Gender: Male Location: Drifting off around the bend
Morality -
A capacity to
1) distinguish right from wrong
2) act on this distinction, and
3) experience pride in virtuous conduct and guilt or shame over acts that violate one's standards
Supported psychoanalytic thoughts. Current theories state that conscience may begin in toddlers if they have warm and responsive parents. This occurs through committed compliance. Where a child will has high motivation to comply with the parent's wishes, is sensitive to whether the parent gives some body language type signal that they have done right or wrong, and internalize those reactions as pride, shame, guilt to help them evaluate and control their own behavior.
Cognitive-Developmental theories state that morality is learned. Initially a child follows no rules. Eventually rules are absolute as a child comes into contact with rules set up by authorities (parents, police, etc.) Finally, children learn that rules are flexible depending on the situation. Kohlberg expanded on this, but the theory follows a similar course that is more complex. Learning Theory says morality is learned by contact with the consequences of actions.
Morality has been shown a number of times to be controlled by the upbringing of a child. Poor upbringing results in a poor level of moral maturity. Good upbringing results in a good level of moral maturity.
Psychology today does believe that experience and learning plays the major role in morality and conscience development. It is a fact. There is little support there for the idea that they are inborn into a person. There may be something there, but without the proper raising there is no reason to believe that such a child would grow to have a conscience or a moral structure as we view morality.
Issues with children having grown in the wild. During one of my psychology courses we discussed Victor of Aveyron, the professor was a developmental psychologist of fairly strong reputation, he mentioned that the documentation is fairly decent and that it is probable that Victor really did exist.
Also someone mentioned the girl being raised in a solitary cell. Her father was the only one to enter the room, and only to give her food, she was bound to a chair. He only grunted and gestured at her, no language was presented to her. She was unable to learn language at a decent level after she was discovered. I am unable to remember the exact references for this, but she does exist. I do not recall any studies with her outside of language. They did not want her to be just a subject to be poked and prodded.
Yes, people learn by error and consequences.......In society when a person is shunned because of unacceptable behavior, then have 2 choices......leave or change....Or stay shunned.....It is cognitive...........I don't believe people are born with morals......It's learned.
Last edited by debbiejo on Jun 6th, 2006 at 11:40 AM
This appears to be wrenching off-topic too much. Whilst the idea of whether morals are in-built or acquired may get a mention in a thread asking about how atheists can have morals, it shouldn't become the main point of discussion- that would warrant a thread of its own.
Let's try and bring this back to the atheists please.
__________________
"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
Gender: Male Location: Drifting off around the bend
I will respond to this because I believe citation to be important, and then if someone starts a thread as Ushgarak suggested PM me and I may join that discussion. I will respect the Moderator though, and not post off topic material following this post.
I will add the citations that I feel are pertinent. If you need more I can look up some.
Quinn, R.A., Houts, A.C., & Graesser, A.C. (1994). Naturalistic conceptions of morality: A question-answering approach. Journal of Personality, 62, 260-267.
Shaffer, D.R. (1994). Do naturalistic conceptions of morality provide any [novel] answers? Journal of Personality, 62, 263-268.
Emde, R.N., Biringer, Z., Clyman, R.B., & Oppenheim, D. (1991). The moral self of infancy: Affective core and procedural knowledge. Developmental Review, 11, 251-270.
Kochanska, G. (1997). Mutuallyresponsive orientation between mothers and their young children: Implications for early socialization. CHild Development, 68, 94-112.
Kochanska's article in Developmental Psychology from the same year is also an interesting read.
Labile, D.J., & Thompson, R.A. (2000). Mother-child discourse, attachment security,shared positive affect, and early conscience development. Child Development, 71, 1424-1440.
Piaget, J. (1926). The language and thought of the child. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Piaget, J. (1950). The psychology of intelligerice. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Piaget, J. (1951). Play dreams, and imitation in childhood. New York: Norton.
Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in chil_dren. New York: International Universities Press.
Piaget, J. (1954). The construction of reality in the child. New York: Basic Books.
Piaget, J. (1960). Psychology of intelligence. Paterson, NJ: Littlefield, Adams.
Piaget, J. (1965). The moral judgment of the child. New York: Free Press. (Original work pub_lished 1932.)
Piaget, J. (1970a, May). A conversation with Jean Piaget. Psychology Today pp.25-32.
Piaget, J. (1970b). Piaget's theory. In P H. Mussen (Ed.), Carmichael's manual of child psy_chology (Vol.1). New York: Wiley.
Piaget, J. (1971). Science of education and the psy_chology of the child. New York: Viking Press.
Piaget, J. (1972). Intellectual evolution from adolescence to adulthood. Human Development; 15, 1-12.
Piaget, J. (1976). To understand is to invent: The future of education. New York: Penguin.
Piaget J. (1977). The role of action in the devel_opment of thinking. In W. F. Overton & J. M. Gallagher (Eds.), Knowledge and development (Vol.1). New York: Plenum.
Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1969). The psychology of the child. New York: Basic Books.
If you would like Kohlberg's stuff let me know, but it is mainly just evolving to a better model of moral development, and does not really add to the idea that morality and conscience are somehow "built-in".
As for learning theory, we just believe that everything is as my sig states. There is no need for further reference into behavioral work. Behavior says everything is due to the consequences of prior behavior, with very few, if any, genetic predispositions built into humans. Morality is one that would not be "built-in" in the majority of behavior analyst's opinions.
Hoffman, M.L. (1970). Moral development. In P.H. Mussen (Ed.) Carmichael's manual of child psychology (Vol. 2). New York: Wiley.
This is my statement based on my education and the above information.
I am sorry, I can't remember the name of the girl, if I could I would have an easy time getting the references for her. I will try to remember her name, if I come up with the references I will get them to you. As for Victor, we never went into the references, and I am unsure as to where to find them, I would suggest looking him up by name and going from there.
I beleive Morality to be both subjective and intuitive.
Yes, like Debbiejo said much of our morality is LEARNED...either by religion, and even in the case of Athiesm you learn from your influences (freinds, peers, etc) until you finally come up with a morality of your own.
However, I also beleive that there are certain aspects of morality that are innate, and not learned. I think there is a common morality that more than one person can share, without understanding why they think this way.
For example: I beleive that it is UNDENIABLY IMMORAL to torture another person for your own pleasure. I am not talking S&M, because the "victim" enjoys the torture, therefore it is not torture. I am talking about a crime....where one person inflicts unbearable pain onto his or her unwilling victim.
Was I taught to think this? No...this is just how I feel about it. No one ever taught me that this was evil, this is something I always felt was wrong, regardless of anyone's input, and the decision NEVER changed nor will it EVER change. Sorry. AND not to mention that there are TONS of people who feel the same exact way about the issue. WHY?
I think as humans we are social beings, and it is a natural desire to enjoy each other's company and work together to ensure our survival and pleasure. When a person harms another person, it is usually motivated by self survival. However, when a person harms another person for no other reason than pleasure....i feel that is abnormal, dangerous, and most likely an act of insanity. And I am one of many people who think this way.
Gender: Unspecified Location: Lost in a Roman Wilderness of Pain
Because it learns that... They learn to love, I'm not saying animals are incapable of loving but it's not something... genetic. If a dog is born and it is kept in isolation with no contact with animals or humans until he's 3 years old and then you take him out of isolation and the dog sees a little kid crying, do you seriously believe it'll automatically feel compasion for him and go lick his face? No. It's illogical.
__________________ "Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity." — Thor Heyerdahl
that is true. atleast partially in the mind of the individual. but lets not forget that no matter what their COMPREHENSION, the outcome of THEIR MORALITY is most definately destructive and hurtful to anuy human who has recieved the nurturing and instinctual common sense that humans are meant to atleast genetically have. that in my mind is what makes it WRONG. its not all reletive because for a simpal fact that human beings do NOT like being treated badly, be hurt physically, be raped murdered etc. now as far as the problem of GENETIC morality as sum1 mentioned it before goes. i say that the fealing of love, caing etc are only genetically present in family's and sumtimes in lovers, other than that any normal MORALITY eg, perverted sexual behavious invasion of privacy, socially unacceptable behavious etc is NOT part of any higher or genetic/mysicaly or INHERITED morality.
Gender: Male Location: Drifting off around the bend
Somewhere there is someone that thinks that another's morality is immoral from their point of view, same goes for Christians, Atheists, Altruists, Feminists, Misogynists, Sadomasochists, Satanists, Racists, Polygamists, Monogamists, Humanists, etc., etc... Somebody somewhere thinks you and I are immoral, keep them happy and maintain their beliefs
Ushgarak....that's what you don't get. There are people like Adam Poe who are argue that morals do not exist. Therefore if we simply accept his argument as to avoid a change in subject, then it may derail the debate in another direction.
If we are talking about Athiest Morality then I beleive we have to be under the common assumption that morality DOES exist. Whether or not it is independent of religion is a whole other story.
That's basically all I was trying to get across, I didn't mean to get off topic.
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Jun 6th, 2006 05:51 AM
