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Natural Law and Moral Development. Natural Law. The term Natural Law is frequently used in the Church, so it is important to understand what it really means, because it is possible to use it mistakenly in making decisions.
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Natural Law • The term Natural Law is frequently used in the Church, so it is important to understand what it really means, because it is possible to use it mistakenly in making decisions. • Natural Law comes from God and is the law inherent to creation and applies to all people, whether Christian or not. • It’s called natural law because everyone is subject to it from birth (natio) and contains only those duties which are derived from human nature itself. It can be grasped by the unaided light of human reason. Example: what we call the maternal instinct,where mothers have a strong desire to take care of their new-borne babies. Consider the woman who gives birth: when a mother kills her new-borne baby, both women and men scream out in rage at the action. We know it is deeply wrong.
Moral Maturity • Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg(1927- 89) developed a theory of how people deal with moral problems. • From his research he concluded that there are 6 major stages of moral reasoning related to how individuals develop into moral persons. Kohlberg’s theory is broken up into 3 levels based upon the individual’s focus: Level 1 – Preconventional Level where the individual makes decisions based on the self, his/her own personal welfare. Level 2 – Conventional Level where the individual makes decisions based on the group’s welfare. The term conventional comes from “social convention”, the socially acceptable way to do things. Level 3 - Postconventional Level where the individual makes decisions based on principles. Jesus and perhaps Mother Theresa were post conventional. People in this level are often killed.
Stage 1 Examples: • a toddler thinking, “I won’t take that cookie because mommy will spank me if I don’t ask her first.” • an adult thinking, “I won’t steal that car because I’ll likely get caught again.” Stage 2 Examples: • a toddler thinking, “I’m taking that cookie, and I don’t care if mommy spanks me.” • an adult thinking, “I’m stealing that car, and I don’t car if they catch me again.”
Stage 3 Examples: • a teen aged member of a clique gossips about a student because everyone in the clique is. • anadult thinking, “Okay, Iraq had no WMD, but it’s “My country right or wrong.” Stage 4 Examples: • a teen thinking, “When I was younger I used to cheat not paying for Transit, but not any more because we all have to take responsibility.” • an adult thinking, “I follow all the speed rules of the road because otherwise the city streets would be a chaotic and disastrous mess.
Stage 5 examples: • a teen volunteers at a food bank because she knows how much her parents have given her. • an adult volunteers 20 hours a week on a political campaign to change the system to be more fair to the poor.
Stage 6 Examples • a high school student who isn’t gay is upset at how many of his classmates are bullying a gay student in his class. He knows that such action is really wrong. He starts a pink shirt movement to support the student and to stop bullying of any kind. He himself is bullied, but doesn’t stop. It takes over a year before his classmates realize that he is right, and then they start to change. The program makes the media and quickly spreads across the country. • Oskar Schindler was a German Catholic industrialist during World War II. He used Polish Jews to run his ammunition plant and got rich, but he put all the money he raised into keeping 1300 Jewish men, women and children alive. He said, “If you saw a dog going to be crushed under a car,” he said later of his wartime actions, “wouldn't you help him?” He knew that if he had been caught he would have been tortured and executed.
Some Observations of Kohlbergs Levels • People move from moral growth as they mature. • No one skips stages, people only move from one stage to another. • A person may revert back to a lower stage in their life in certain areas of their decision making. This can sometimes be caused by stress or impaired judgment. • Some people never move beyond Level One. • If you freely chose to be Christian….you will want to make good choices because your choices create you. As a Eucharistic person Jesus will help you mature every time you go to Communion with an open heart. If you really want it the Holy Spirit will help you reach stage 6.
