Lawrence Kohlberg developed a hierarchy of stages of moral thought and action. He believes that people respond to moral questions based on patterns of reason. He organized these patterns of moral reasoning in to three main groups, each again divided into two sub groups. The distinguises the preconventional level, the conventional level and the post conventional, autonomous, or principled level. From the very lowest level of operating based on punishment and obedience, to the highest level of universal - ethical-principled orientation he maintains a mechanistic framework that is exclusively concerned with the form of a person’s moral reasoning, not the content. He does so because he believes that one can not teach another what its right or wrong, but only how to go through the process of deciding for yourself what is right or wrong for you.
Kohlberg’s purpose for the stage theory was to help people develop their abilities to make moral decisions. To him this was a matter of improving ones own condition, not a responsibility to do the right thing. As such the theory has some problematic underlying assumptions. While there may be validity to the sequence of some of the stages, they are also inherently flawed because they do not allow the consideration of any impuls other than ones own motives to bring about a moral decision.