Examples Of Moral Development In To Kill A Mockingbird

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Throughout the book, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Scout is an excellent example of moral development. In the beginning of the book Scout rarely thinks about what is wrong or right, she only thinks about if she be punished. This indicates that she is low on the Kohlberg morality scale. In the middle of the book, Scout accepts social norms. At the end of the book, Scout has higher morals and questions the unwritten rules of society. As Scout makes decisions throughout her life, she undergoes moral changes.
In the beginning of the book, Scout makes decisions based how things affects her. For example, Atticus knows that Scout likes to read so he said that if Scout continues to go to school he continues to read to her and she agrees to this deal; this shows how Scout is low on the Kohlberg scale (level one stage two) because she only accepts Atticus' deal because she gets a reward in return. This is also reflected on the …show more content…
She reaches level 3, stage 6, this means that Scout thinks of social norms and questions others decisions made because of them. The way that one could tell that Scout has made it to this level of moral development is when she is talking to Jem about how Mrs. Gates is being hypocritical when she talks about how Hitler was a bad person because he was hateful towards Jews but Mrs. Gates is hateful towards blacks; Scout said the following, questioning Mrs.Gates, “how can you hate Hitler so bad an‘ then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home—”
It is hard to see the amount of moral development in Scout when looking at all the pieces individually. However when all of them are put together the amount of change in her way of thinking is not hard to . From this one could tell, Scout has developed greatly through To Kill a Mockingbird. Scout goes from making decisions only based on what she will get in return to questioning social norms at risk of scrutiny from her
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