Talk through a moral dilemma with someone who reasons differently
Take a real moral question to someone whose reasons you do not share, and listen until you can state their reasons back.
Warum es wirkt
Blatt and Kohlberg (1975) tested children in school, not adult conversations: one group was given twelve hours of discussion of moral problems other than the test dilemmas, spread over twelve weeks, and that group tended to move toward higher levels of moral thinking compared with controls. The abstract reports that outcome and gives no mechanism. This page’s hypothesis, not a finding from that study, is that a conversation with someone who reasons from a different place brings in the contrast between your reasons and theirs, which you have to hold in view at the same time, and so brings in considerations you would not generate alone.
So gehst du vor
- Pick a real question you are facing at work or at home where a reasonable person could land differently.
- Find one person who you know reasons about it from another starting point, and ask them to walk through their reasons.
- Before replying, restate their main reason in a sentence they would recognize as their own.
- Note the one consideration you had not weighed, and say whether it changes your view, even slightly.
Evidenz
Blatt and Kohlberg (1975) report a controlled school experiment in which children received twelve hours of discussion of moral problems other than Kohlberg’s test dilemmas, spread over twelve weeks; the experimental group tended to move toward higher levels of moral thinking compared with controls. The study is of children, not adults, and the abstract does not report group assignment or sample size. (observational)
The effect was a tendency to move, measured in children in schools. It does not show that a single conversation changes an adult’s moral stage, and the small size of the shift is not described in the abstract.
Quellen
Häufiger Fehler
Treating the conversation as a debate to win. If you come out having only defended your position, the other person’s reasons never reached you, and nothing in the exercise has changed.
Übe das mit IX Coach
Weitere Übungen für Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development, Made Practical
- Argue the other side in its own terms before you judge it
Restate the position you disagree with well enough that the person holding it would say, yes, that is what I think.
- Write the reasons behind a moral verdict, not just the verdict
When you reach a moral conclusion, write down the reasons you gave yourself and check what norm and what problem those reasons rest on.
- Name your gut reaction before you reach for reasons
Notice the first moral reaction you have, label it, and only then start building the case for or against it.
- Check whether your moral conclusion reaches your action
After you decide what is right, name the specific action it requires this week, and check on it, because knowing and doing are separate steps.
- Test a rule against the principle it is meant to serve
When a rule and a person’s welfare seem to conflict, name the principle the rule protects and ask whether following the rule still serves it.
- Name which kind of reason is doing the work in your moral choice
Sort the reasons behind a choice into punishment, self-interest, approval, social order, or principle, and notice which one is carrying the decision.
Verwandte Konzepte
- Lines of Development: Why People Grow Unevenly
Why the same person can be mature in one part of life and young in another, and how to work with it
- Kegans Subjekt-Objekt-Theorie, praktisch erklärt
Vom Beherrschtwerden durch die eigenen Annahmen zur Fähigkeit, sie zu untersuchen
- Spiral Dynamics, praktisch angewendet
Verstehen, wie sich Wertesysteme entwickeln, und wie man zwischen ihnen navigiert
- Ego Development Theory: What It Is and How It Is Measured
The frame you make meaning through, how researchers measure it, and how to work with it without ranking anyone
- The Construct-Aware and Unitive Stages of Adult Development
Seeing the self and its stories as constructions — what it looks like, how rare it is, and what it does not promise
- Kegan’s Socialized Mind: What It Gives You and How to Grow Beyond It
When what others think is part of who you are — honoring the stage, and loosening its grip
- Carol Gilligan’s Ethics of Care, Explained
Two ways of reasoning about moral problems, what the research shows, and how to use both lenses