Fascinating research on babies' moral life!!

Morals change too.
Not long ago it was perfectly all right to smack a child over the fingers or the rear end. But it was wrong to withdraw love, cheat or tell a lie.
Now it is morally wrong to smack a child but one does not talk much about the wrong in withdraw love or come with nasty remarks to a child or being sarcastic, something children don´t understand. A smack hurts for a moment, nasty remarks for a looooong time.

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@saab,

There are a couple of moral constants. The biggest one is punishment for deviance.

Children are naturally aggressive to other kids who don't fit in. This is clear from an early age even from kids whose parents try to counter it. And, it is clear there is evolutionary advantage to this for social animals such as humans, it creates a closer community that can protect each other while fighting with outsiders for scarce resources.

Of course most every society has punished deviants; this moral principle validates racism and homophobia.

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@saab,

saab wrote:

Morals change too.
Not long ago it was perfectly all right to smack a child over the fingers or the rear end. But it was wrong to withdraw love, cheat or tell a lie.
Now it is morally wrong to smack a child but one does not talk much about the wrong in withdraw love or come with nasty remarks to a child or being sarcastic, something children don´t understand. A smack hurts for a moment, nasty remarks for a looooong time.

Huh?

Nasty remarks are certainly considered wrong where I am.

1 Reply

@ebrown p,

ebrown p wrote:

The experiment I would like to try is to raise a group of humans with no cultural biases or preconceptions (other then what they have themselves).

They experimented with babies as young as three months. How much cultural bias would you expect in them?

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Quote:

They experimented with babies as young as three months. How much cultural bias would you expect in them?

About three months worth.

Actually it would be pretty interesting to see if kids whose parents were from different cultures would have different results.

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

My daughter had a speaking vocabulary of 500 words by the time she was 1. I wrote down each word she said. She taught herself to read at 3.

My kids were saying distinct words at 6 or 7 months. The could produce 4 word sentences between 13 and 15 months.

While they were precocious, babies understand many words before their first birthday. They understand no and yes and many words involving food and eating as well as words for personal care.

That blows my mind: 500 words by age 1. That shows how little I know of babies.
When my ex-girlfriend, Marilyn, was living here with her 4 year old daughter,
I had quite a lot of trouble figuring out what she was saying.

David

1 Reply

@dlowan,

In some countries it is even against the law to smack children, but when you read an article about childrearing which mentions the horror of smacking it is seldom that it is mentioned that withdrawing of love or as I said nasty remarks are/can be even worse.

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@OmSigDAVID,

The ability to speak various from child to child.
A normal 1 year old can only speak in one word sentences. "Mamma" In this case you look at your child and see point at the banana.
A 2 year old in two word sentences "Mamma, banana"
A 3 year old in three word sentences "Mamma, want banana"
A 4 year old in four word sentences "Mamma, I want a banana"

They still can understand more than they can say, but still it is limited to their little world.

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Sorry people...I have been too busy to respond properly.

Try tomorrow.

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I've recently been debating the morality and character of infants with a friend of mine.

This piece will make a wonderful contribution to our talk.
K
O

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@Diest TKO,

I recommend "The Scientist in the Crib" too. (Allison Gopnik. Fascinating.)

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@Diest TKO,

Cool!!!!

1 Reply

@dlowan,

Yes it is cool. The debate is actually over the (potential) relationship between man and god. He argues that man has no more right to question (his) god because man is like an infant, and god is like an adult. He says that infants are inherently greedy. I disagreed no both parts. I said children only demonstrate selfishness and greed when they are taught it, and that no matter how loud a baby cries, you still must care for it.

A
R
This will make a wonderful addition to the discussion.

1 Reply

@failures art,

......not "wonderful" for most, merely inevitable for some. Smile

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Really interesting topic. Reminds me of a video I have somewhere of the Ducklet when she was about 11 months old. In one, she responds to a perceived injustice but shutting her older cousin a box. In another, well, I'll just have to go find it. I know babies will react to having things taken from them and that's not an indication of morality, but her reaction was so calculated that it struck me. She didn't cry, she didn't look to me to help, she just looked at her cousin and reached up and shut the lid on her head. (Ok, maybe I should be afraid.)

Anyway, off to see if I can read the whole article.

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@FreeDuck,

Hi Ducky...I have been so busy this week I have neglected this thread.

Lovely to see you.

1 Reply

@dlowan,

this also means babies see violence as a legit punishment.

thoughts? hehe.

1 Reply

@ghostinthemachine702,

ghostinthemachine702 wrote:

this also means babies see violence as a legit punishment.

thoughts? hehe.

Yes they do.

Hopefully they grow up to learn better...just as they learn not to piss and **** themselves and they learn to speak and all.

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Fascinating research on babies' moral life!!

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