Moral Reasoning Among Taiwanese Liberal Arts Students: Conventional Morality is not Enough

Abstract: This study investigated the moral reasoning abilities of second-year university students in in a medium sized liberal arts university in Taiwan. General English students were asked to solve a moral dilemma and their responses were analyzed utilizing Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. The results of the study indicate that the majority of student surveyed reason at the conventional level of morality, which is second stage of the second level on Kohlberg’s three-level, six-stage rubric. The study goes on to question whether or not this level of moral reasoning meets the mandate of liberal arts education and whether or not this level of moral reasoning will be sufficient to equip students for the moral decisions which they will face in the future as leaders of policy and industry. Methods to increase students ’ moral reasoning ability are also dicussed within this study