Every normal person has a sense of right and wrong, some appreciation of justice and fairness, some gut feelings that are triggered by kindness and cruelty. There have been the usual sorts of behavioral genetics studies-adopted children, twins separated at birth, that sort of thing-that find evidence for heritability in capacities such as empathy, which is plainly related to morality.īut I think the strongest evidence that morality has a genetic component has little to do with human differences, and everything to do with human universals. What is the strongest proof that morality has a genetic component, that two people may have differing moral views because of their genes? This finding hints that moral judgment might have very early developmental origins. But we have found that even 3-month-olds respond differently to a character who helps another than to a character who hinders another person. The sort of research that I’ve been involved with personally, looking at the origins of moral judgment, is difficult to do with very young babies. Once they’re capable of coordinated movement, babies will often try to soothe others who are suffering, by patting and stroking. The earliest signs are the glimmerings of empathy and compassion-pain at the pain of others, which you can see pretty soon after birth. What are the first signs of morality in babies?

Bloom answered questions recently from Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook. It is from these beginnings, he argues in his new book Just Babies, that adults develop their sense of right and wrong, their desire to do good - and, at times, their capacity to do terrible things. At birth, babies are endowed with compassion, with empathy, with the beginnings of a sense of fairness. Morality is not just something that people learn, argues Yale psychologist Paul Bloom: It is something we are all born with.

Paul bloom empathy