Moral Reasoning about Animal Treatment

Abstract

Developmental psychologists argue that children's moral-reasoning abilities develop through a sequence of stages, stimulated by interactions with the social environment. This study attempts to extend Lawrence Kohlberg's (1984) theory of human moral-reasoning development to interpret moral thinking about animal treatment. The study addresses the following questions: (1) Are boys capable of using consistent patterns of reasoning about animal-treatment dilemmas? (2) Does each boy reason at different levels for humans and animals and for different types of animals? (3) Are boys' animal moral-reasoning abilities related to their ages, indicating developmental advancement? (4) Do environmental interactions influence boys' levels of animal moral thinking? Interviews were conducted with 81 eighth- and twelfth-grade boys from suburban and rural Connecticut. Each boy was asked to resolve hypothetical human moral dilemmas and animal dilemmas involving three animal types: chimpanzees, dogs, and turkeys. The results support the conclusion that moral-development theory can be extended to interpret boys' moral reasoning about animal treatment. First, the findings show that boys were capable of using consistent reasoning patterns about animal dilemmas, indicating that animal reasoning, like human reasoning, is organized by stage structures. Second, it was found that human reasoning levels tended to be more advanced than animal reasoning levels, although reasoning levels were not found to differ consistently according to animal type. Third, older boys tended to use more advanced animal reasoning levels than younger boys, indicating that animal reasoning abilities, like human reasoning abilities, improve with age. However, fourth, boys' levels of animal reasoning were not found to be related to their residence background. Although the results did not provide evidence that environment influences animal moral reasoning, the study does support the conclusion that moral-development theory can be extended to interpret moral reasoning about animal treatment.