Two young men, brothers, had got into serious trouble. They were secretly leaving town in a hurry and needed money. Karl, the older one, broke into a store and stole a thousand dollars. Bob, the younger one, went to a retired old man who was known to help people in town. He told the man that he was very sick and that he needed a thousand dollars to pay for an operation. Bob asked the old man to lend him the money and promised that he would pay him back when he recovered. Really Bob wasn't sick at all, and he had no intention of paying the man back. Although the old man didn't know Bob very well, he lent him the money. So Bob and Karl skipped town, each with a thousand dollars.

The above reflects Kholberg's moral dilemma where he tries to explain an individual's moral decision based on the individual's moral development stage in his theory

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development

American psychologist, Lawrence Kohlberg in his theory “Stages of moral development” groups his six stages of moral development into three levels of two stages each:

Pre-Conventional

Stage 1 Obedience & Punishment Driven

Stage 2 Self-interest Driven

Conventional

Stage 3 Interpersonal Accord & Conformity Driven

Stage 4 Authority & Social-order Obedience Driven

Post-Conventional

Stage 5 Social Contract Driven

Stage 6 Universal Ethical Principles Driven