Moral Development And Criminal Responsibility Flashcards
what are the components of morality
- Moral reasoning - cognitive component
- Moral self-evaluation - affective component
- Resistance to deviation - behavioural component
What are the theories for the development of moral reasoning
- Piaget’s theory
- Kohlberg’s theory
- Social domain theory
What are the theories for the development of self-evaluation
- Freud
- Hoffman
- Moral Emotions
what is the theory of moral agency
Bandura’s social cognitive theory - beyond the behavioural component
Outline Piaget’s theory of moral reasoning
- morality of constraint – judgement on the basis of consequences (heteronomous phase)
○ First phase children go into - morality of cooperation – judgment on the basis of intentions (heteronomous phase)
○ This is the next phase - intentions versus consequences
Outline Kohlberg’s theory of moral reasoning
Lawrence Kohlberg used moral dilemmas to study moral reasoning starting in adolescence. Kohlberg’s three basic stages of moral reasoning -> based on how you reason
- Stage 1: Preconventional morality
- Stage 2: Conventional morality
- Stage 3: Postconventional morality
Outline the details of the stages in Kohlberg’s theory
- Stage 1: Preconventional morality -fear of punishment or desire for gain (“If you let your wife die, you’ll get in trouble”)
Level 1: punishment and obedience orientation -> Avoids punishment
Level 2: instrumental hedonism -> Gains reward - Stage 2: Conventional morality - Right and wrong are defined by convention and by what people will say: (“Your family will think you’re inhuman if you don’t help your wife”)
Level 3: “Good boy” and “good girl” morality -> Gains approval & avoids disapproval of others
Level 4: authority and social order maintaining -> Is defined by rigid codes of “law and order” - Stage 3: Postconventional morality -> Internalization of personal moral principles: (“If you didn’t steal the drug, you wouldn’t have lived up to your own standards of conscience”)
Level 5: morality of contract, individual rights, and democratically accepted law -> Is defined by a “social contract” generally agreed upon for the public good
Level 6: morality of individual principles of conscience -> Is based on abstract ethical principles that determine one’s own moral code
Outline Social Domain Theory
Moral versus conventional
- Turiel and Smetana: Moral versus Social Conventional Reasoning
○ Moral rules – basic rights of others (hitting, stealing, lying)
○ Social-Conventional rules – rules that are appropriate in different contexts e.g., social etiquette and rules of games
Outline the development of self-evaluation
- Freuds theory of conscience
- Hoffman’s Emotion-Attribution analysis of guilt : fearful temperament contributed to guilt proneness and in turn served to inhibit children’s proneness to violate rules
- Moral Emotions - Moral emotions are typically linked to the self and involve self-evaluation - Guilt (linked to the transgression) and shame (more generally linked to the self’s imperfection) are characterized as negative moral emotions and pride as a positive moral emotion
Outline the social cognitive theory model of moral agency
- Conception of moral agency in terms of self-regulatory mechanisms
- Bandura’s agentic approach to self-regulation
○ determinants of personal standards
○ cognitive processes in self-evaluation
○ supports for self-regulatory systems - Interplay between personal and social sanctions
Outline the age of criminal responsibility
- In NSW, no child under the age of 10 can be guilty of an offence
- Between 10 and 14 years of age – a rebuttable presumption – doli incapax (“incapable of wrong”) –lacks mens rea i.e., criminal intent)
- Doli incapax assumes that children aged 10 to 14 years are ‘criminally incapable’ unless proven otherwise
outline Wagland and Bussey research into the ability of children to appreciate the wrongness of criminal conduct
- all age groups evaluated criminal conduct more negatively than mischievous conduct.
- all age groups anticipated more negative self-reactions, more negative reactions from peers, and more severe legal sanctions for criminal conduct.
- 8-year-olds can differentiate childish mischief from criminal behaviour.
- 16-year-olds condone childish mischief more than do 8- and 12-year-olds and adults.
- 8-year-olds also provided evidence that they were comparable to older children and adults in terms of their understanding of the wrongfulness of criminal behaviour and the ability to distinguish it from mischievous behaviour.
Outline Fried and Reppucci research into informed consent and age
- 15-16 years indicated the lowest levels of future time orientation and resistance to peer influence.
- Most adolescents thought the crime was very serious but varied in whether they could have anticipated someone getting hurt.
- the youngest and oldest were more likely than those in the middle (15-16) to believe that the youth should have anticipated that someone might get hurt.
- Those who expected harsher punishment had higher risk assessment scores than those who expected less punishment.
Outline Fried and Reppucci research into informed consent and ethnicity
- Minority adolescents viewed the crime as less serious than White adolescents from the same SES level and also did not believe they could anticipate that someone would get hurt to the same extent as did White adolescents.
- White adolescents anticipated more severe punishments than minority adolescents.
Outline Modecki’s research into maturity judgment findings
- Adolescents (ages 14-17) displayed less responsibility and perspective-taking relative to university students (ages 18-21), young adults (ages 22-27), and adults (ages 28-40).
- No maturity judgment differences between delinquent and non-delinquent youth.
- Differences between high and low delinquency male youth.
