Moral values Born or taught?
This question goes back to a topic that I kind of focused about in my blogs Nature versus Nurture? So the question this time is are we born with moral values or are they taught to us?
For a while people thought that babies have no idea what’s good and what’s bad, and only society influences how this baby grows up. However, people are starting to think that there is a genetic link to our moral values.
At Yale University researchers are trying to prove that babies are born with having the main concept of what’s right and what’s wrong. Dr. Karen Wynn is the researcher who’s running the Yale’s team and are focusing on the puppets test.The puppets test shows that most babies tend to pick the good character rather than the bad one most of the time
That’s why psychopathy is related to genes somehow. While genes play a big role in the development of psychopathy the environment factor plays as big of role as genes.
That’s why it’s very important for kids to grow up in a normal society that helps them further there understanding of the moral clause.
Some kids grow up in a society that didn’t teach them the moral values that they should have developed at there age, but they’re very moral. On the other hand, some kids grow in a family that teaches them moral values, yet they turn out to be psychopaths. This suggests a genetic link.
This reminds me of the smoking causing lung cancer theory. Some people smoke everyday of there lives, yet don’t have lung cancer. While others never smoked a day of their life, but have lung cancer.
After a lot of research, I cam to the conclusion that a combination of genetics and environmental factors teaches kids moral values.
Works Cited
Smith, Emily Esfahani. “As Babies, We Knew Morality.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 18 Nov. 2013. Web. 19 Sept. 2014.
Chu, Susan. “Are We Born with a Moral Core? The Baby Lab Says ‘yes'” CNN. Cable News Network, 14 Feb. 2014. Web. 19 Sept. 2014.
Wow, I am suprised that moral values and genetic have link. I have to agree that if a baby borns with moral values, also the parents and the society role is to reinforce those values and make the baby learn more about what is bad and wrong. For example, I hate to be late, wherever I go I have to be on time or 5 minutes early, my mom told me that I was like that since I was little. but my mom and dad they can be late and that don`t bother them. So now with this post I have to make a research from which of my family I got that value.
I agree with this article. When I was in high school, I would see people that were brought up by such polite and kind families with great morals yet they turned about to be awful kids. They would always do the wrong things and we would all wonder how they turned out that way after being raised by such a great family. I do believe that parents try to instill their good morals and values into their child, but a child is born with an instinct that’ll make them choose the type of person they want to be.
I definitely agree that moral values are taught and always accepted that until reading this blog. This blog informed me that it is actually possible for some moral values to be genetically predisposed.