Moral reasoning

Moral reasoning is the study of how people think about right and wrong and how they acquire and apply moral rules. It is a subdiscipline of moral psychology that overlaps with moral philosophy, and is the foundation of descriptive ethics.

Moral reasoning was a psychological idea that was pointed out by Lawrence Kohlberg, an American psychologist and graduate of The University of Chicago, who expanded Piaget’s theory. Lawrence states that there are three levels of moral reasoning: pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional. According to a research article published by Nature, “To capture such individual differences in moral development, Kohlberg’s theory classified moral development into three levels: pre-conventional level (motivated by self-interest); conventional level (motivated by maintaining social-order, rules and laws); and post-conventional level (motivated by social contract and universal ethical principles).” Beside that “individuals who reach the highest level of post-conventional moral reasoning judge moral issues based on deeper principles and shared ideals rather than self-interest or adherence to laws and rules.”