Seven
Levels of Moral Development:
1. Reward and Punishment: This is the most basic of principles we are
exposed to. At birth we learn that
something’s cause pain and others joy.
This is re-enforced by our parents in the reward and punishment
morality. A baby that tries to stick its
fingers in a light socket learns that this action will cause father to pull him
away abruptly, scaring the child as well as causes superficial pain.
2. Tradition: As we are learning the basic principle of
reward and punishment, we are also learning tradition. That is, the principles of what our parents
and family have come to live by.
Tradition is sort of an anomaly in this list, because it requires that
the parents have obtained at least the third level of moral development themselves
in order for them to have something that they can set back on their
children. Families that never make it to
the third level can base their tradition on reward and punishment, but this is
hardly ever seen, and probably very dangerous.
Traditions are ideals or even, a set of principles passed down to the
young through the teachings of the old.
A good example of tradition is the family dinner which of course has
been altered in the last 50 years or so with the advent of television.
3. Belonging: Once a being reaches the second level, they
begin to understand that there are people who have shared interests in their
level 1 and 2 development. These people
who have similar development tend to become ‘friends’. This form of relationship is caused by the
need to feel that your experiences are shared by others around you.
4. Law and Order: Once groups form from level three, then they
begin to see that other groups have formed that do not share their basic
beliefs, and that there in fact people that have never made it to level
three. It is at this point that the
largest groups pool their resources and attempt to create a society that they
feel safe in. This safety of course is based on their development up through the
other three levels. Good examples of Law
based on group mentality are: Thou shall not murder. Thou shall not commit adultery and so
on. These laws are placed into the
belonging group as a way of keeping order in the group and hopefully keeping
other groups from wanting to enter into their belonging group.
5. Justice: Justice is the logical next step in the chain
of evolution. Justice is a concept of
righteous behavior. This is more than
simply following the laws set down in level four, but requires that the
individual recognize the ‘universe’ truths.
Justice is a big leap from level four and impossibility for level three
and below beings. A good example of
Justice is, “It is wrong to steal”. This
is not a law, but a concept of belief, that expresses the underlying
responsibility of the individual to recognize the immorality of stealing,
simply for the sake of immorality.
Justice then manifests itself as a behavior of righteousness by coming
out and changing the behavior of those that can’t understand the underlying
principle.
6. Humanitarianism: Level six requires that the individual
recognize the unique place the human spirit occupies in the universe. But more over it is also the recognition of
the individual’s unique position in the universe. The individual has realized that he is unique
and this unique quality permeates down into his other five levels by allowing
for others to be unique as well. This
recognition should change the individual’s perception completely allowing for
better understanding of why justice is important in the universe, why the
individual is important in the universe.
7. Faith: Faith is the recognition that the universe is
important. The individual has
transcended the simply quality of self and come to the conclusion that he is we is us is it is nothing is everything is he.
Faith allows for the opening of all doors that were firmly closed by the
impedance of level 3 mentality. In this
case faith requires the utter obliteration of level 3 mentality in order to
eliminate the insistence of need from the group. Therefore religions are not truth faiths,
because they require the pre-set opinion of past beliefs (Level 2), the
integration of others (Level 3) and a set of law (Level 4). Instead true faith is meaningless and
meaningful at once, it is the duality of a singularity. It is the impossibility of the possible. True faith requires nothing, because it is
everything.
In the
average event of the human existence we hardly see ventures into levels 6 and
7. As a matter of course the first four
levels are inherently restrictive and the higher up you go the tighter the
restrictions, which means once someone has reached level 3 they are about 50%
likely to enter level four, but once in level four they are only about 5%
likely to reach level 5 and only about .5% likely to reach level 6. Which makes level 7 about .05% likely.
General
rules of the Levels of Moral development:
1. An individual must be rooted in one
level, but may be rooted in two but never three or more.
2. Individuals rooted in two levels
must be from higher to lower, never lower to higher(example: rooted in level 4
and 3 not level 3 and 4).
3. Individuals may explorer one level
above them, but until they are rooted in it, they exploration is experimental
(acting) not character defining. What
this means is that the individual has learned the words of the story as it
were, but has not grokked the meaning of the story. They tend to be able to recite why a thing is
a thing, but not how it is a thing. Good
examples of this are found in the bridge between level 4 and 5. If for example, an individual is rooted in 4,
he knows that the law says that he shouldn’t kill others, but his probing into
level five doesn’t uncover the principle behind why killing is wrong or what should
be expected of the murdered, the murderer, and the survivors.
4. Individuals should not jump over
levels…although it can happen in extreme cases.
5. Individuals will have no roots left
of levels two levels below their current root.
(Example: rooted in 4 will have no association with 2 and 1). This rule can be altered for the sake of
raising children, but as in the case of rule 3, it is a form of acting for the
definition of the child. Smoking is a
great example. Parents did not smoke and
passed on the tradition. Your peer group
in level three did smoke and you assumed this quality. You then have a child and teach your child
that smoking is bad, because it was tradition passed on to you.
6. An individual level 5 or above has
insight into the first 3 levels, but not the immediately adjacent level.
Other considerations:
1. Crazy people have no roots. They are like plastic bags adrift in the
wind. They land when the wind stops and
move on with its renewal. Because of
this nature, then can reach level seven at times, but can just as swiftly, fall
back into reward and punishment.
2. Level 7 causes insanity. This can be the case for almost all of us who
have taken the serial route up to level seven.
It is a fundamental change in the way we’ve established our lives and
can cause us to loose the few remaining threads of our sanity.
3. It also appears that there is no
location in level seven to plant roots.
My observations of those that have made it there find no evidence of how
they were able to maintain this level of evolution without simply falling back
into the abyss. The problem is that
there have been so few actual cases of them.
Yesu
4. Most people will never reach level
6.
5. Most men are in level 4, with experimentation
into level 5.
6. Most women are in level 3, with experimentation
into level 4.