Inpsychology the other day, my teacher talked about the different phases of morality as described by Lawrence Kohlberg. These stages are pre-conventional morality, conventional morality and post-conventional morality.
In the pre-conventional stage, which lasts up to age nine, people do what is right either to avoid punishment or to gain concrete rewards.
In the conventional stage, up until early adolescence, people do what is right and follow the law simply because they are the rules and the laws.
In post-conventional stage, from adolescence until death, people do what is right because of the ethical principles they have instilled in themselves. Kohlberg believed many people do not even make it to the last stage.
Each of these stages shares a common aspect. Each one involves people who do what is right. There is not a single stage that mentions doing what is wrong.
Everyone has experienced someone doing something that would be considered wrong, probably many times. Also, probably everyone has been that person before. Unfortunately, not many people can claim to be the person who attempts to correct these problems. Because of the shortage of this type of people, kids don’t see any harm in doing what is wrong, because there is nobody that will correct them.
A minor example of this took place over fall break. My girlfriend and I were at the state fair in Jackson on Monday night. The fair was about to close, so we took one last stroll around the many food and game booths. We ended up at the petting zoo and could not pass it up, because it was free.
There was a group of young boys in the corner who seemed to be having a good time. I watched to see what was so funny and saw one of them, the obvious leader of the pack, hit a small goat with an inflatable bat he had won. I know it didn’t hurt the goat, but it clearly upset the animal. I asked the boy to stop, which earned me a glare.
I asked the boy how he would like it if someone hit him repeatedly with a bat, to which he replied, “I’d like it.” Even though I am a very non-violent person, I wished I had had a real bat with me at the time.
A few minutes later, I saw him harassing another animal. I was tired of watching it, so I started to walk toward him. As I approached, he and his minions ran away.
Even though most people probably think this is a dumb example of people doing the wrong thing, it still fits correctly in with larger occurrences.
Some people see nothing wrong with doing something that could potentially harm others just to have “a little fun.”
It starts with hitting a goat at a petting zoo, but, with no guidance from people in authority, those acts become much larger and affect many more people.
Parenting sometimes seems to be a joke to some people these days because it is easy to get yourself into, but it is also easy to get out of through adoption or other, less humane methods.
A woman at the fair was fussing at her son, and I overheard her. She “dropped the F-bomb” and used a few other vulgar words repeatedly, which I’d like to excuse in order to avoid offending some.
However, despite bruising some people’s feelings, I am condemning this behavior because she was fussing at her son who couldn’t have been any older than five. Children do not have a chance to learn the proper ways of parenting when this is how they are raised.
I know I have never been a parent and have no idea what it is like, but I do know there are good parents out there.  Kohlberg stated that many people do not make it to the third stage, but, honestly, I fear many people will eventually stop reaching the second one.
Jay Ballard is a freshman majoring in chemistry. He can be contacted at
[email protected].