Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition] Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00GDLY8Q2 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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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.
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.
Books with free ebook downloads available Download Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil [Unabridged] [Audible Audio Edition]
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 6 hours and 41 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Random House Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: November 12, 2013
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00GDLY8Q2
I read Paul Bloom's Descartes' Baby: How The Science Of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human some years ago and found it an intriguing and persuasive read. This book in some ways picks up where that one left off. Descartes' Baby had the thesis that babies are born in some sense 'hardwired' for things like a very basic understanding of physics, like that objects have some sort of physical permanence and that objects that go up will come down. This book, cataloguing a host of intriguing studies, argues that babies are 'hardwired' for certain basic moral sentiments (a basic sense of justice, fairness, etc).
For instance, in some studies, infants and toddlers will 'help' a stranger by pushing a ball back to the stranger or helping a stranger by reaching for an object the stranger seems to want. In other studies, babies are shown a puppet show with two sets of puppets; in one, the puppets help each other, and in the other, one puppet does not help the other. When given a choice, Bloom reports that a statistically significant number of infants and toddlers choose to play with the helping puppet rather than the non-helping puppet.
Bloom's chapters range from exploring infants' and toddlers' sense of justice (little egalitarians, they tend to be), their sense of empathy (they generally prefer to help others, but this desire increases with age), whether their 'moral sentiments' change when dealing with members of their family or those who look like them, their sense of disgust (both moral and physical), etc. But here is where my mild complaint about Bloom's book starts.
Sometimes you get more than you expected. Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil is that kind of book. It is a gold mine of ideas that will exceed your expectations. It is the kind of book that is so rich; you could read it many times and find new gems.
Paul Bloom, is a Professor of Psychology at Yale who has authored six books and numerous articles, and writes in a lively conversational and often amusing and unexpected style. He says things like, `We are smart critters' and `...It might well be that the greatest force underlying moral change in the last thirty years of the United States was the situation comedy.'
From the beginning Paul Bloom proposes that certain moral foundations are not acquired by learning, but are the product of biological evolution. Some experiments found that babies have a general appreciation of good and bad behavior. Researchers have evidence that helping others by older children is motivated by their caring for others.
Bloom presents and discusses dozens of experiments and offers many interesting quotes.
He explores the differences between compassion and empathy. `You can have compassion without empathy and empathy without compassion.' He gives examples. He says compassion is not the same as morality.
He explains the theory of mirror neurons and empathy.
There's a fascinating chapter on `Others'.
Bloom devotes this chapter to a `simple theory of the developmental origin of racism,' and cites studies of babies preferring familiar language and accents, suggesting children's preferences are driven by some degree of cultural identification. He discusses the Coalition Theory and language.
Studies show that babies have an adaptive bias to prefer the familiar.
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