Heinz Dillema

For this assignment, I interviewed my forty-year-old neighbor, Jeff, and his ten-year-old son, Thomas. I went over to their house and we sat down at their kitchen table to begin the interviews. I read Thomas The Heinz Dilemma first, with his dad not present in the room. After reading him the story, I followed up with a few questions, recording and analyzing his response, and finally determining what stage of moral reasoning he was in. I repeated this same process with Jeff, thanked my neighbors, and then jotted down my experience.
My experience with interviewing my neighbors was educational yet rather fun. It was intriguing to compare the two different perspectives on The Heinz Dilemma. After reading and learning in class, about all the stages of moral development it was compelling to be able to actually identify which stage a person was in.
After reading the story to Thomas twice, I asked him if Heinz should have broke into the office to steal the medicine and if so why or why not? He claimed that, “ The husband shouldn’t have broken into the doctor’s office to steal the medicine for his wife because stealing is bad”. He said that, “ If you steal then you will go to jail or prison”. Furthermore he insisted that, “ The man should turn himself in and give the medicine back.” Therefore, Thomas is in stage one of Kohlberg’s Preconventional Moral Reasoning because he is avoiding punishment. He is trying to maintain the appearance of obeidance to authority. I then asked Jeff the same question after I had read him the Heinz dilemma twice. He responded that, “ The husband definitely should have stolen the medication because I believe that my loved ones lives are more valuable than the consequences of theft”. Jeff said that,” Although I do believe that the man should turn himself into authorities and accept any of the consequences.” With this, I would classify Jeff under the fourth stage of Kohlberg’s Conventional Moral Reasoning because Jeff still respects the law,...