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Diana Moncada
ENG 308
April 5, 2016
Applied Criteria
Books have many real life situations and character which the readers can relate to. There

are morals and lessons which teaches the children what is wrong and what is right. The

characters from the books go through what children go through which is moral development. The

story of The Jungle Book is a great example because of the different stories that it has, the

characters in the different stories go through the stages of moral development from Lawrence

Kohlberg. Books give real life lessons because the characters go through the same moral

development as many children do.

According to an online article by Prentice-Hall, Kohlberg has focused on moral

development and has proposed a stage theory of moral thinking which goes well beyond Piaget's

initial formulations. (Crane, 1985) Kohlbergs moral development stages are continuum of

Piagets moral reasoning theory which are of two-stage theories. In Lawrence Kohlberg theory of

moral development there are three levels and there are two stages in each one. The article tells us

of each level and stage, the first level is Pre-Conventional Morality, the two stages in it are

Obedience and Punishment Orientation and Self-Interest Orientation. The second level is the

Conventional level, and the two stages are Interpersonal Accord and Conformity, and Authority

and Social-order Maintaining Orientation. The last level is Post-Conventional and the two stages

are Social Contract Orientation and Universal Ethical Principles.

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, is a great example of characters that goes through

Kohlbergs moral development theory. The young boy Mowgli is raised by a family of wolves,

and therefore lives in the jungle along with all the other animals. In the Jungle Book, Mowgli
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goes through the first level of Kohlbergs theory which is stage one: Obedience and Punishment

Orientation. This stage is where children know that there are rules that are set by adults which

everyone must follow. Mowgli grew up knowing the rules of the jungle that were set by the wise

animals in the jungle, one of which is not to hunt for ones own fun, with the help of Baloo and

Bagheera, he learned he had to obey these laws if he wanted to be part of the jungle. The second

level of this stage is: Self-Interest Orientation, which is when a person want to see what they can

get out of a situation. We can see this stage when Shere Khan wanted Mowgli for himself. He

didnt care that Mowgli already had a wolf family who cared for him, we wanted to fulfill his

own desire of killing Mowgli.

The book also shows the second level which is Conventional, and the first stage of this

level is: Interpersonal Accord and Conformity which is showing respect and obedience, in the

book we can see that Mowlgi as well as the other wolves being respectful to the wise animals

like Akela who is the leader of the wolf pack. The second stage is: Authority and social-order

maintaining orientation that is when people become concerned for the society and obey laws so

the social order is maintain. We can see this stage in the story Rikki-tikki-tavi, who is a

mongoose and who fights two cobras, Nag and Nagaina in order to maintain social order. He

fights Nag and Nagaia because of the problems they were causing in the garden and also because

they planned on killing Rikki-tikkis human family. In order for Rikki-tikki to keep those he

cares about safe, he had to fight them since that is a thing mongoose do.

The third level is the Post-Conventional level and the first stage from it is: the Social

Contract Orientation stage. In this stage people start to think about society and its rules, and if

society thinks something can be changed then it can be. This stage will go well with the story of

The White Seal, when Kotick changes the seals land. Although they didnt want to follow him to
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this new land, those that did, like it because they would not be easily catch by humans. Even

though this was not their land, they all agreed upon it, so there was no problem for them to move

to this new land. The last stage of this level is Universal Ethical Principles. In this stage is when

people start to realize of universal laws and values and that allows them to make more abstract

reasoning. For this stage, The White Seal story would also work, because after Kotick saw one of

his seal friends being captured by the humans, he knew that that wasnt right and he set on an

adventure to find a place where he can keep all the other seals safe from being catch.

According to an article, Fostering Goodness and Caring: Promoting Moral Development

of Young Children, it states that promoting moral development allows the children to have an

understanding of why there are rules and why it is important to obey them. If they are aware of

what is correct, they will think twice before disobeying either their parents rules or a law once

they are older. This source also tells us of another suggestion that can be used by the instructors

to give the children a sense of doing what is right. If one student is absent because of an illness,

they can write a get well card for their classmate, this will allow the children to care about the

well-being of one another. I believe that the outcome of promoting moral development is

accurate because it will start teaching children about morality and be able to differentiate

between good and bad. The other suggestion of the instructors is also helpful because it allows

the students to be comprehensive and caring to one another and doing something nice when the

other person needs it.

The scale which I chose for the reading does help the childrens literature of today

because in every story there is a character that goes through a stage of Moral Development.

Being able to analyze it, we can see that many children books have Kohlbergs moral

development stages that help the reader know about the things that are right and those that are
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wrong. Many children literature has lessons that teaches the children to do what is right after the

character has been in some type of trouble.

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Work Cited

Kipling, Rudyard. The Jungle Book. New York. Dover Publications, 2000. Print.
Wilson, Ruth, A. Fostering Goodness & Caring: Promoting Moral Development of

Young Children. Early Childhood News. 2008. Web. 4 Apr. 2016.

Crain, W, C. Kohlbergs Stages of Moral Development. Theories of Development,

Prentice-Hall. 1985. Web. 4 Apr. 2016.