Kohlberg's Ethical Dilemmas

Introduction Every day we as citizens of this country make decisions either consciously or unconsciously on how we go about our daily lives. We make all of our decisions based on our own personal moral behavior and what we believe in. Moral rules are defined in the book as things along the lines of people should not drink in excess or children should come before self (pg. 26). One’s moral behavior is primarily based on how they were brought up and what they were raised to believe. To test ones moral behavior ask yourself whether you perceive stealing, whether it be a candy bar from a gas station or stealing someone’s purse as wrong or right. Whatever the answer you just picked, you picked it because of your very own personal moral behavior.

In chapter four of the book Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in Criminal Justice authored by Joycelyn Pollock it discusses this very topic in great detail. On page 92 of the book the author presents a theory called Kohlberg’s Moral Stages to the reader. These stages are made up of the pre-conventional level which would be egoistic, the next level is the conventional level which is fitting into society, and lastly you have post-conventional which is transcending society. Each of those three levels is broken up into two different stages. Each of these three levels and the two levels in them involve qualitative differences to show the way in which people view the

On page 30 of the book Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in Criminal Justice authored by Joycelyn Pollock there is the Six Pillars of Character made by the Josephson Institute of Ethics in 2008. The list includes trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and lastly citizenship. I think these six characteristics that they defined perfectly represent everything that moral behaviors are. I also think they play a pretty large contribution in allowing a person to define what exactly moral behaviors are. Like I stated early in the paper the book defined moral rules as things like someone thinking children come before self. Moral behaviors are better represented by the six characteristics this institute released. Morals or morality is defined as the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are distinguished as proper and