Moral Development and Plagiarism

After completing my readings, I was able to connect how moral development and plagiarism play hand-in-hand. Child psychologist, Jean Piaget, was one of the originals to explore the study of moral development in children and researched some of the early stages of moral thinking in preschoolers. However, Lawrence Kohlberg was able to identify and introduce the theory of moral development and was able to go more in depth into the actual stages of moral reasoning. According to Feldman (2011), moral development is defined as "the change in people's sense of justice and what is right and wrong"(p.258). Kholberg discussed the fact that people go through stages of moral reasoning which include preconventional, conventional and postconventional morality. In the preconventional stages, “people follow rules based on punishment and rewards.” (Feldman, 2011 p. 320) For example, with plagiarism, we may say that people who do not practice the act and follow the protocol for quoting other people’s words, they are practicing preconventional morals. Stages in the conventional morality level, suggests that “people approach moral problems in terms of their own position as good, responsible members of society.” (Feldman, 2011 p. 320-321) For instance, when a person does the right thing based on society and people pleasers. At this stage, Individuals may not yet understand their role within the realm of larger societal guidelines. As such, upholding the moral values of the college community, may not yet be a priority for these students. Instead, an individual still at this level of moral development will most likely be looking to gain personal advantage above all else. (Gismondi, 2006. p. 2) At the post conventional level, “people use moral principles that are seen as broader than those of any particular society.” (Feldman, p. 321)

In comparison, I believe that the moral developmental theory plays a vital role when looking at plagiarism. As we have researched, refreshed or recently...