The purpose of the studies was to test 1) the effectiveness of experimenter-directed principle testing discussions in moving subjects from an ethical relativist position to a more universalist position on all cultural practices which are unethical 2) whether subjects at higher levels of moral development rejected ethical relativism to a significantly greater degree than subjects at lower levels of moral development 3) whether subjects at higher levels of moral development were more willing to accept non-ethical cultural practices than were subjects at lower levels of moral development-. These questions were generated from Bernard Gert's rationale for the existence and validity of universal moral principles and from Lawrence Kohlberg's claim that persons at higher levels of moral development are more likely to be universalists.
The subjects for the first study were 44 grade eleven students drawn from two classes in a Vancouver-high school. The subjects for the second study were 32 fifth year university students in the Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia. In both cases, the main reason for selection was the cooperation of the teachers,
The level of moral development for each subject was measured by using Rest's Defining Issues Test. Movement from an ethical relativist position to an ethical universalist position was measured by using Kehoe's Cultural-Ethical Relativism Scale.
In study one, all subjects were pre-tested with the Defining Issues Test and then randomly divided into a treatment group and a control group. All subjects were post-tested with the Cultural-Ethical Relativism Scale. In study two, all subjects were pretested with the Defining Issues Test and Form A of the Cultural-Ethical Relativism Scale. All subjects were administered the treatment and then post-tested with Form B of the Cultural-Ethical Relativism Scale.
The treatment in both studies attempted to determine if subjects would demonstrate a greater willingness to 1) accept non-ethical cultural practices 2) reject the ethical relativist position 3) accept the ethical universalist position.
Analyses of the data in study one suggested that the treatment had no significant effect. Analyses of the data in study two suggested that the treatment did have a significant effect on the subjects' willingness to accept non-ethical cultural practices. The treatment, however, also had a significant effect on the subjects' willingness to accept unethical cultural practices. These results suggest that the treatment caused disequilibrium within the subjects' values system whereby they could not distinguish cultural practices with ethical implications from those without. In future studies, this distinct-ion must be clarified. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/21809 |
| Date | January 1978 |
| Creators | Hope, Graham Martin |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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