Just Babies

Psychologists have long believed that we begin life as moral blank slates. Most of us take it for granted that babies are born selfish and that it is the role of society - and especially parents - to transform them from little sociopaths into civilised beings. Now, in Just Babies, Paul Bloom argue that humans are in fact hardwired with a sense of morality. Drawing on ground breaking research, Bloom demonstrates that even before they can speak or walk, babies judge the goodness and badness of others' actions; act to soothe those in distress; and feel empathy, guilt, pride and righteous anger. Still, this innate morality is limited. We are naturally hostile to strangers, prone to parochialism and bigotry. Drawing on insights from psychology, behavioural economics, evolutionary biology and philosophy, Bloom explores how we have come to surpass these limitations. Along the way, he examines the morality of chimpanzees, criminals, religious extremists and Ivy League professors, and explores out often puzzling moral feelings about sex, politics, religion and race. Bloom rejects the fashionable view that adult morality is driven mainly by gut feelings and unconscious biases.Just as reason has driven our great scientific discoveries, it is reason and deliberation that makes possible our moral discoveries. 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. Vivid, witty, and intellectually probing, Just Babies offers a radical new perspective on our moral lives.

PAUL BLOOM is the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Pyschology at Yale University. He is the author or editor of six books, including the acclaimed How Pleasure Works. He has won numerous awards for his research and teaching, and his scientific and popular articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Nature, The New Yorker, Slate, The Atlantic, Science, Guardian, The Best American Science Writing and many other publications. His TED talk on the origins of pleasure has been viewed more than one million times. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut, with his wide and two sons. Visit his website at paulbloomatyale.com and follow @paulbloomatyale on twitter.

"Take a tour through the latest and most amazing research in child psychology and come back with a better understanding of the strange things adults do. Bloom shows us how a first rate scientist integrates conflicting findings, broad scholarship and deep humanity to draw a nuanced and often surprising portrait of human nature, with all its beauty, horror and hope." -- Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis "Just Babies is exactly the combination of penetrating insight, cutting-edge science, and elegant prose that readers have come to expect from one of psychology's best writers and sharpest minds." -- Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness "In Just Babies, Paul Bloom provides a wonderful, in-depth look at how our morality develops from infancy onward, making the strong case for the subtle interplay of genes and environment in the way we turn out - a must for social science enthusiasts and parents." -- Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational "The Origins of Good and Evil is an ambiti