Should the husband have done that? Was it right or wrong? Most people say that Heinz’s theft was morally justified, but Kohlberg was less concerned about whether they approved or disapproved than with the reasons they gave for their answers. Starting in the 1950s with a group of seventy-five boys ranging in age from ten through sixteen, he monitored the reasons they gave for their judgment over a twenty-year period. He was able to isolate six distinct stages of moral thought. Each stage built on previous thinking, but each one also represented a qualitative jump from the type of reasoning that went before. From Kohlberg’s standpoint, higher meant better. Although most of his subjects never reached the highest stages, those who did invariably went through the sequence one stage at a time without ever skipping a step or reversing the order. Figure 8-1 shows Kohlberg’s hierarchy of moral development and the type of comments people make about the Heinz case at each stage of their thinking. He regarded moving from concrete interests to general principles as a sign of moral maturity. Whereas Korzybski was suspicious of abstract concepts like justice, truth, and freedom, Kohlberg stated unequivocally that the universal principle of justice is the highest claim of morality.