What Does It Mean To Be Moral

Essay, Research Paper

What does it mean to be moral?

Our morality is used every day in every situation and decision we make. Morality is very much a part of who you are. To be a person who is moral you know what is right and wrong on your own.

To be moral is to be able to tell the right from wrong. There is no universal right and wrong because everyone develops their own ego. According to Freud we have three different components: The Id, the Super ego, and the Ego. Your id is the animal in you it s your instinctual drives. The super ego is a borrowed conscience from our parents, peers and media that is only temporary. The ego is your own version if the super ego, you need to control the id and critique the super ego. Someone with a good strong ego or conscience is very moral; they are most likely to do the right regardless of the consequences. Jean Piaget said there were two stages in our moral development, our heteronomous stage and our autonomous stage. In the heteronomous stage we determine the right and wrong from the rules and laws not really knowing why it is wrong or not. Autonomous is automatically doing the right thing reg

ardless of your own consequences. If you were a person who operated on the autonomous stage would always be the one who did the right thing even if they were going to get in trouble. Another person who studied moral development was Lawrence Kohlberg. Lawrence Kohlberg came up with the six stages of our moral development. The six stages are Fear of punishment, desire for reward, desire to be liked, law and order, social contract, and universal principals. Someone who operates at level one will make their decisions based on trying not to get punished. Someone at level two bases their decisions on what they would get in return. At stage three you make your decisions on what the group thinks and says. Stage four makes decisions because they are simply against the law they don t fully understand why it s wrong. Stage five you base decisions on what is the common good for the whole group. The sixth and highest level is characterized by total selflessness and they do what is right always.

A moral person can differentiate between right and wrong. Everyone s conscience is different. We all operate on different levels, but we are all moral because we have that ability.