Analysis Of The Heinz Dilemma

Someone you love very much is dying from an illness. This person might be your significant other, a parent, a child, or maybe a close friend. Their only saving grace is a drug discovered and owned by a local pharmacist. There’s just one problem: you cannot afford the drug and must make a life or death decision on what to do next. This situation is known as the Heinz Dilemma, and most of the subtopics of this chapter can all be tied back to this core issue. Do you steal the drug and save a life, or follow the law and let someone you love die? Also discussed in this chapter is how moral development affects choice-making, the different stages of moral development, and how morality develops.

What is moral development? In a nutshell, it’s the progression of morality throughout one’s lifetime by means of different stages. There are six of these stages, developed by Lawrence Kohlberg, that help to explain our moral choices and cognitive skills relative to our approximate age. Furthermore, as Kohlberg suggests, everyone reaches stages one through four: Punishment and Obedience, Instrumental Purpose and Exchange, Interpersonal Expectations and Conformity, and Law and order, respectively. Stage1 is characterized by the threat of punishment and the promise of reward. Stage 2 actions are

Using Kohlberg’s logic, most of us would have said that we would not have stolen the drug because stealing is against the law. This makes me question the legitimacy of Kohlberg’s theory and conclude that there are limitations to it. Clearly, although most times we follow the law without questioning it, people in Stage 4 are willing to break the law when it is personal and a dire