One must give meaning to righteousness and be immoral

Throughout history, professional social workers had set a good public image due to of the role they had played in providing the well-being of such individuals in need. Social workers help individuals maintain social functioning for society. There were settlement houses established by many social work activists like Jane Addams who helped primarily for poor, minorities and the disadvantaged people; in which suited the provisions of the social welfare goals. Domestic institutions were put in place for youngsters to keep delinquent children away from being homeless and from trying to stay away from their negative upbringings.

Social workers during this time stood and fought for certain values, like what we still see today.

They inherited the traditional values of charity by the church and justice in which they adapted many pathways or principles and morals in social work. Morality is simply how you distinguish between right from wrong. It is for an individual to give meaning to what is righteousness and what does it mean to be immorally wrong? Many moral theorists such as Lawrence Kohlberg & Carol Gilligan succeeded in putting moral beliefs into practice.

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Many beliefs such as equality, altruism, social interdependence and responsibility, self-actualization, and caring for the poor has been the prime target in the framework of the social work field.

These developmental ideas first came from Piaget himself who observe children's thoughts and behaviors throughout many circumstances in their life. Through his own study, he concluded that children first appear as “concrete” and “egocentric” people, areas where infants gradually learn that objects persist when they are out of sight.

Lawrence Kohlberg's model of moral development was adopted by Jean Piaget's that later finds another moral theorist, Carol Gilligan who explains moral thinking in a feminist perspective.

Carol Gilligan, a feminist woman, a formal student and colleague of Lawrence Kohlberg proposed her own theory for morality. Gilligan criticizes her formal mentor on his patriotic view on morality in which he does not argue against. She proves that the content of Kohlberg's observation stages of moral development is inadequate given the investigations that Kohlberg projects. Gilligan's primary focus on the ‘ethics of care’ principle focuses on the female perspective view on certain values, and how different genders play a role through the framework of morality between women and men.  She believed that it is unjust to view women as inferior to men in which women should not be left out of developmental psychology. An interview was conducted with Cambridge University press gives she gives a supported view on ‘ethics of care. According to Gilligan, she defines ‘ethics of care as an essential tool to have.

She states, “That morality is grounded in a psychological logic, reflecting the ways in which we experience ourselves in relation to others and that the origins of morality lie in human relationships as they give rise to concerns about injustice and carelessness. Studying development, I realized that the problems about oppression and the concerns about abandonment are built into the human life cycle, given the differential power between children and adults and the fact that care is essential for human survival. An ‘ethics of care’ speaks to these concerns.” Through this she proposed her own set of stages of moral reasoning for women in which she develops a connection through the works of Kohlberg's observations in the Heinz story dilemma.

Gilligan uses the three stages of moral development. There is pre-conventional morality stage, conventional morality stage, and post-conventional morality stage but adds that between stages there are transitions of the self that an individual pass through during life cycles or circumstances rather than through the capacity of cognition.

In the Pre-Conventional Morality Stage focus on the need to survive. An example of a young woman with an unwanted pregnancy comes across with a moral/intellectual dilemma to choose whether to have an abortion so she wouldn’t be shunned from her traditional family or keep the pregnancy and struggle on her own. The young woman in this stage would is more likely to meet her own basic needs rather than please the needs of others. We tend to see this happen in everyday life. Young children have babies because they want too. Some young mothers use a baby to win an independent life only to find out what they must sacrifice in order to succeed in that goal; whether is work, school leaving the parents' home. The transition of pre-conventional to conventional sets that an individual may go from being selfish to taking responsibility of others' basic needs.

In the Conventional Morality Stage, indicates the relation to women's understanding of the good in self-sacrifice. Women who go out of their way to help others in need before their own needs view themselves as good Samaritans. Considering the young pregnant women, if the young woman chooses to conceive the child in exchange of living a suitable life of her own is a choice one might believe is the noblest thing to do. The transition of the conventional stage to post-conventional holds a high standard of beliefs in which for Gilligan, perhaps one may not ever reach this level. In the Post Conventional Moral Stage sets the principle of non-violence: the idea that do not do unto others what you don’t wish done unto you. Gilligan view on women in this stage sets forth that people should be able to get their basic needs met without hurting anyone in the process. While although in some cases is normally intentional to hurt others while one may put their needs first; but the divine idea of caring for others and themselves is what is the essential meaning of nonviolent doing.

Can one assume this is an act of being moral or immoral? In the book “In A Different Voice: Women’s Conception of Self and of Morality” by Gilligan writes that,“The essence of the moral decision is the exercise of choice and the willingness to accept responsibility for that choice. To the extent that women perceive themselves as having no choice, they correspondingly excuse themselves from the responsibility that decision entails.”

I can conclude that its immoral if its unjust. For Gilligan it is the process of changing the sense of oneself in that individual to become more focused on what is true; which lies on the idea that women during this stage are inclined to help the world because it is their understanding of who they are and what's important to them.

Jean Piaget was the pioneer of cognitive development theory. His principles of moral development have influenced Kohlberg's to gain the passion to lean further away from developmental psychology – a specific study in the brain. It was his inspiration from Piaget that gave Kohlberg the interest to study moral development.  Lawrence Kohlberg came up with his own ideas in which he decided to take this principle further with his own views and proposed three levels of moral development. Lawrence Kohlberg's theory was based upon cognitive development. His primary focus was how people develop their morals verses their overall growth in emotional and physical development throughout their life cycle. Kohlberg help discovers the ways in which moral reasoning change as people grow. Theorists such as Piaget and Freud analyze children because their rapid growth happens during primarily during this cycle period. Lawrence Kohlberg followed Piaget's technique by proposing a telling story in connection to moral dilemmas. The famous known story Kohlberg delivered is known as the Heinz dilemma a man who lived in Europe. He made his own study in order to make sense of his own investigation. According to the article, “Simply Psychology” story shown by Paul Mcleod explains the moral dilemma. It Sates as follows:

Heinz’s wife was dying from a particular type of cancer. Doctors said a new drug might save her. The drug had been discovered by a local chemist, and Heinz tried desperately to buy some, but the chemist was charging ten times the money it cost to make the drug, and this was much more than Heinz could afford. Heinz could only raise half the money, even after help from family and friends. He explained to the chemist that his wife was dying and asked if he could have the drug cheaper or pay the rest of the money later. The chemist refused, saying that he had discovered the drug and was going to make money from it. The husband was desperate to save his wife, so later that night he broke into the chemist’s and stole the drug.

After proposing this story to the children, he asked several questions to conduct his investigation in moral reasoning. These questions were stated; “should Heinz the drug?” “Should the police arrest the chemist for murder if the woman died?” “Would it change anything if Heinz did not love his wife?”  Or “would it make a difference if the person dying was a stranger?” In addition to conducting questions proposed three levels of morality but within these levels there are six stages of development.

One of the levels invented was the Pre-Conventional Stage. In this stage indicates that children from birth up to nine years old sees rules as fixed. Children are ego-centric individuals where decisions and behaviors are based around them.

Punishment and Reward are the substages of reasoning in this stage

According to Kohlberg, if the child is good, the child is good in order to avoid being punished. If the child is punished, it is because he or she understands that’s they have done something wrong. The second stage in the pre-conventional stage is called the

 Individualism and Exchange

This stage, children only see one side of the “story” in any given situation. According to Kohlberg, children recognize that there are different individuals who withhold different viewpoints, whether is authorities, parents, teachers or agencies.

The second level is known as the Conventional Stage. In this stage moral standards are manifested within the society and is valued by adult role models. It is all about

Interpersonal and Concordance

It is the morality of good boy and good girl attitude. We see in most behaviors in adolescent individuals, the need to be good in order to fit into social norms. Conformity is emphasized like acting in a nice way in order to be in the “right” side of things. Having that consideration of how choices influence relationships is important.

Maintaining Social Order

Law and order are recognized as the means to obey rules in order to uphold the law and to avoid guilt. According to Kohlberg, “Being good is meant to do your duty to society without question and to show respect for authority. Most adults do not progress past this stage.” During this stage, many adolescences are mostly daring and curious. They tend to become very defiant and want to break the law at times. The consequences are only thought about after that damage is done. Being good or bad is determined by each individual because everyone is cognitively unique in their own way.

The final and most difficult level of Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of what it means to have morality known as the Post-Conventional Stage. According to Kohlberg's book, “The Child as A Moral Philosopher.” In chapter five, he talks about the final stage in which he states that the final stage is “characterized by a major thrust towards autonomous moral principles.”  Within the post-conventional stage the individual takes moral principles to a higher standard and takes them apart from many groups, authorities, or the whole society. Post-conventional stage values.

Social Contract

It is the idea that individual judgment is based on self-chosen principles. It is known as a higher level that reaches beyond law and order. It’s higher moral reasoning where individuals' rights and justice is our natural given right and should be respected and granted without question. Individuals become aware that even though rules and laws exist for the greater good or for the number of people, there are times that the laws and order may go against morality for particular people. For example, when we look at the Heinz dilemma story, a question arises, would the laws of society see the protection of life more important than breaking the law by stealing the drug in order to save his wife life? People in this stage five of social contract would believe that the protection of life is more important than breaking the law.

According to Kohlberg book, “The Child as A Moral Philosopher.”  he wrote:“Aside from what is constitutionally and democratically agreed upon, right and wrong is a matter of personal “values” and “opinion” the result is an emphasis upon the “legal point of view,” but with an emphasis upon the possibility of changing law in terms of rational considerations of social utility, rather than freezing it in terms of the stage  “law and order. Outside the legal realm, free agreement and contract are the binding elements of obligation. This is the “official” morality of American Government and finds its ground in the thought of the writers of constitution.”

Perhaps the law must be broken sometimes in order to uphold these higher morals. Stage six is based on the Universal Ethical Principle. People at this stage develop their own set of moral guidelines which may or may not fit the law. This principle is known to apply to human rights, justice for all, and equality. The people who uphold these beliefs must be prepared to act and defend these principles even if it means going against the rest of society or even giving up their life or facing the consequences of imprisonment.  According to Kohlberg's book, “The Child as A Moral Philosopher.” he states, “No adults in stage four have gone through stage six.”  he believed very few people achieve this stage. I can think of many founding believers who have reached this level of the post-conventional stage. Many activists like, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela believed in the universal rights of equality for all people. They went against the laws of order against society at the time. They still upheld this belief and were prepared to pay the consequences that the law put against them.