Being Honor Bred

2 Pages 551 Words

Being Honor Bred


In the short story “Being Honor Bred” by Dominick Yezzo, the authors illustrates how we as humans go through different stages in making our decisions. These stages are known as the Kohlberg’s moral decision making stages.

First the story begins with him being at the bar and noticing that Mom-San was beautiful but she had a husband and he respected that. Here we see Stage One Obedience and Punishment Social Orientation. He was being obedient by respecting Mom-Sam and her husband because if he did not then his punishment would be getting beat up by her husband. Then as he enters the other bar he sees this prostitute and goes into a room behind a bar to have sex, even though he describes her like a unattractive lady. Here his decision is based on Stage two Individualism, instrumentalism, and exchange. He is exchanging pleasure for money. Even though she said only five dollars he decides to give him everything he had in his pocket. He does this because he feels that she is only doing this to make money to survive so to show respect for her he gives her more money then she asked. Later on he goes into stage five social contract. He goes into this stage when he realizes that he might die. He starts praying to god and makes a contract with him that if he protects him and doesn’t let him die then he will not commit any more sins. “O my god I am heartly sorry for having offended thee-and I detest all of my sins because of thy just punishment-but most of all because I offend thee my god…” Here we see him saying that god is punishing him for all the sins he has done. His moral reasoning is in stage one, the obedience and punishment social orientation. When Bred was suppose to shot the Vietnamese boy he doesn’t because he realizes that he is just a boy like him. He realizes that killing is a sin and that he should not do it. This is stage five social contract social orientation. “The ex...