?

The answer is no, research suggests:

People reaching stages 1–4 are more common throughout the world.
Individuals who reach stages 5–6 are rare, nearly 10–15%.
Although, moral development does not depend on age alone, it relies on cognitive exposure also.

Real-Life Applications of Kohlberg’s Theory

Let's understand how Kohlberg’s Theory has applications in the real world.

1. Parenting & Education

For young children parents can set clear rules that they respond to
In case of adolescents, they benefit from discussions on fairness
The moral reasoning given should match developmental stage

Classroom Ethics

2. Teachers can possibly:

Encourage debate among students on various topics
Use moral dilemmas as example
Promote perspective-taking during discussions

3. Adult Decision-Making

The theory explains:

Why do some individuals follow rules strictly?
On the other hand, why do others challenge authority ethically?

Major Criticisms of Kohlberg’s Theory:

Criticism	Explanation
Moral reasoning ≠ moral behavior	Merely knowing rights doesn’t guarantee action towards the situation
Justice Bias	It overemphasizes fairness over care
Cultural Bias	The western individualist values dominate
Gender Bias	Gilligan argued that care-based morality was ignored completely
Age Bias	Dilemmas are abstract for children

Why Has Kohlberg's Theory Has Been Criticized?

His theory played a foundational role in moral psychology and education. Despite its major influence, researchers across psychology, sociology, neuroscience, and philosophy have raised important questions. These criticisms highlight its limitations and the need for complementary perspectives rather than invalidating the theory.

1. Moral Reasoning ≠ Equal Moral Behavior

One of the major and important criticisms is that moral reasoning does not always promise or guarantee moral action.

He focused more on how people think about moral dilemmas, not how they behave in real-life situations. In real life, individuals may:

Verbally justify ethical principles
Know what is morally correct
Yet act against those principles due to pressure, fear, emotion, or self-interest.

These differences seen between moral behavior and moral judgment tells us that emotion, impulse control, social context, and personality traits play a crucial role in ethical action. The elements that were largely missing from his framework.

2. Overemphasis on Justice-Based Morality

His theory overemphasizes on factors like justice, rights, and fairness at the center of moral reasoning. Whereas, critics say that morality involves more than logical reasoning about justice.

The other moral dimensions include:

Emotional connection and relational ethics
Compassion and empathy
Care and responsibility

Carol Gilligan, a famous psychologist, argued that Kohlberg’s model instead focuses on abstract rules and undervalues care-based moral reasoning, which emphasizes relationships, responsibility, and emotional understanding rather than.

He also stated that many individuals, especially women, prefer to reason morally through care ethics, not because they are less developed, but because they prioritize different moral values.

3. Cultural Bias Toward Western Individualism

One of the other major critiques observed factors is cultural bias. Kohlberg’s levels and stages were majorly adapted from Western studies conducted in individualistic societies, where moral reasoning often emphasizes:

Justice as fairness
Individual rights
Personal freedom

On the contrary, collectivist cultures which are common in many Asian, African, and Indigenous societies place more emphasis on:

Respect for authority and tradition
Community harmony
Social responsibility

In collectivist cultures, rather than abstract ethical principles, moral maturity may be expressed through loyalty and social obligation. Critics also argued that his theory labels non-Western moral frameworks as “less developed,” when they are simply different.

4. Age and Context Bias in Moral Dilemmas

The majority of his original research involved children and adolescents, many under the age of 16. Critics also make a note that:

Children may lack real-life experience within subjects like marriage, illness, or ethical conflict
The Heinz dilemma can be too abstract for younger participants
Rather than moral immaturity, their reasoning might reflect cognitive limitations.

In short, relevant dilemmas could have been around peer conflict, sharing, or honesty in school. They might have produced different patterns of moral reasoning in younger populations.

5. Gender Bias and the Gilligan Debate

His original samples consisted primarily of male participants, which further led to critical insight of being gender biased.

Gilligan challenged one of Kohlberg's conclusions that women often remain at Stage 3 of interpersonal relationships and do not proceed further. Gillian argued that:

Women’s moral reasoning often is more focused on areas like care, empathy, and relational responsibility
Thus, this does not say that lower moral development instead a different moral orientation

Her work led to the discovery of Care Ethics, which complements justice-based models rather than competing with them.

6. Limited Role of Emotion in Moral Judgment

While Kohlberg accurately described the cognitive structure of moral reasoning, yet according to modern research in neuroscience that his framework lacks to explain the role of emotions in moral decision-making.

However, this contraindication occurs because neuroscience suggests that moral judgment in real-life situations emerges from an interaction between cognitive control systems and emotional processing networks.

The rain regions involved in moral judgment are:

Amygdala responsible for emotional salience
The prefrontal cortex that looks after regulation and reasoning
Default mode network for self-reflection and values.

His theory overlooks factors on how emotions like guilt, empathy, fear, and compassion shape ethical behavior and largely treats moral reasoning as a purely cognitive process, overlooking.

Other Theories About Moral Development

Lawrence Kohlberg is not the only one to study moral development, there were several alternative theories that address gaps in his model.

Piaget’s Theory of Moral Development

He initially expanded on the earlier work of Jean Piaget, who proposed a simpler, three-stage model:

Piaget’s Stage	Description
Stage 1	This stage focuses on motor and social skills, little concern for morality
Stage 2	Without any doubts accepting respect for authority and rules
Stage 3	Stage that allows for recognition that rules are flexible and intent matters

Piaget believed these stages were universal and that moral reasoning rather than ethical philosophy was deeply tied to cognitive development.

Moral Foundations Theory - Jonathan Haidt:

Moral Foundations Theory, proposed by Jonathan Haidt, Jesse Graham and Craig Joseph, offers a more broad framework.

The key principles include:

Intuition always comes before reasoning - Moral judgments in majority cases are often emotional and automatic later followed by rational explanation.
Morality has more than one dimension which includes:
- Care vs. harm
- Liberty vs. oppression
- Fairness vs. cheating
- Sanctity vs. degradation
- Loyalty vs. betrayal
- Authority vs. subversion
Morality often binds groups together but it can also blind individuals- According to his theory group morality can promote cooperation but may suppress independent ethical thinking.

The Moral Foundations Theory addresses cultural, emotional, and social factors which are largely absent from Kohlberg’s justice-centered model.

Why Do These Critiques Matter?

These critiques rather than weakening Kohlberg’s theory, strengthen our understanding of moral development by showing that:

No single theory can fully explain moral behavior
Moral reasoning is influenced by culture, emotion, and context
Ethics is multidimensional and not about justice-only

His theory remains a powerful framework but it works best when it is combined with emotional, cultural, and social perspectives on morality.

Kohlberg’s Theory Beyond the Stages

His theory is not just a list of stages, it is a theory of how moral reasoning itself evolves as perspective-taking, cognitive capacity, and social awareness mature.

The central idea of the theory is that moral development is a qualitative transformation, not just learning more rules. With advancement in age individuals do not merely adopt new moral beliefs they also change how they justify moral decisions.

This shift in reasoning of morality shows deeper changes in:

Perspective-taking
Cognitive development
Abstract thinking
Social understanding

In short, he did not just see morality as a personality trait rather as a thinking process.

Moral Reasoning as a Cognitive Skill

At core, Kohlberg’s work says that moral reasoning develops along with cognitive development, especially:

Capacity to take others’ perspectives
Logical reasoning
Ability to understand rules as systems

These points closely align with Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, where abstract reasoning emerges in adolescence.

According to Kohlberg:

Younger children reason morally in concrete terms like punishment and reward.
Adolescents start considering social roles and expectations.
Using abstract ethical principles, some adults develop the ability to reason.

Therefore, according to him, moral reasoning matures as thinking becomes less egocentric and more systemic.

Why Dilemmas Matter in Moral Development

Kohlberg used moral dilemmas like the Heinz dilemma because they create cognitive conflict.

In turn these dilemmas:

They do not have no clear “right” answer
Force the individuals to weigh competing values
Also reveal how someone thinks, not what they decide

In his theory the reasoning behind the answer mattered more than the decision itself.

This approach also helped distinguish between:

Rule-based thinking
Relationship-based thinking
Principle-based thinking

The dilemmas are more like everyday problems and function as a window into the structure of moral thought.

Role of Perspective-Taking

One of the key mechanisms that drive moral development in Kohlberg’s theory is perspective-taking. As individuals mature in age, they become increasingly capable of:

Balancing individual rights with collective welfare
Understanding others’ intentions
Considering social systems

Every stage reflects a broader perspective starting from self - Self → Others → Society → Humanity. This approach in linear ascending order shows cognitive and social maturation and explains why moral reasoning often becomes more complex with age and experience.

Neuroscience Perspective: Why Kohlberg Still Matters

One of the limitations of his theory is lack of emotion. Despite this limitation his theory predates modern neuroscience and many of its ideas align with current findings.

Neuroimaging studies suggest that moral reasoning engages the following regions:

Default Mode Network plays a role in self-reflection and values.
The prefrontal cortex is responsible for abstract reasoning and rule evaluation.
Temporoparietal junction for perspective-taking.

With age and brain maturation, especially during adolescence and early adulthood individuals are:

Good at questioning authority-based rules
Better at evaluating moral principles
Reflect more on societal norms

Brain maturation stages support Kohlberg’s claim that advanced moral reasoning requires advanced cognitive capacity.

Moral Development: Sequential Not Guaranteed

One of his most misunderstood claims is that moral stages are sequential but not inevitable.

What he meant:

People cannot skip stages
Most adults remain at the conventional level
Progression depends on cognitive growth, education, and exposure
Postconventional reasoning is possible but is rare.

These factors or claims do not mean moral failure. Instead they reflects differences in:

Social environments
Cognitive style
Educational opportunities
Cultural reinforcement

FAQs - Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

1. Is Kohlberg’s theory still relevant today?

Yes. It remains foundational in psychology, ethics, and education.

2. Can moral development regress?

Stages are stable, but reasoning may vary under stress.

3. Is moral development universal?

Early stages appear universal; higher stages vary culturally.

4. Does intelligence guarantee higher moral reasoning?

No. Moral reasoning depends on ethical exposure, not IQ alone.

You can explore more about theories of cognitive development on our page.