From: Erin (macavity11@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Apr 20 2005 - 21:39:48 BST
Matt:
I’m referring to the Schiavo case that was being talked about on the MD
recently, for which I think David is right on the money in his response.
ERIN: I wasn't going to put my two cents about the Schiavo case because I thought Arlo gave a great summary of it and didn't feel like I had anything to add to it or be able to express the complexity of the situation as well as Arlo. But I was just reading Kohlberg's theory of moral reasoning helped to give structure to the complexity of these kind of decisions.
If you are not familiar with Kholberg let me give a brief summary. He wasn't as interested in your choice in the decision but your reason why. He classified the reasons why into six stages
a. Stages
i. Preconventional level- sees rules as something outside himself or herself
Stage 1: Punishment and obedience orientation—what is right is rewarded and what is not punished
Stage 2: Naïve hedonism- what is right is defined in terms of what brings pleasure or serves one’s own needs
ii. Conventional level---person internalizes the rules and expectations of family, peer group, or society
Stage 3: Good boy or good girl orientation-- her family or peer group
Stage 4: Social-Order-Maintaining Morality--society
iii. Postconventional (or principled) level—a search for the underlying reasons behind society’s rules
Stage 5: Social contract orientation
Stage 6: Individual principles of conscience orientation
So he presents dilemmas--the famous one is the Heinz dilemma where a guy has to decide to whether to steal a drug that may save his wife's life that is too expensive to buy. (he tried to pay part and to pay later but druggist replied "No I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it")
The highest stage of moral reasoning is when your reasons for stealing the drug or not stealing the drug are based on inidvidual principles of conscience orientation. The examples given:
YES to steal the drug because when a person is faced with two conflicting principles they need to judge which is higher and obey it. Human life is higher than possesion.
Or NO to steal the drug because Heinz needs to decide between his emotion and law, both are "right" in a way but he needs to decide what an ideally just person would do and that would be not to steal the drug.
Looking at his stages it really reminded me of the Schiavo case. That is, the reasons behind saving her or not saving was what was important to determine the morality of the thinking rather than the simple yes or no is more moral. Some arguing to save her may have been reasoning from the lowest level and some arguing to save her may have been reasoning from the highest level.
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Apr 20 2005 - 21:43:15 BST