[2603.21854] Reasoning or Rhetoric? An Empirical Analysis of Moral Reasoning Explanations in Large Language Models

Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence arXiv:2603.21854 (cs) [Submitted on 23 Mar 2026] Title:Reasoning or Rhetoric? An Empirical Analysis of Moral Reasoning Explanations in Large Language Models Authors:Aryan Kasat, Smriti Singh, Aman Chadha, Vinija Jain View a PDF of the paper titled Reasoning or Rhetoric? An Empirical Analysis of Moral Reasoning Explanations in Large Language Models, by Aryan Kasat and 3 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Do large language models reason morally, or do they merely sound like they do? We investigate whether LLM responses to moral dilemmas exhibit genuine developmental progression through Kohlberg's stages of moral development, or whether alignment training instead produces reasoning-like outputs that superficially resemble mature moral judgment without the underlying developmental trajectory. Using an LLM-as-judge scoring pipeline validated across three judge models, we classify more than 600 responses from 13 LLMs spanning a range of architectures, parameter scales, and training regimes across six classical moral dilemmas, and conduct ten complementary analyses to characterize the nature and internal coherence of the resulting patterns. Our results reveal a striking inversion: responses overwhelmingly correspond to post-conventional reasoning (Stages 5-6) regardless of model size, architecture, or prompting strategy, the effective inverse of human developmental norms, where Stage 4 dominates. Most strikingly, a subse...