Bred in the bone? (Study suggests children have a sense of morality at a very young age)

WORLD ^ | June 19, 2010 | Janie B. Cheaney

[rhema]

Years ago, when our daughter attended a church- sponsored preschool, we were invited to an informal meeting about parenting techniques. After orientation by the school director, we broke into discussion groups. The topic was discipline, a burning issue for preschool parents, swerving naturally to "How do we teach them right from wrong?" One father in our group apparently wanted to stir the pot. Early in the conversation he asked, "But how do we know what's right and wrong? Do those words have any meaning?"

If he was hoping for a Socratic discussion he didn't get it, neither the first time nor the second time he asked. No one even challenged the premise. I didn't know the man: He might have been an amateur student of philosophy, or a Hindu, or just a provocateur. But to parents of preschoolers, the question itself was meaningless. We all had some notion of right and wrong that we sought to inculcate in our young barbarians; the only issue was how.

New research indicates parents may have a little underlying cooperation in that quest. I mean "little" literally. "The Moral Life of Babies," appearing in The New York Times Magazine last month, outlines extensive study by Yale University researchers into the degree that right and wrong is recognized by children as young as a few months. Surprisingly or not, overwhelming evidence points to a sense of morality either inborn or developing very early.

The study involved babies being exposed to mini-dramas, both live and on film. Two puppets or two shapes were shown either helping or hindering a third character, with the babies encouraged afterward to respond. The youngest subjects were capable of nothing but watching, so their response was measured by how long they looked. But 9- to 12-month-olds could register approval or disapproval in a variety of ways, including punishing the bad actors when they had an opportunity. "In the end," writes professor Paul Bloom, "we found that 6- and 10-month-old infants [in a given study] overwhelmingly preferred the helpful individual to the hindering individual. This wasn't a subtle statistical trend; just about all the babies reached for the good guy."

The overwhelming response among the public: interesting. Writes Albert Mohler on his blog, "Does the fact that infants have an innate moral sense underline the importance of the fact that human beings are made in God's own image? It would certainly seem so." Meanwhile, a fan of atheist Richard Dawkins, commenting on Dawkins' website, draws quite another conclusion: "This will be a rather bitter blow to the religious who are convinced that humans are born sinful [and] incapable of telling right from wrong without moral guidance from the bible. . . . What a delicious laugh."

Not so fast. Paul says that even those without the Mosaic Law nonetheless have God's law written on their hearts, "while their conscience also bears witness" (Romans 2:14-15). While babies can't acknowledge the first table of the Law (loving God), the second table, about loving their neighbor, seems firmly fixed. Why?

The evolutionary bias assumed by the researchers can only shrug. Conceivably, a strong sense of group sympathy can help an individual survive in a harsh environment, but what explains the babies' apparent sympathy for animal puppets? Dr. Bloom admits that "the morality of contemporary humans really does outstrip what evolution could possibly have endowed us with." And there's another, rather obvious problem: "If children enter the world already equipped with moral notions, why is it that we have to work so hard to humanize them?"

That's the conundrum C.S. Lewis addresses in the first section of Mere Christianity: (a) everyone seems to have a sense of moral law, and (b) everyone breaks it. The little one who shows sorrow for a thwarted puppet will likely knock down a smaller child someday, or snatch a toy, or lie on a resumé, or cheat on his income tax, and natural selection will not justify him. Someone else will have to.

[LomanBill]

[kids are extremely perceptive - they can tell whether they are supposed to like or detest something. they pick up on subtle signals.]

 

Most folks don't need to be taught not to eat rotten fruit.  If it smells bad... don't eat it.   That's an instinctive physiological mechanism that can make the difference between good health and death from food poisoning.

 

Likewise, individuals with healthy sexual instincts recognize the unhealthy nature of homosexual behavior.

 

But recognizing THAT, or at least articulating it, will likely soon be a "hate" crime.

[Vigilanteman]

Well, there is the Prophet Enoch and his city which was taken into heaven, isn't there?

Seriously, corruption is scaled and the level of corruption makes a great deal of difference. At one extreme, you have Sodom, where Lot was unable to find even 10 righteous people for God to spare the city. At the other, you have America at its founding, who recognized God as a foundation even if they all had personal imperfections (corruptions) and great theological differences.

Thomas Jefferson himself might have been the classic conundrum. On one hand, he was a Godly man, who studied deeply of the scripture. On the other, he eschewed organized religion. On one hand, he was a loyal and devoted husband and father. On the other, he may have fathered children by a slave after his wife died. On one hand, he was at least our second greatest president of all time and a masterful spokesman for the concept of limited government. On the other hand, he had the wisdom to put his strict beliefs for limited government on the back burner when the opportunity to make the Louisiana Purchase surfaced.

Thus, it has been from the beginning of time. All of us have choices to make. Not just between good and evil, but also between good and a greater good.

[MrB]

Lord of the Flies is exactly accurate.
Left to their own devices, children, especially young males, devolve into barbarous, vicious entities.

[TalonDJ]

But admitting the existence of a conscience would tend to support those who argue that children are born with an innate nature to do good and thus weaken the argument that children are born with a sinful nature.

Not at all. The Bible is very clear that we are born with both. The sin nature does not mean we fail to recognize good. Our conscience shows of the moral path from a very early age. Our sin nature means we are incapable of following the moral path all of the time. Of course even the definition and extent of 'sin nature' varies between various denominations. But sin nature in no way is contradictory with an inborn conscience.

[GraceG]

“Outside of biblical references, how would one be able to tell that we are born with a sinful nature?
Because no one needs to teach a child how to be bad.

All the teaching and training is to teach them to be good, to overcome the badness. “

Children are inherently selfish to a fault, it is a trait that was given to them for base survival, that selfishness if left unchecked will eventually turn a child into a feral animal unless it is conditioned out of them at an early age. My sister’s two kids were taught the meaning of the word NO at a very early age, even before they could walk. Today they are some of the Happiest well adjusted young women you would ever have the fourtune of meeting. Did she beat them, NO she didn’t, she was firm when it was called for and kind when they needed kindness.

[GraceG]

“Lord of the Flies is exactly accurate.
Left to their own devices, children, especially young males, devolve into barbarous, vicious entities. “

When young males are given the priovledge of overuling their mothers, you end up with Hezbolla.

[LomanBill]

[All the teaching and training is to teach them to be good, to overcome the badness.]

 

Evidently homosexual activists agree with you.

 

Natural recognition of the unhealthy nature of homosexual behavior is BAD, they think, and must be edumacated out of children.

 

Do your children have to be taught not to eat rotten food?  Or do they avoid doing so simply because their nose tells them it smells bad?

 

[All the teaching and training]

 

ALL?  Even the training of religionist eunuchs who envy the power and authority of the royal hierarchies they were inbred to serve?

 

 

[MrB]

That “contradiction”, IMO, is what refutes the evolutionary angle of the development of the conscience.

If doing good for the group (ie, the horizontal commandments) is an evolved survival mechanism,

why did we not also evolve a desire to do good?

This is what Lewis states is the “internal revelation” of God.

[Vigilanteman]

Your assertion that they are corrupted by their environment leads to the liberal conclusion that if we just made the proper environment through empowering elites, everyone would act in a “good” way.

Wrong! That's merely a perverted liberal solution to accumulate power. A more valid argument is that giving people access to information (including moral training offered by the Word of God), truth and the freedom to choose will best enable them to overcome the evil influences presented by the environment.

There are a lot of conservatives (especially home schoolers) who make this very argument, regardless of which side of the nature/nurture divide they may fall on from either a theological or philosophical viewpoint.

Incidentally, not even all liberals believe “people are basically good”. Many argue that we are basically evil, which is why government power and enlightened elitism needs to force us to be good.

[Vigilanteman]

When young males are given the privilege of overruling their mothers, you end up with Hezbollah.

Ah, but is that nature? Or is it the nurture of fundamental Islamic philosophy?

[MrB]

To temper your argument,
I suggest you read Thomas Sowell’s “Conflict of Visions”.

[Albion Wilde]

Coveting, for instance, leads to dissatisfaction, discontent, unhappiness, and often to further sins like theft...

...or registering Democrat.

[timeflies]

LOL good one.

[MrB]

voting democRat is simply hiding your sins of theft and coveting behind the “legitimacy” of a majority vote.

[Vigilanteman]

I will have to get this book.

I've read his earlier book Vision of the Anointed which I suppose addresses much the same topic.

But my point remains that you can still believe innate human nature is good and be a conservative or that innate human nature is evil and be a liberal.

What side of the fence you fall on in the nature/nurture argument has far less to do with it than your proposed solutions.

[wardaddy]

indeed...we are over half of what we are by birth

[LomanBill]

>>Or is it the nurture of fundamental Islamic philosophy?

 

Both - when Islam is recognized to be a hierarchically organized selective breeding program.   One desired result evidently being a genome that is no more able to control its obediently aggressive behavior than pit bulls or cockfighting roosters.

 

Human Nature is predictable.   Being predictable makes it exploitable; and religionists are especially adept at that.   Observe how the sheeple of Rwanda, for example, were pacified and corralled in missions by one vestigial arm... to be hacked to death by another.

 

Got Morals and Dogma?

[Diggity]

God and Politics never made good bedfellows. Leave what belongs to God to God and what belongs to Man to Man.

[Ancient Drive]

it’s in the genes. everything is. DNA is a coding language and God is the Supreme Geek.

[Diggity]

Yes, I have always thought that. It’s to humankind’s benefit to treat each other well, to cooperate with each other, to make society better. Those that participated in it had better luck surviving and having the opportunity to pass their genes along.

DNA is the link between the creative, organizing force that permeates creation and its expression in the world.

“As above, as below”.