Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil

A leading cognitive scientist argues that a deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone.
 
From John Locke to Sigmund Freud, philosophers and psychologists have long believed that we begin life as blank moral slates. Many of us take for granted that babies are born selfish and that it is the role of society—and especially parents—to transform them from little sociopaths into civilized beings. In Just Babies, Paul Bloom argues that humans are in fact hardwired with a sense of morality. Drawing on groundbreaking research at Yale, Bloom demonstrates that, even before they can speak or walk, babies judge the goodness and badness of others’ actions; feel empathy and compassion; act to soothe those in distress; and have a rudimentary sense of justice.

Still, this innate morality is limited, sometimes tragically. We are naturally hostile to strangers, prone to parochialism and bigotry. Bringing together insights from psychology, behavioral economics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy, Bloom explores how we have come to surpass these limitations. Along the way, he examines the morality of chimpanzees, violent psychopaths, religious extremists, and Ivy League professors, and explores our often puzzling moral feelings about sex, politics, religion, and race.

In his analysis of the morality of children and adults, Bloom rejects the fashionable view that our moral decisions are driven mainly by gut feelings and unconscious biases. Just as reason has driven our great scientific discoveries, he argues, it is reason and deliberation that makes possible our moral discoveries, such as the wrongness of slavery. Ultimately, it is through our imagination, our compassion, and our uniquely human capacity for rational thought that we can transcend the primitive sense of morality we were born with, becoming more than just babies.

Paul Bloom has a gift for bringing abstract ideas to life, moving seamlessly from Darwin, Herodotus, and Adam Smith to The Princess Bride, Hannibal Lecter, and Louis C.K. Vivid, witty, and intellectually probing, Just Babies offers a radical new perspective on our moral lives.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307886859?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0307886859&linkCode=xm2&tag=wwwsamharri02-20

Interesting.
What makes toddlers so selfish then? Becaeue they really are, the world revolves around them and their wishes as far as they're concerned.

I always thought babies were born like a clean slate and then us, as parents introduce shiny colourful objects to distract them and amuse them and then they start to learn "possession" and "want"

babies and todlers are R/W ers for sure

greedy
self centered
always demanding attention
bad tempered
and prone to paddy when twarted

Oh shut up or I'll put you on the naughty step.

oh...and they dribble a lot too

victorismyhero wrote:oh...and they dribble a lot too

Who? Meat-eaters?

no babies and R/W ers

Oh and politicians are like nappies

both should be changed regularly

and for the same reason

victorismyhero wrote:no babies and R/W ers

Oh and politicians are like nappies

both should be changed regularly

and for the same reason

Impressive analogy mate.
I like that, best one I have heard for a long time

Anyway have a good night one and all.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/PL00022136
It is well known that humans respond negatively to inequity, but until recently little has been known about such responses in animals. Previous observational research in animals has shown hints that animals do respond to inequity. Chimpanzees respond with temper tantrums if they do not get what they desire, social canids refuse to play with individuals who violate social rules, and ravens show third party intervention against norm violations. Recent experimental work with nonhuman primates has given us a more detailed understanding. Capuchin monkeys and chimpanzees both respond negatively to distributional inequity. Moreover, chimpanzees show significant variation in response depending upon the social group they inhabit, with those from a short-term group or a relatively asocial living situation showing a much greater response to inequity than those from a long-term stable group. This mirrors human variation in responses to inequity, which are based upon the quality of the relationship. In this paper, I attempt to define “fairness” in a way that is useful for nonhuman studies and clarify what aspects are being examined in animal societies. I then place the animal work in the context of the studies on humans, especially as related to research in social psychology and economics. I conclude that studying the inequity response in animals is useful for a number of reasons, including the opportunity to gain insight into how this response functions in less complex organisms and social systems and clarification of our understanding of the evolution of this behavior.

we are products of evolution not blank slates,
this is why philosophers and psychologists are not scientists
the easiest way to tell if it is social/nurture or genetic/nature is to see if it occurs in other animals. (although the bolded shows that animals have their own social/nurture traits too)

The BIG issue with slavery as an example is peoples like Aboriginals that were isolated from slavery taking societies don't have it or any concept of it, so slavery is actually the product of human's reasoning (that if i enslave this guy i will have more stuff).

One the timescale of human existence slavery has existed for only a short period, it didn't exist until the concept of personal ownership (seem about 8-10,000 years ago in north Africa or middle east) for hunter gathers another slave is another mouth so no net gain by owning them unless you work them to starvation/death. it is only once we start agriculture that a slave can make enough to feed multiple thus a net gain.