Lecture Notes: Are Human Beings Inherently Good?

Key Questions Discussed

• Are humans inherently good?
• Do we have an innate sense of morality, or are we born as blank slates?
• Are we selfish beings requiring societal guidance to behave morally?

The Baby Lab

• The baby lab explores the moral understanding of infants.
• Babies can't express complex thoughts but may have their own moral philosophies.
• Historically, babies were viewed as ignorant (e.g., Rousseau's "perfect idiots").
• New research challenges these views, showing babies engage with moral concepts.

Experiments in the Baby Lab

Puppet Show Experiment

• Subjects: 5-month-old infants (e.g., Wesley).
• Setup: Puppets demonstrate good (helpful puppy) and bad (mean puppy) behaviors.
• Findings:
  • Babies showed a preference for the helpful puppet.
  • 75% of tested infants chose the nice character.

Younger Babies' Preferences

• Subjects: 3-month-old infants (e.g., Daisy).
• Observation: Babies looked longer at the nice puppet than the mean one.
• Indicates early preferences for helpfulness over antisocial behavior.

More Complex Morality Tests

• Infants demonstrated a basic sense of justice:
  • When shown a puppet stealing, they preferred the helper over the thief.
  • 81% of babies thought the thief deserved punishment.

Psychological Insights

• Paul Bloom argues that babies exhibit sophisticated moral understanding.
• Suggests morality may be innate rather than solely learned through experience.
• Challenges the views of behaviorists like BF Skinner, who believed morality is conditioned.

Understanding Bias in Babies

• New studies explore bias emerging from trivial differences (e.g., snack preferences).
• Experiment with babies choosing between snacks showed preferences for similar puppets.
• This indicates a predisposition to categorize 'us' vs. 'them' based on minor similarities.

Implications of Findings

Nature of Morality

• Babies may inherit foundational moral values:
  • Feel positively towards helpful individuals.
  • Dislike antisocial behavior, showing early signs of moral judgment.
• However, they also demonstrate biases that can lead to negative behaviors (e.g., prejudice).

Evolutionary Perspective

• Evolution may have predisposed humans to be wary of those different from themselves.
• Highlights the dual potential for altruism and selfishness in human nature.

Development of Moral Understanding in Children

• Experiments with older children showed:
  • Younger kids often prioritize winning over fairness.
  • As children age, they increasingly value fairness and generosity.
• Indicates that socialization and education can help temper innate biases toward selfishness.

Conclusion

• Human beings possess both altruistic and selfish tendencies from infancy.
• Understanding early moral instincts can inform approaches to societal issues like racism.
• The complexity of morality starts from a very young age, surpassing previous assumptions about babies.