A leading cognitive scientist argues that a deep sense of Good and Evil is bred in the bone.
Vivid, witty, and intellectually probing, "
Just Babies "offers a radical new perspective on our moral lives..
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.
Ultimately, it is through our imagination, our compassion, and our uniquely human capacity for rational thought that we can transcend the primitive sense of morality we were born with, becoming more than Just babies.
Just as reason has driven our great scientific discoveries, he argues, it is reason and deliberation that makes possible our moral discoveries, such as the wrongness of slavery.
In his analysis of the morality of children and adults, Bloom rejects the fashionable view that our moral decisions are driven mainly by gut feelings and unconscious biases.
Along the way, he examines the morality of chimpanzees, violent psychopaths, religious extremists, and Ivy League professors, and explores our often puzzling moral feelings about sex, politics, religion, and race.
Bringing together insights from psychology, behavioral economics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy, Bloom explores how we have come to surpass these limitations.
We are naturally hostile to strangers, prone to parochialism and bigotry.
Still, this innate morality is limited, sometimes tragically.
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.
In "
Just Babies,"
Paul Bloom argues that humans are in fact hardwired with a sense of morality.
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 sociopathsinto civilized beings.
From John Locke to Sigmund Freud, philosophers and psychologists have long believed that we begin life as blank moral slates.
A leading cognitive scientist argues that a deep sense of Good and Evil is bred in the bone
