Babies Have Morals

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

Babies lack a belief in god. They are atheists.

[/quote]

Concede raj. Kamui was dead on. You’re trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Edit: And by the way? How do you know they lack a belief in a ‘god’ or ‘gods?’ How do you know they don’t see their mother and father as nearly all powerful beings? Or ‘quackers’ the stuffed duck, who sometimes seems to grant wishes?
[/quote]

Because the god concept is too complex for the mind of a baby[/quote]

Then so is, “There is no such thing as supernatural beings such as a god or gods.”

or,

“There is not enough evidence for me to believe in supernatural beings.”

And for all you know, everything is supernatural and magical to a baby…As Kamui said, animist-like.
[/quote]

No explicit statement is needed just an absence of belief.

Your example on page 1 fits.

Babies are also atheists when it comes to computers.

42

The CBS article also suggests that inherently we’re likely to even harm ourselves a bit as long as we get relatively more than others. So, instead of me and him getting 9 tokens, I’d rather take a deal where I get 7 tokens to his 0.

43

And so did Nate and 87 percent of the other babies tested. From this Wynn concludes that infants prefer those “who harm… others” who are unlike them.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57551557/babies-help-unlock-the-origins-of-morality/?pageNum=3

Is that part of the ‘atheistic’ morality you’re trying to show here?

44

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

Because the god concept is too complex for the mind of a baby[/quote]

I would say the concept of walking is more complex than god, and they do just fine with that.

The concept of a god is simple, the concept of God may be a bit more complex, but still very basic. [/quote]

I disagree. Even a pea brained animal can walk. Understand the concept of god? Not so k[/quote]

You are confusing god with God here. The concept of god is very simple and requires very little “advanced” development from humans, as the course of human history shows.

And you’ve also not spent much time watching a child learn to walk either. This is obvious.

45

[quote]therajraj wrote:<<< Because the god concept is too complex for the mind of a baby[/quote]Not if you have the right God

46

I understand what you’re hoping to get at–but it falls apart once you fail to recognize EVERYTHING that is suggested by these studies, the ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ And more importantly, if you attempt to teach and shape an individual contrary to ‘biological morality.’ To do so screams of a lack of confidence in biology being the authoritative judge on what is right and wrong.

47

Five month old babies have already been conditioned to expect a world full of CO-OPERATION. Especially, with regards attending to their every whim & whimper.

For a baby to witness something which clearly goes against this model, it would seem obvious that they’d be at least be a bit bit iffy about it.

48

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

Because the god concept is too complex for the mind of a baby[/quote]

I would say the concept of walking is more complex than god, and they do just fine with that.

The concept of a god is simple, the concept of God may be a bit more complex, but still very basic. [/quote]

I disagree. Even a pea brained animal can walk. Understand the concept of god? Not so k[/quote]

You are confusing god with God here. The concept of god is very simple and requires very little “advanced” development from humans, as the course of human history shows.

And you’ve also not spent much time watching a child learn to walk either. This is obvious.[/quote]

Yep. The inability to grasp high-theological concepts vs. a being that can ‘just’ make lightning appear. Or, a being (adult) that can seemingly make light in a room spontaneously appear. Kamui is probably closest, if we’re going to really sit here and try to approximate the theological/philosophical mindset of an infant…

49

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]therajraj wrote:

Because the god concept is too complex for the mind of a baby[/quote]

I would say the concept of walking is more complex than god, and they do just fine with that.

The concept of a god is simple, the concept of God may be a bit more complex, but still very basic. [/quote]

I disagree. Even a pea brained animal can walk. Understand the concept of god? Not so k[/quote]

You are confusing god with God here. The concept of god is very simple and requires very little “advanced” development from humans, as the course of human history shows.

And you’ve also not spent much time watching a child learn to walk either. This is obvious.[/quote]

We are talking babies who have no development. I agree a 5 year can conceptualize god.

I don’t think the concept of god in any form is simple at all for a baby

50

Wesley watches as the puppet in the center struggles to open up a box with a toy inside. The puppy in the yellow shirt comes over and lends a hand. Then the scene repeats itself, but this time the puppy in the blue shirt comes and slams the box shut. Nice behavior…mean behavior…at least to our eyes. But is that how a 5-month-old sees it, and does he have a preference?

Annie: Wesley, do you remember these guys from the show?

To find out, a researcher who doesn’t know which puppet was nice and which was mean, offers Wesley a choice.

Annie: Who do you like?

He can’t answer, but he can reach… (reaches for nice puppet)

Annie: That one?

Wesley chose the good guy and he wasn’t alone.
…

I have a problem with this one, and with the attempt to draw conclusions from it.

First, how in the world do we know the baby chose the ‘good guy’ simply for the sake of it being the ‘good guy?’ Or, out of concern for the puppet with the box? How do we know the baby didn’t choose it simply because the baby wanted to see the toy in the box? Or, because the baby doesn’t want its stuff messed with by the ‘bad guy,’ giving not one iota of concern for the puppet that had the box in the first place.

Furthermore, you can’t even draw the conclusion that the baby wouldn’t still choose the ‘good guy’ puppet if somehow the baby is made to understand that while the ‘good guy’ will never mess with his stuff, he will still mess with other peoples’ stuff. What if the experiment had the ‘bad guy’ taking the box and the toy away from the puppet, AND bringing them to and for the baby? Would the ‘bad guy’ now be chosen?

edit: for readability.

51

[quote]therajraj wrote:

We are talking babies who have no development.[/quote]

When you actually spend time raising a child you will look back on this statement and laugh. A newborn will turn its head towards the voice of its mother or father. They very much understand what “no” means and use it just a few short weeks later. (EDIT: the newborn doesn’t understand no, but in a couple short weeks the child does.)

The idea of a god, the notion of something more powerful than yourself, the awareness that something other than themselves caused the change in their environment doesn’t escape them. And going back to Sloth’s point, this is why they very well may see their parents as a god.

No they likely don’t know God.

Your bias is clouding your logic.

52

[quote]therajraj wrote:

I don’t think the concept of god in any form is simple at all for a baby
[/quote]

Neither is the concept of parents being same-like material beings who age and die, making light suddenly come on in the room due to technological victories underpinned by laws and theories of Chemistry and Physics.

53

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Wesley watches as the puppet in the center struggles to open up a box with a toy inside. The puppy in the yellow shirt comes over and lends a hand. Then the scene repeats itself, but this time the puppy in the blue shirt comes and slams the box shut. Nice behavior…mean behavior…at least to our eyes. But is that how a 5-month-old sees it, and does he have a preference?

Annie: Wesley, do you remember these guys from the show?

To find out, a researcher who doesn’t know which puppet was nice and which was mean, offers Wesley a choice.

Annie: Who do you like?

He can’t answer, but he can reach… (reaches for nice puppet)

Annie: That one?

Wesley chose the good guy and he wasn’t alone.
…

I have a problem with this one, and with the attempt to draw conclusions from it.

First, how in the world do we know the baby chose the ‘good guy’ simply for the sake of it being the ‘good guy?’ Or, out of concern for the puppet with the box? How do we know the baby didn’t choose it simply because the baby wanted to see the toy in the box? Or, because the baby doesn’t want its stuff messed with by the ‘bad guy,’ giving not one iota of concern for the puppet that had the box in the first place. Heck, you can’t even draw the conclusion that the baby wouldn’t still choose the ‘good guy’ puppet if somehow the baby is made to understand that while the ‘good guy’ will never mess with his stuff, he will still mess with other peoples’ stuff. What if the experiment had the ‘bad guy’ taking the box and the toy away from the puppet, AND bringing them to and for the baby? Would the ‘bad guy’ now be chosen? [/quote]You have saved me some time. Absolutely nothing that speaks to the why of the consistent choice can be inferred without being viewed from an already adult standpoint that pre-assumes a whole list of utterly unproven moral axioms. Maybe the helpful puppet is actually evil because being helpful is evil and we just assume it’s good because that’s what we like. Sorta, sometimes, under the right circumstances that is.

All something like this does is provide a different platform for adults to declare THEIR moral presuppositions under the guise of a scientific exercise. All we know is what the adults THINK these kids are thinking which tells us about the adults and not the kids.

54

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

All something like this does is provide a different platform for adults to declare THEIR moral presuppositions under the guise of a scientific exercise. All we know is what the adults THINK these kids are thinking which tells us about the adults and not the kids.
[/quote]

I will go as far as to say it doesn’t even matter anyway, because by the time these kids are old enough to effect change on the world beyond parents & family, they will be able to rationalize any choice they make anyhow as justified, good, bad, what have you.

It is rather pointless to worry about what a baby’s moral stance may or may not be, if as an adult they can be lead by evil men and evil ideas to do evil things… What they thought as a baby isn’t relevant anymore.

55

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

All something like this does is provide a different platform for adults to declare THEIR moral presuppositions under the guise of a scientific exercise. All we know is what the adults THINK these kids are thinking which tells us about the adults and not the kids.
[/quote]

I will go as far as to say it doesn’t even matter anyway, because by the time these kids are old enough to effect change on the world beyond parents & family, they will be able to rationalize any choice they make anyhow as justified, good, bad, what have you.

It is rather pointless to worry about what a baby’s moral stance may or may not be, if as an adult they can be lead by evil men and evil ideas to do evil things… What they thought as a baby isn’t relevant anymore.[/quote]

For instance, does a baby have a sex drive? A sexually mature human does. So, a woman has a baby. The man decides he wasn’t ready to be a father after all. Skips out, maybe sends a check every once in a while.

Does a racist point to the baby studies and get to say, “see we’re inherently supposed to be like this!” Or do we say no, biology must be over ridden for some ‘virtue.’

56

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
All something like this does is provide a different platform for adults to declare THEIR moral presuppositions under the guise of a scientific exercise. All we know is what the adults THINK these kids are thinking which tells us about the adults and not the kids.[/quote]

This is an incredibly reasoned statement and was just going to post something similar.

And they didn’t use newborns in any of these cases from what I read. The youngest that I saw was 8 months but they’ve had time to experience the world by then and they are certainly influenced by those interactions. So of course they are going to have some sort of moral compass, we’ve given it to them.

james

57

[quote]Sloth wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

All something like this does is provide a different platform for adults to declare THEIR moral presuppositions under the guise of a scientific exercise. All we know is what the adults THINK these kids are thinking which tells us about the adults and not the kids.
[/quote]

I will go as far as to say it doesn’t even matter anyway, because by the time these kids are old enough to effect change on the world beyond parents & family, they will be able to rationalize any choice they make anyhow as justified, good, bad, what have you.

It is rather pointless to worry about what a baby’s moral stance may or may not be, if as an adult they can be lead by evil men and evil ideas to do evil things… What they thought as a baby isn’t relevant anymore.[/quote]

For instance, does a baby have a sex drive? A sexually mature human does. So, a woman has a baby. The man decides he wasn’t ready to be a father after all. Skips out, maybe sends a check every once in a while.

Does a racist point to the baby studies and get to say, “see we’re inherently supposed to be like this!” Or do we say no, biology must be over ridden for some ‘virtue.’[/quote]

Funny on the race issues. My wife’s friend’s baby (less than a year) was taken back by us, and weary of us. We were the first white people she had been around outside of a store.

It was certianly a “holy crap these big people are different” and not at all “I hate these different people”.

It was funny and happens. The difference being the child gets over the skin color in about 35 seconds to 2 mins. An adult never does in some cases.

58

[quote]therajraj wrote:
Or maybe we evolved to favour certain decisions over others?

We see it in other aspects with respect to evolutionary psychology so why not in terms of morality?[/quote]

Evolution cannot make things moral or immoral. Perhaps it can provide the ability to perceive it, but cannot make things what they are.

59

[quote]therajraj wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:
altruistic behavior and morality are two different things.

if babies have morals then ants are soviet agents.

And btw, babies are not “atheists”. They are simply not religious.
And their first quasi-religious ideas are usually “animist”.

[/quote]

Nope babies are atheists.

They don’t have a belief in god. Criteria met[/quote]

This obviously isn’t a thread about morality in babies. It’s clearly an attempt to try an show God does not exist because babies have shown the capacity for morality without external influence. This argument is a fail from the get go. Having an innate capability for understanding morality is hardly a surprise. If anything, it’s quite Biblical. St. Paul said basically the same thing two millenia ago.

It doesn’t deal with the problem of causeless existence.

60

[quote]Apparently so. But if babies have positive feelings for the similar puppet, do they actually have negative feelings for the one who’s different? To find out, Wynn showed babies the grey cat – the one who liked the opposite food, struggling to open up the box to get a toy. Will Gregory here want to see the graham cracker eater treated well? Or does he want him treated badly?

[Annie: Which one do you like? That one.]

Gregory seemed to want the different puppet treated badly.

Lesley Stahl: That is amazing. So he went with his bias in a way.

And so did Nate and 87 percent of the other babies tested. From this Wynn concludes that infants prefer those “who harm… others” who are unlike them.

Paul Bloom: What could be more arbitrary than whether you like graham crackers or Cheerios?

Lesley Stahl: Nothing.

Paul Bloom: Nothing. But it matters. It matters to the young baby. We are predisposed to break the world up into different human groups based on the most subtle and seemingly irrelevant cues, and that, to some extent, is the dark side of morality.

Lesley Stahl: We want the other to be punished?

Karen Wynn: In our studies, babies seem as if they do want the other to be punished.

Lesley Stahl: We used to think that we’re taught to hate. I think there was a song like that. This is suggesting that we’re not taught to hate, we’re born to hate.

Karen Wynn: I think, we are built to, you know, at the drop of a hat, create us and them.

Paul Bloom: And that’s why we’re not that moral. We have an initial moral sense that is in some ways very impressive, and in some ways, really depressing – that we see some of the worst biases in adults reflected in the minds and in the behaviors of young babies.[/quote]
…

Well, this part deals with bias. Apparently not only do babies prefer those like them…they want others unlike them PUNISHED/HARMED…

And that’s over something as trivial as choice of snack!

Is the racist excused?

How about the bully who picks on the glasses-wearing ‘buck-toothed’ kid.

How about the gay-basher?

Note the implied moral value-judgement in the comments following the above.

[quote]Paul Bloom: And that’s why we’re not that moral. We have an initial moral sense that is in some ways very impressive, and in some ways, really depressing – that we see some of the worst biases in adults reflected in the minds and in the behaviors of young babies.

But Bloom says understanding our earliest instincts can help…

Paul Bloom: If you want to eradicate racism, for instance, you really are going to want to know to what extent are babies little bigots, to what extent is racism a natural part of humanity.

Lesley Stahl: Sounds to me like the experiment show they are little bigots.

Paul Bloom: I think to some extent, a bias to favor the self, where the self could be people who look like me, people who act like me, people who have the same taste as me, is a very strong human bias. It’s what one would expect from a creature like us who evolved from natural selection, but it has terrible consequences.

He says it makes sense that evolution would predispose us to be wary of “the other” for survival, so we need society and parental nurturing to intervene.[/quote]

So, babies. ‘Atheistic’ moral guiding lights, a demonstration of ‘morality’ authoritatively defined by biology. Or, not.