The Innocence of Children?

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Carcano, Apr 22, 2007.

  1. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    Are children more evil than adults?
    I'm not sure...I was certainly more ill mannered and mischievious when I was a kid, but maybe adults have a whole new set of vices???

    The thread was inspired by the Alec Baldwin thread btw, and all the boo-hooing over the 'poor liitle girl'. How do you know the girl isnt a little hellion???
     
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  3. Roman Banned Banned

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    Children lack moral capacity.
     
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  5. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    Children are what their surroundings make them.
    Alec's kid probably is a brat - and that's because Alec and Kim are both assholes.
     
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  7. Carcano Valued Senior Member

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    How do you know? This is the same thing that went on endlessly on the other thread, with people assuming they know all the circumstances of context.
     
  8. Roman Banned Banned

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    Who cares.
     
  9. Redefine91 I piss excellence Registered Senior Member

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    Kids are more cruel tan adults, but only because they do not know the true power of words as adults with expererience.
     
  10. one_raven God is a Chinese Whisper Valued Senior Member

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    How do I know?
    Because only an asshole would talk to their 11 year old child like that, regardless of how much a brat she may be.
    If she IS that much of a brat, it is their fault, because they are the parents (and you see how respectfully he treats her).
    And only an asshole would release that voicemail to the press.
    It's pretty self-evident.
     
  11. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    perhaps it's recognising the consequentions of your actions?
     
  12. John99 Banned Banned

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    we are products of our environment..to an extent.

    Recently i arrived at this weird thought that life is a circle. The average healthy infant start's off as innnocent, gradually becomeing affected by personal experiences.

    Do you see older\elderly people exhibitiong childlike behavoirakl patterns?

    And if a complete life term is acheiuved would the end if this cycle exhibit near innocence, or perhaps close than ever before outside iof infancy. A complete cirlce?
     
  13. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    The bible says that children are born evil.
     
  14. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Every warm-blooded animal is born with the instinct to trust its mother, and in some species its father. Some pack-social species like humans, related apes and dogs (but not others like lions) also trust the other elders of the pack. They have a lot of energy and curiosity and they don't yet know how to channel it. Being ill-mannered and mischievous is truly "innocent," not "evil," because children have no idea that they might break something, disrupt a process, or cause distress to an adult.
    Human children are born about as helpless as any species of placental mammal. (Newborn giraffes can walk and quickly learn to run.) They have neither the perception nor the cognition required to even grasp the concept of morality. They live on the first step of Maslow's Hierarchy: Survival. Breathing, eating, staying warm, avoiding pain, they live like Earth's simplest creatures. They are innocent, not evil. They are no more evil than a tiger, living by its instincts and trying to survive.
    As children grow and develop their physical and cognitive skills, and in particular learn the technology of language, they communicate with others in the pack and learn how humans are expected to interact as a community, so that everyone lives better in the group than they would as isolated individuals. This starts of course by teaching them what the pack does for them. Later comes the crucial step of inspiring them to contribute to the pack.
    If you're just talking about words, then of course that's right. It's all part of innocence. But if you're talking about cruel behavior, that's a breakdown in the pack-social instinct. Children are supposed to compete and play games that mock the activities of adult life, and that's where sports come from. But if the sport becomes cruel, a child hurting another deliberately, rather than out of the exhuberance of the game or overzealous competition, then it's a breakdown in the pack-social instinct. Children are supposed to be taught very early that since we all depend on one another, it is in our own best interest to care about each other's well being, and certainly not to harm another, thereby diminishing his ability to contribute to the well being of the pack.

    At this stage in development, if a child is old enough to grasp the concept of community, to understand that everyone gives and everyone takes, yet he still hurts other people, this is the threshold at which the word "evil" becomes valid, if perhaps hyperbolic.
    Indeed. In a purely selfish way, tempered by what should be the instinct of a pack-social creature, the consequence of being cruel to another member of the pack is that your own welfare may be diminished.
    I'll have to take your word for it, since my parents never read to me out of that particular fairy tale when I was a kid myself. That would certainly illustrate their disgust (and mine) with the tenets of Abrahamic religion: that we're all just dog poop on god's lawn and we should grovel in gratitude because he doesn't just flush us all down the celestial toilet. Babies are purely the products of nature because they have had no opportunity to learn anything outside of their nature. To call a child evil is as pointless as calling lightning evil. It's all just part of the Abrahamists' way of loading us down with guilt so we'll be humble and submissive.

    People are only evil when they have a choice to make and they make one that harms others. Innocence is not the same thing as evil, and to call it so is... well, evil!
     
  15. spuriousmonkey Banned Banned

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    genesis...a bit after noah saved the world from flooding.
     

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