Humans separate their morality or its application by situational constraints (e.g., bluffing is perfectly moral in games of poker, but not in courts of law), but it is not known if moral reasoning development holds the same weight or paths in business as other decision making environments. The present study aimed to develop a business specific test of moral reasoning called the Business Moral R...

In the past decade radical changes have occurred in our understanding of the character of moral beliefs, precepts, and prescriptions, and how these are or can be justified. Profound changes have also taken place in our view of the nature of scientific inquiry, particularly in the human sciences, and how scientific knowledge claims can be justified. These changes reflect a larger transition betw...

Moral enhancement, outlined in the well-elaborated typology by John Shook (2012), is the most recent strain in the enhancement debate that unfolded in the last decade—but the ideal of “becoming a morally better person” is probably among the oldest topics in practical philosophy and pedagogy. However, the topic of “moral enhancement” offers the new idea that knowledge of the biological foundatio...

Kohlberg, who was born in 1927, grew up in Bronxville, New York, and attended the Andover Academy in Massachusetts, a private high school for bright and usually wealthy students. He did not go immediately to college, but instead went to help the Israeli cause, in which he was made the Second Engineer on an old freighter carrying refugees from parts of Europe to Israel. After this, in 1948, he e...

Lawrence Kohlberg was a moral philosopher and student of child development who died in 1987. He was at one time, director of Harvard's Center for Moral Education. His special area of interest was the moral development of children how they develop a sense of right, wrong, and justice. Kohlberg observed that growing children advance through definite stages of moral development in a manner similar...

Stage 2: The instrumental relativist orientation. Right action consists of what instrumentally satisfies one's own needs and occasionally the needs of others. Human relations are viewed in terms such as those of the market place. Elements of fairness, reciprocity, and equal sharing are present, but they are always interpreted in a physical, pragmatic way. Reciprocity is a matter of "you scratch...

This research study aimed to evaluate the level of moral and ethical development of first-year students in a dental school. The students were presented with a dilemma that touched on personal and conflicting values. In responding to the questions posed, they had to present their criteria for judgments and norms that directly influence their behavior. Answers were then analyzed, leading to the c...

Going back to Kohlberg, moral development research affirms that people progress through different stages of moral reasoning as cognitive abilities mature. Individuals at a lower level of moral reasoning judge moral issues mainly based on self-interest (personal interests schema) or based on adherence to laws and rules (maintaining norms schema), whereas individuals at the post-conventional leve...

Moral evaluations constitute a fundamental aspect of human psychology. How does moral competence develop? For decades, this question has been addressed within cognitive-developmental frameworks (e.g., Killen & Smetana, in press; Kohlberg, 1971; Piaget, 1932), and the general answer has been that moral development is a constructivist process: children develop the ability to make increasingly sop...