Editor’s note: Paul Bloom, the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen professor of psychology at Yale University is the author of the new book, “Just Babies” and his work will be featured on “Anderson Cooper360˚” Wednesday through Friday at 8 p.m. ET on CNN. Follow him on Twitter.
(CNN) — As someone who studies the morality of babies, I am sometimes asked “Are we naturally good or naturally evil?” My answer is yes.
Most adults have a sense of right and wrong. With the intriguing exception of some psychopaths, people are appalled by acts of cruelty, such as the rape of a child, and uplifted by acts of kindness, such as those heroes who jump onto subways tracks to rescue fallen strangers from oncoming trains.
There is a universal urge to help those in need and to punish wrongdoers and there are universal emotional responses that revolve around morality—anger when we are wronged, pride when we do the right thing and guilt when we transgress.
In “Just Babies,” I argue that much of this is the product of biological evolution. Humans are born with a hard-wired morality, a sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. I know this claim might sound outlandish, but it’s supported now by research in several laboratories. Babies and toddlers can judge the goodness and badness of others’ actions; they want to reward the good and punish the bad; they act to help those in distress; they feel compassion, guilt and righteous anger.
In my own research at Yale, done in collaboration with my colleague (and wife), Karen Wynn, we show babies one-act plays—puppets shows in which one puppet acts kindly toward a character (helping it up a hill, or opening a box for it, or passing it a ball) and the other puppet acts in a cruel way (pushing it down a hill, or slamming the box shut, or stealing the ball).
Categories: Americas