Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil

Picked this book as part of reading list of yale coursera course on morality. The author takes us through various pathways of religion our own prejudices disgust psychology. At end we use reason to justify our already predetermined moral positions.

Paul Bloom is a psychologist who studies moral behavior in infants and young children. Much of the field consists in finding ways to tailor games developed for adults (the prisoner's dilemma, the trust game, the public goods game, the ultimatum and dictator games) for very young children. This research is ingenious and extremely interesting.Bloom argues that humans have an innate moral sense in the same way that we have innate predispositions for many other social behaviors, such as communicating with language, living in families, and cooperating effectively with strangers. The basic material in support of this idea comes from laboratory and field work with human groups (see my edited volume, Moral Sentiments and Material Interests, MIT Press, 2005 for description and bibliography). Bloom argues that even very young children have moral sensibilities, and that these grow with age not only because children are taught to be moral, but also through the maturation of the brain as a child grows into adulthood, and through the use of reason as an adult.Bloom depends on his authoritative knowledge about children to press his message, but in fact after the first two chapters, most of the experimental evidence involves adults, and he insightfully discusses may issues inspired by everyday social observation. I found his social analysis very well written and often insightful. Bloom never simply regurgitates the received wisdom on a topic, but constantly supplies his own interpretation, which is often superior.When I began studying social theory, the accepted wisdom was that we are born purely selfish, with morality being a convenient social veneer that hides are fundamentally sociopathic selves. The only reason people act morally, I learned, is because they are afraid of getting caught acting immorally. Moreover, I learned that every society has is own moral rules, and such rules have no communality across societies. The bulk of research in the past twenty years has shown that both of these notions are incorrect. There is a such thing as human morality, this morality has a common substrate across all societies, and we (sociopaths and other wrong-doers excepted) are predisposed by our nature as human beings to express and affirm these moral principles. Indeed, as Samuel Bowles and I show in our book A Cooperative Species (Princeton 2011), and Edward O. Wilson shows in his The Social Conquest of Earth (Norton, 2012), our success as a species depends integrally on our moral constitution. There is no better place to start in appreciating the psychological side of human morality than Paul Bloom's fine book.

Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil by Paul Bloom was recommended reading for a class on morality that I took a few months ago. The idea of studying babies to see how they react to determine just how much of morality is hardwired in us fascinated me. I read the book with intense interest, particularly the studies. I couldn't help but wonder if the researchers were reading into the babies' reactions to get the results they wanted, at least at times. Bloom writes an interesting and engaging book, but the skeptic in me kept showing up when he described how the studies were conducted. Just Babies is a fascinating read that feels like a starting point and left me with questions rather than answers, but maybe that was the point. Bloom explores many aspects of morality, moral philosophy, and moral psychology in conjunction with the studies conducted on babies. Just Babies struck me as more a book about whether or not babies differentiate between harmfulness and kindness than about the origins of good and evil.

Bloom is an excellent author for one like myself (i.e., a chemical engineer whose closest book to psychological behavior was a required Sociology course in college 40 years ago). I now have at least some basic data/understanding of how babies and people make moral decisions.His biggest failure is to follow the same moral bigotry of his “psychology professor tribe” by taking swipes against religion. If one is going to write a book about natural morals one should at least address the eternal questions that all mankind must address for their moral foundations: 1) What is my purpose? 2) What happens after death? 3) How can I be safe?, but he fails to even realize these eternal questions that haunt mankind. The god of evolution has no answers to these questions and evolution offered no answers to almost half of the reasons for the actual moral decisions studied in Bloom’s “Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil”. Bloom – there is an elephant in your room!

An age old question that becomes more relevant in today's exploration of ethical absolutes. Paul Bloom looks at the roots of good and evil, racism, altruism, family attachment, religion, societal mores and more. Through the use of social science, experimentation and observation, Bloom's well written and easy to read book will get you thinking about issues such as structural racism, historical behaviors and sub or unconscious actions. An intriguing read.

It was almost breathtaking. Such a good message for all parents to be, n all parents.

The fascinating research into the thought processes and impulses of babies and children has provided Bloom with excellent insights and tools for exploring ethics and morality. He presents a broad and balanced argument for using both philosophical and psychological techniques to learn why humans behave as we do and how we could behave better.

Really like this book

This book sheds important light on the development of human morality. While some research shows that babies are born with an innate sense of equality and fairness, the author shows that itself is insufficient for a robust understanding of right and wrong. Text would have benefitted by specific citations of the laboratory experiments referenced.

Ao invés de repetir chavões sobre a natureza humana, seria interessante se os nossos "entendidos" adquirissem o hábito de ler e descobrissem as últimas pesquisas a respeito. Esse é um dos livros obrigatórios para começar a entender a questão e sair do achismo, junto com "Tábula Rasa" de Stephen Pinker e "Without Conscience" do dr. Hare.

This book arrived speedily but was obviously a print reject, 3 pages had foldings where the paper was not properly cut to size and the book was jammed into a much too small a packaging and show some damage on the top. I need it, so I am keeping it but this is not how it should work!