Heinz Steals the Drug

"In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging 10 times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug.

The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: "No, I discovered the drug and I am going to make money from it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal the drug for his wife. Should the husband have done that?" (Kohlberg, 1963).

Consider this response to the "Heinz Dilemma" produced in one of Kohlberg's studies: "It isn't just the druggist who will think you're a criminal, everyone else will too...[Y]ou'll feel bad thinking how you've brought dishonor on your family and yourself." (Kohlberg, 1969, p.381)

 

1. According to Kohlberg's theory, which stage of moral understanding does the above response most accurately represent?If the above response was given by a 15-year old boy, do you think the response would be different if the adolescent was a 15-year-old girl? Why or why not?
2. Describe one influence (other than gender) that could affect moral reasoning on the Heinz Dilemma?
3. Some critics of Kohlberg's theory favor a more pragmatic view to moral development. They believe that Kohlberg's stages inadequately account for morality in everyday life and that the individual's current context and motivations should be taken into account (Berk & Meyers, 2016). Do you favor a pragmatic approach to morality or a cognitive-developmental approach to morality (such as Kohlberg's theory), or both?