做正确的事往往是一项极其困难的任务。然而，心理学研究表明，21个月大的婴儿对什么是对什么是错有一种粗糙的感觉。这种能力反映在婴儿在社会场景中奖励或惩罚角色的决定上。但一个真正的、健全的、成熟的道德指南针肯定要比这复杂得多。那么，关于成人的道德，婴儿能告诉我们什么呢?道德有多少是与生俱来的，又有多少是我们作为道德思考者必须培养的?John and Ken talk infant morality with Paul Bloom from Yale University, author ofJust Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil.
肯最初对婴儿可以教我们道德的想法表示了一些怀疑，但约翰认为，成人道德反映了我们从婴儿时期就存在的基本道德本能。他认为婴儿并不是成熟的道德主体，但他提供了证据表明婴儿确实具有一定的道德意识。约翰提出了一个木偶实验，其中一个木偶在游戏中扮演顽皮的角色。从很小的时候起，孩子们就喜欢惩罚“淘气”的木偶，这对一些人来说表明他们有道德偏好。约翰和肯欢迎他们的嘉宾保罗·布鲁姆来到节目。保罗和他的妻子一起在婴儿和小孩子身上做实验，以探究他们的道德本性。他认为人类的道德从一开始就存在于婴儿身上。例如，我们有道德情感，比如同理心。他说，他的本土主义很强烈，但并不完全——还有一些道德意识需要学习。我们从一开始就不知道奴隶制是错误的。但是，他指出，很小的婴儿确实有利他的动机来帮助他人，防止他们遭受痛苦。
Ken asks Paul for a key study revealing evidence of an innate moral sense. Paul explains these studies where babies are shown one act plays with a good guy and a bad guy. Children, from three months of age, favor the good guys, and even those who support the good guys, over the bad guys. Ken questions whether these studies really indicate a moral preference. Paul admits it might just show the babies prefer, in a non-moral way, the good guys. However, he thinks morality is tied up with our intuitions about just desserts – that good guys should be rewarded and bad guys should be punished. His studies indicate that babies have these same intuitions. Paul brings up a feature of our moral senses that babies lack. While mature people can recognize that it is unfair that they receive far more than others who have done the same to deserve reward, young children do not. They do recognize when they are being shorted, or when others are given more, but they do not see the unfairness in themselves being rewarded better. This can be taken to reveal that our egalitarian instincts are not innate, but rather learned.
