Exploring kid's moral development

Question for all parents: have you ever considered whether your baby is ethical?

Are babies born morally neutral or are they inherently good? Are children empty vessels whose minds need to be filled with moral knowledge so they become good people? Or do babies begin life as moral beings and we systematically dismantle their goodness as we turn them into hyper-consumers, school bullies or self-obsessed teens?

An article in the New York Times magazine in May 2010 titled The Moral Life of Babies describes a range of behavioural experiments with babies. One experiment observed the responses of babies less than 10 months old as they watched images of the: …interactions of geometrical objects with faces on them. When a circle struggled to climb a hill, a yellow square would help push from behind – but a red triangle would hinder the circle’s progress by pushing back from above.

When the baby was asked to choose between physical objects resembling the yellow square or red triangle almost all of the babies reached for the square. Similar experiments were repeated and varied and the clear conclusion was that babies could distinguish between good and bad and they showed a preference for good. The babies appeared to have a sense of morality.

If this conclusion is correct it emphasises our role as parents and teachers to nurture and develop the inherent morality within all of us, and to ensure we don’t stifle or squeeze it out. So how can we assist the moral development of children?

In 2009 the NSW Government approved the trial of an ethics curriculum for students whose parents had opted out of special religious education in 10 primary schools. The curriculum covers ethical issues such as fairness, honesty, ethical principles, graffiti, thinking about animals, intervening in nature, virtues and vices, and the rights of children.

Children in these classes are encouraged by volunteer parent facilitators who are trained not to provide the ‘right’ answers but to explore and facilitate ethical discussion among the class. The aim with ethics education is not to implant the teacher’s own ethical view into the minds of the students, but to stimulate and evolve the moral understanding which exists from a very young age.

The course concludes by asking a question critical to ethics: what is necessary for a person to have a good life? The children evaluate goals such as having lots of money, being a virtuous person, being popular with friends, and living a long life. These are ideas we continue to explore in higher education ethics classes.

This trial, which is currently in progress, seems a great idea. So why have some religious organisations opposed it? One problem identified is it may become a preferred alternative to religious education. Currently parents can select religious education or nothing for their children. One solution is to make ethics education compulsory in the curriculum and keep religious education optional.

The compulsory ethics curriculum would quite rightly have input from religious organisations. We need to acknowledge that ethics is influenced by religion and for some people religion is their sole determinant of what is right. However we also need to acknowledge that culture is an important determinant of ethics, and we live in a multicultural, multi-faith society.

Input from all major religions should be invited when designing ethics programs in schools. When discussing religion and ethics in class it will be a valuable learning experience when children discover how similar the ethical principles contained within the world’s major religions actually are. They might even wonder what all the fighting is about.

Geoff Lamberton is a senior lecturer in ethics and sustainability at Southern Cross University.