Moral Judgment and Action in Preverbal Infants and Toddlers: Evidence for an Innate Moral Core

Abstract

Although developmental psychologists traditionally explore morality from a learning and development perspective, some aspects of the human moral sense may be built-in, having evolved to sustain collective action and cooperation as required for successful group living. In this article, I review a recent body of research with infants and toddlers, demonstrating surprisingly sophisticated and flexible moral behavior and evaluation in a preverbal population whose opportunity for moral learning is limited at best. Although this work itself is in its infancy, it supports theoretical claims that human morality is a core aspect of human nature.