Honors English - North or Nothing

Baylee Malm

Erin Gatfield

Honors English

4 November 2015

North or Nothing

“Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything,” Alexander Hamilton. As defined by Google, a moral compass is “ a person's ability to judge what is right and wrong and act accordingly,” (Google). How we determine what is right and wrong is the development of morality. I believe the main pillars that shape our morality are as follows, our genetics, our environment, and the influence of society. The thing that many forget is that our morals are constantly changing and can be swayed if allowed.

Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987) was an early developmental psychologist who defined stages of how children move away from their egocentric mindset, or, the idea that their needs and feelings are all that matter. He did this by posing moral dilemmas to children ranging in age, culture, and gender. He broke it into three age categories, Preconventional Morality (0 years-9 years), Conventional Morality (adolescence), and Post Conventional Morality (adolescence and beyond). Within each category, there are two stages. This amounts to six stages of how our sense of morality is formed. They are, avoiding punishment, gaining rewards, gaining approval/avoid disapproval, doing one's duty/avoiding dishonor and guilt, affirming accepting ethical rights, and forming autonomous moral principles. Kohlberg also discovered that those who do the right thing are more capable of finding empathy for others. He also found that people with this moral compass are better at controlling their impulses. They find it easier to get passed “the natural man”. (Kohlberg 1-2).

Kohlberg had the right idea when he believed that our nature had a hand in the development of morality and a moral compass. We as human beings are born with a certain temperament. This temperament can be swayed throughout our lifetime, but remains relatively the same. It is determined by our genetics and the genetics of our parents. Some of us may be more receptive to feelings and emotions of others. While others, gear more towards the analytical aspect of things. Our nature does influence our ideas of morality, but what about the way we are nurtured?

The way we are raised is largely dependent upon the influence of other people. The people in our lives are the ones who hold the most influence over how we choose to act in our future lives. We piggyback off the ideals of our parents until we can form what, essentially, is our own worldview. Morality is encompassed in that. The home children grow up in will have an imprinting effect on their lives. The habits/(sometimes) erroneous opinions of the parents have a chance of being perpetuated into the next generation. The influences that we encounter