Moral development of Jem and Scout in "To Kill a Mockingbird".

Lawrence Kohlberg developed six culturally universal levels of moral development that can be applied to To Kill a Mockingbird. This book tells a story of the children growing up and their lives changing so we can observe the ascension of them through morality levels and the events that cause or show this. The main characters of this book were Jem and Scout who we first meet with morality levels 0 to 1. It is their experiences which …

…It is Boo who ultimately shows her this. Something I found interesting was that scout and Jem both achieved a high level long before the should have but it supported that life experiences shape a persons morals and even youth can have a high grasp of what is right and wrong. LEVEL STAGE SOCIAL ORIENTATION Pre-conventional 1 Obedience and Punishment 2 Individualism, Instrumentalism, and Exchange Conventional 3 "Good boy/girl" 4 Law and Order Post-conventional 5 Social Contract 6 Principled Conscience