He was born in Bronxville, NY the 25th of October 1927 and he died in January 17, 1987 in Boston by

committing suicide because he had a parasitic infection, which made him ill and depressed. Lawrence
Kohlberg was interested in Jean Piaget's work about children moral. He started his own research by
interviewing children and giving them questions about actions and consequences to understand how they
morally were, if they chose right or wrong and how would this affect the result, if they act positively or
negatively. This survey became the beginning of his moral development theory.
Moral Development Theory
Kohlberg suggested that a person's moral develops through stages, his theory relies on Piaget's study of
moral reasoning. He proposed six stages that a person should pass in order to completely develop his/her
moral and these stages are divided into 3 levels:
Pre-conventional: Kohlberg observed that children tend to look for themselves and not for others at a young
age. As they lack ethical values, they search for social approval is by following orders to receive a prize and
avoid punishment.
Conventional: In this level children learn about the rules of society and they start accepting them and
following them. They start to receive approval from their parents or teachers and focus on not breaking the
rules, this helps them understand how society can be stable and to have friendly relationships.
Postconventional: Children understand the differences between what is morally correct to what it is legally
right. The different perspectives of what is correct morally or legally is clearer to make a more accurate
decision depending on the situation. People apply their moral and legal ideas to society and if they break
one of their principles, the feeling of guilt comes. Kohlberg couldn't measure the last stage of his theory
because he couldn't record constant results from the tests he did.

One of the main limitations of this theory is that he made his research based on male behavior, so his theory
is imprecise because the female behavior is different and needs to be taken in account to have more
accurate results.