Talk:Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development/GA1

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GA Reassessment[edit]

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This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force in an effort to ensure all listed Good articles continue to meet the Good article criteria. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed, listed below. I will check back in seven days. If these issues are addressed, the article will remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it may be delisted (such a decision may be challenged through WP:GAR). If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAN. Feel free to drop a message on my talk page if you have any questions, and many thanks for all the hard work that has gone into this article thus far.

  • "Kohlberg's six stages were grouped into three levels: pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional." We were told in the lead that it was the evoked responses that were grouped into those three levels, not the stages. Which is it?
Kohlberg had six stages, and there were two stages a level. It is just a way of conceptualizing it. The lead says stages and not levels btw, but I can see how this is getting jumbled. Lets say, "Kohlberg's six stages can be more generally grouped into three levels: pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional." ? JoeSmack Talk 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixed. JoeSmack fixed this; I further clarified for those readers who may be confused about the relationship between stages and levels as we're using them in this sentence. -DoctorW 18:17, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "He then categorized and classified evoked responses ...". What's the difference between categorization and classification?
According to dictionary.com, not a whole lot. I guess it is redundant. I'll change it to just classification, it feels more precise. JoeSmack Talk 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixed. I went ahead and changed this following the solution proposed by JoeSmack. -DoctorW 18:19, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are three requests for citation, the oldest dating back to February 2007.
I'll see what I can do. JoeSmack Talk 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixed. I found citations for all three ideas and reworded as appropriate. -DoctorW 18:22, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • From the lead: "... planes of moral adequacy". What does "plane" mean in this context? Surely Kohlberg is talking about stages?
Um, I guess that Kohlberg uses the word 'stages' a lot, but really people who score at whatever stage tend to have reflections of that stage on a more systemic level. For example, stage fours tend to be bureaucrats. Stage fives think there can be more than one right answer to an argument. Etc. 'Plane' felt like a more encompassing word I can change the word choice if it is too inconsistent for you. JoeSmack Talk 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixed. "Planes" may be trying too hard to find an alternative for "stages". Kohlberg used the phrase "moral adequacy", but it can be interpreted as being inherently unscientific; "planes of moral adequacy" would sound even more unfamiliar to most readers. -DoctorW 18:31, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "It is also not possible to 'jump' forward stages ...". This unclear. Presumably what is meant is that it's impossible to skip stages? Should probably mention here as well that it's possible to regress through stages.
Correct. I wouldn't say that people regress through stages, but they certainly do not have to operate at their highest level all the time (it takes more energy to go through the mental gymnastics i'd guess). If they run into a real issue that presses them to think about it, this is when the highest stage shows. How can I make this more clear do you think in the text? JoeSmack Talk 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like the use of the word "regress" as in "it is extremely rare to regress backward in stages" (from the lead) is a bit misleading then. (How one might regress "forwards through stages" I'll leave as an exercise for the reader). --Malleus Fatuorum 23:37, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixed. The solution seems simple, which is to use "skip" instead, which I agree is better. -DoctorW 18:34, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I guess Kohlberg uses this word, and it is used later in the article. Still, lets try to keep things as easy to understand as possible... JoeSmack Talk 18:59, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... each stage provides a new yet necessary perspective, and is more comprehensive, differentiated, and integrated than its predecessors". Integrated with what?
With past stages. So if you are a stage three, you also have some stage one and two in you in addition to the third. Stages are constructive, so each one is like all of them combined up to that point. JoeSmack Talk 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixed. Reworded in a way that clarifies and solves the problem. -DoctorW 18:37, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... it made efforts to improve validity criteria by using a quantitative test of a Likert scale to rate moral dilemmas". It was not a test of the Likert scale.
Fixed, changed to 'such as the likert'. JoeSmack Talk 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixed. The specific objection raised by Malleus was fixed previous to my coming to the page yesterday. -DoctorW 18:46, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... the test persists in many areas that require moral testing and in varied cohorts". How can a test "persist"? "The test is still used in many areas ..."? What are these "many areas that require moral testing, and what are these "varied cohorts"?
Sorry, the refs at the end say it in the titles, but I can change it. The test is still being used (persists), in various domains (like research + theory), and cohorts (three refs describing tested politics/divinity/medical cohorts).
How is "In 1999 the DIT was revised as the DIT-2;[21] the test continues being used in many areas that require moral testing[25] such as divinity, politics and medicine.[26][27][28]" ? JoeSmack Talk 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The article should say something about the cultural differences revealed by Kohlberg's moral dilemmas.
Thats a good point. Lemme work on where to stick that - his theory isn't value neutral so cultures with different values are gonna score differently. JoeSmack Talk 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here we go: Kohlberg's stages are not culturally neutral; people in other cultures do in fact progress through the stages in order, but they seem to do so at different rates.[20] In order to test this, his theory of moral development has been applied to a number of different cultures.[1] "Kohlberg's response is that different cultures do teach different beliefs, but that his stages refer not to specific beliefs but to underlying modes of reasoning". [1][21] JoeSmack Talk 23:53, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "It is in general not a good idea to have a separate Criticism section. Better to include the critical detail at the relevant points throughout the article, to give a better balance.
I need to keep the first part of that section, cause Kohlberg is often refuted with some Gilligan (although I personally think that Gilligan is a classic stage five pissed that there is a stage six), but the second part may just get nixed. Maybe I can throw it in the philosophy section.
  • See discussion of this topic below. -DoctorW 19:19, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article leaves me feeling uncertain about the current status of Kohlberg's ideas amongst the academic community (can't strictly be called a theory, because they're not testable).
Kohlberg is kinda the first real work in moral development as a field, he's in my 101 textbook for psych from undergrad and my 101 textbook for social work in grad school, so i'd say he's the first or second name that comes up in those disciplines when considering morality.
It can be called a theory because it is testable. The Moral Judgement Interview (ie Heinz Dilemma) does just that, and the DIT does carries it's testability further. It is frequently cited as a theory of moral development. JoeSmack Talk 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • No issue. I'm sorry to say this, but you're both wrong. I think saying a theory is "testable" is a laymen's version of Popper's discussion of specific predictions made by a theory being falsifiable. There are certainly predictions made by this theory that are falsifiable. JoeSmack is wrong in a more minor way. Kohlberg is unquestionably, beyond any doubt, the premier figure in the field of moral development. No one else even comes close. Piaget's theory of cognitive development also engenders an immense amount of criticism, but one of my textbooks about Piaget at Cornell had the subtitle "The world's foremost psychologist". Critics raising issues is not necessarily an indication of the status of a theory one way or the other. -DoctorW 19:41, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • You mean we're both wrong in your opinion. ;-) It is far from a "layman's version" of Popper's ideas to hold the view that (to be useful) a theory must lead to hypotheses which can be tested in an attempt to prove the theory inadequate. Hans Eysenck (gosh, what a poor article that is!) took much the same view of Freudian psychoanalytical theories in the 1970s I recall. My point about "theory" was only a throw-away comment in any case. I fully accept that many in the field of social sciences use the word in a rather less strict sense. --Malleus Fatuorum 19:48, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I apologize for the tone of my comment. I shouldn't have jumped on you based on a quibble about what, after your clarification, appears to be semantics (theory vs. hypotheses/predictions). Research-oriented psychologists like myself can sometimes be touchy when they perceive a statement to be close to saying their subject matter is unscientific. I think it's quite safe to say that Kohlberg's theory as a scientific enterprise is clearly superior to most theories in psychology. Just as you say, many of Freud's ideas have been frequently criticized by scientific psychologists as untestable. That why virtually no one in psychology departments (in the U.S. at least) pays any attention to Freud any more except for in discussing historical context. Kohlberg's theory (it can be called a theory) is not in the same situation. It is regarded as the cornerstone and starting place for all discussions within scientific psychology of the field of moral development. That was the point I was trying to make. Sorry about my initial response. -DoctorW 21:03, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Important parts of the article are uncited, the last paragraph of Criticisms and the first paragraph of Theoretical assumptions (philosophy), for instance.
Arg. Well, both those paragraphs (everything on the philosophy) were added by someone far smarter than me in their field of morality/philosophy. I've left him/her a message on their userspace, but no answer. I have no idea how to cite them... what can we do about that? JoeSmack Talk 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest moving both paragraphs to the article's talk page, with a note saying that they can be restored if they can be adequately cited. They have a distinct smell of original research about them. --Malleus Fatuorum 23:37, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixed. I found a citation for the important content regarding Kohlberg's assumption that moral decisions are arrived at primarily by formal reasoning, i.e., social intuitionists such as Jonathan Haidt. I moved the uncited first paragraph of Theoretical assumptions (philosophy) - which looked like original research - to its own section on the Talk page, with an explanation. -DoctorW 22:42, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Other psychologists have questioned the assumption that moral action is ...". Who are these other psychologists?
See above. JoeSmack Talk 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think I've addressed this adequately. There are other psychologists besides the social intuitionists who've raised this objection, but the latter made the best case. -DoctorW 22:46, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It used the laymans answer and then put Rawls in parentheses because the veil of ignorance because it is the formal way of describing just that. I'm just trying to scaffold concepts. JoeSmack Talk 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead need to better summarise the article, informing of the current academic status of Kohlberg's ideas for instance.
How should I go about doing this? As said before, his current academic status is like way up there. Opening my grad social work text, of the 10 pages spent on moral development, his name is first. It usually goes like that, either him or Piaget as first, and he's always followed up by Gilligan because it is the critical thing to do and they worked together. JoeSmack Talk 23:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The See also section needs pruning. Links in that section should be to other wikipedia articles relevant to a further understanding of the topic but are not already linked to in the article body, or to topics only peripherally related.[1]
  • I've done away with it and created what I think is a more useful section: Other closely related psychological theories. It seems like a good idea to have them listed in one place. -DoctorW 22:49, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

--Malleus Fatuorum 18:12, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. I'll get to these in the next day or two. Thanks for the thorough reading of this article. Just as a quick aside though, the Criticisms section was requested back when I tried making this a GA for the first time; has MoS changed about this? JoeSmack Talk 20:55, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My comment about the Criticisms section is nothing to do with the MoS, but with the GA requirement to be neutral and unbiased. Separating out criticism tends to leave the article unbalanced. I appreciate that it's frustrating to have two different GA reviewers tell you two different things, but the GA standard has been tightened up considerably since this article was listed, hence its inclusion in the ongoing GA Sweeps Review
In this case - for this article - I believe that "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it" applies. Recall that this is not only official English Wikipedia policy, but that it is one of the five pillars. A separate criticism discussion is that way Kohlberg's theory is always presented. This is clearly preferable because of the complexity of the theory, so as not to muddle the issues. There is absolutely no reason that a separate criticism section would necessarily leave the article unbalanced; as long as the criticism section itself is balanced, there is no problem. Even the issues raised in criticizing Kohlberg's theory are complex, so I strongly feel the article is better with a separate criticism section.-DoctorW 19:19, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That wouldn't be my view, but the separate Criticisms section isn't a show-stopper for this GA reassessment anyway. I've got no real concerns over the article's neutrality, which is the important thing, it was just a presentational point. --Malleus Fatuorum 19:28, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Gilligan is always mentioned in discussions of criticisms of Kohlberg's theory, even though her contribution to critique of the theory is debatable, perhaps marginal. Her claims are controversial, and her critics feel the main benefit of her arguments are to bolster her own career rather than to make a specific contribution to the critique of Kohlberg or to the progress of moral development theory. She raises a legitimate question about whether Kohlberg's justice orientation is too narrow, but her claims that this is male-biased have been refuted (and the refutation rebutted) - like I said, it's complicated. But Turiel and his band of "Domain theory" proponents are far more of a threat to Kohlberg. -DoctorW 19:22, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I've heard of some domain theory before. If it is a 'threat', throw something about it in the Crit section? It's a red link too, stub the thing, I'm intersted... JoeSmack Talk 19:06, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry about the nominal seven day deadline, there's no real rush. I'd rather wait until you've had time to do whatever needs to be done than have to delist this article. --Malleus Fatuorum 21:42, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]


This is great work guys! Malleus, thanks for finding new ways to improve this sucker, and Doc, as always, you got a brilliant perspective on Kohlberg's work, thanks for your contribs. I'm gonna give it another go over and then lets talk about anything that is still missing for this review. JoeSmack Talk 19:06, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, I've made my pass. Perhaps not necessary for this review, but valuable to add to the article: Kohlberg's work on moral education and Just Communities. He worked with everyone from school students to jail convicts to promote just communities. It was pretty much the legacy he wanted to leave behind, and it was heavily influenced by his cross-cultural work, namely his Kibbutz experiences in Israel. Anyone got some info on that we can stick in? JoeSmack Talk 20:05, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say that material was more suitable for Kohlberg's biographical article, not this one about his theory of moral development. Wikipedia articles need to stay focused, epecially at GA/FA level. --Malleus Fatuorum 20:21, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. Why did we toss James W. Fowler's Stages of faith development stuff in the 'closely related theories' section? Kohlberg talks about their theories being close like all the time. JoeSmack Talk 20:23, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We didn't, or at least I didn't. It was partly as a response to my objection about the contents of the See also section, I think. We need to make certain that this article stays focused on its subject. --Malleus Fatuorum 20:42, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I deleted it, with a terse explanation in the edit summary. I'm quite familiar with Fowler's work on this subject; I even wrote a paper on it (unpublished manuscript), which shows that if proper statistical evaluation is done, his theory falls apart beyond the first two (Piagetian) stages. Perhaps that's why it was never published in a journal (peer-reviewed or otherwise), but rather in a book (Stages of Faith). This isn't a proper way to establish a theory in scientific psychology. I don't believe it can be called a genuine theory. His work has sparked a lot of good discussion, but mostly by religious studies types. Psychologists generally ignore it. Joe, can you provide some citations of Kohlberg's having mentioned it? I know Kohlberg and colleagues were generous in what they said about other researchers (including critics like Gilligan), but I actually hadn't run across anything that indicated Kohlberg had looked in detail at what Fowler had done and had a favorable opinion of it. -DoctorW 21:38, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm closing this reassessment now; I think we've done enough to justify this article's GA listing and I'll update the article history to say so. Many thanks to DoctorW and to JoeSmack. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:34, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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