In chapter 10, Lawrence Kohlberg's findings on how morality unfolds across the life span are explored. His research judged participants on what kind of reasoning process they used to decide what was right or wrong in moral dilemmas. What he came up with was that morality develops in three different stages. The first is preconventional morality, which focuses on punishment and reward. Second deals with conventional morality, or the impact of societal values of morality. And the third is postconventional morality which is about whether or not something goes with or against fundamental human rights and values.
One place in popular culture that I thought this particularly applied to was the US presidential elections. Each candidate has to take a stance on very important societal issues, which could be seen as moral dilemmas. In order to choose where they stand they must analyze each on at least one of the levels that Kohlberg spoke of. In particular, the second level seems like it plays a pretty big role on their decisions. This level is a focus on societal values. What is right is what society agrees with, and what is wrong would be something that society believes is wrong. But, in the US, society is split on essentially all of these issues. So, do they go with something that may contradict their own opinion to conform to society, or might they try and think about things in different terms?
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/aHV7U6TlYFj/CNN+YouTube+Host+GOP+Presidential+Debate/5o0Cq8_hOLQ/Ron+Paul
good blog about moral, I am very agree with your about morality develops in three different stages. You used the example about US presidential elections to prove your points. good job!