Session Information
Contribution
If Kohlberg is right in his assumption about the logical sequences of stages in development of moral judgment, every individual has to go through the earlier stage before he can attain the next one. The first stage is, therefore, a necessary condition for attaining the second and, consequently, all others. In other words, the later stage necessarily presupposes the earlier. Although not everyone reaches autonomy as the highest stage of moral development, the moral development of everyone starts at the first stage, which Kohlberg calls "the stage of punishment and obedience", with learning cultural rules and labels of right and wrong through the consequences of actions, that is, through the punishment or absence of punishment. In this way children learn that wrong is what is punished and that right is avoiding punishment, not doing physical harm to people and property, obedience to rules and authority. This obedience is compelled by the threat or application of punishment and the reason for doing right is avoidance of punishment (Kohlberg). If it is so, then the type of moral judgment, which belongs to this stage, is not possible without punishment. Since, according to Kohlberg, nobody can "jump" the stages, punishment is also a necessary condition of a child's further development of moral judgment. It seems, therefore, that punishment is an unavoidable means for introducing children to the moral dimension of life. But, if it is, a non sequitur can arise. "Given that the standard definition of 'punishment' implies that you can only punish voluntary offenders for particular offences, and given the fact that usually built into the notion of 'voluntary offender', is the idea that the person concerned knows that they are doing wrong, then" the thesis that punishment is a way of introducing children into the moral dimension of life "must be mistaken. Either children do not know they are doing wrong, and therefore you cannot, logically, punish them; or, they do know they are doing wrong, and therefore they do not need punishment to introduce them to a realization of this" (Winch and Gingell). The second option can be rejected, if Kohlberg's theory is correct, just because children at the first developmental stage of moral judgment cannot know that they were doing wrong before they were punished. Therefore, punishment in such cases really leads them to the knowledge of what is wrong and what is right. In this way it introduces them to the moral dimension of moral life. On the other hand, the first option can be accepted. On condition, of course, that we agree with such a definition of punishment which includes the notion of 'voluntary offender', that is to say, the idea that the offender concerned knows that he is doing wrong, as an essential element of the definition itself. In this case it is true that punishment of children, who cannot know that they were doing something wrong before they were punished, is logically impossible. It is logically impossible because punishment is by definition infliction of an evil on a voluntary offender. But this does not mean that "punishment" of the involuntary offender is logically impossible. To "punish" means to inflict an evil on an involuntary offender, which, if he was a voluntary offender, could be correctly described as punishment. For that reason we have to make a verbal modification of the discussed thesis and say that "punishment" - and not punishment as Kohlberg says - leads children (at the first developmental stage of their moral judgment) to the knowledge of what is wrong and what is right and in this way also introduces them into the moral dimension of moral life. In this manner it is possible to refuse the argument that punishment cannot introduce children into the moral dimension of moral life because it is logically impossible to punish those who cannot know that they were doing something wrong before they were punished, by substituting the term punishment with "punishment".
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