Moral masters or moral apprentices? A connectionist account of sociomoral evaluation in preverbal infants

Numerous studies suggest that preverbal infants possess the ability to make sociomoral judgements and demonstrate a preference for prosocial agents. Some theorists argue that infants possess an “innate moral core” that guides their sociomoral reasoning. However, we propose that infants’ capacity for putative sociomoral evaluation and reasoning can just as likely be driven by a domain-general associative-learning mechanism that is sensitive to agent action. We implement this theoretical account in a connectionist computational model and show that it can account for the pattern of results in Hamlin et al. (2007) and Hamlin and Wynn (2011). These are pioneering studies in this area and were among the first studies to examine sociomoral evaluation in preverbal infants. Based on the results of 6 computer simulations, we suggest that a domain-general associative-learning mechanism can account for previous findings on preverbal infants’ capacity for sociomoral evaluation. These results suggest that an innate moral core may not be necessary to account for apparent sociomoral evaluation in infants.

Πολιτικός προσανατολισμός, πολιτική σκέψη και κοινωνικο-ηθική κρίση: Βίοι παράλληλοι;

The article reviews the main research evidence pertaining to the relationship between political ideology and socio-moral reasoning, as it is explicated in L. Kohlberg’s developmental model. A repeated finding of the relevant literature, both previous and more recent, indicates that the qualitative from stage to stage transformations of the sociomoralreasoning structures, constitutes one of the determining factors for the formation of political beliefs or political ideology. As far as the direction of such an impact is concerned, the available evidence shows that conventional sociomoral reasoning tends to be associated with more conservative or right-wing political orientation, whereas postconventional thinking is more often connected to more liberal or left-wing political ideology. The explanation of this association pattern still remains a matter of controversy. The article also reports findings from a study which examined the possible impact of sociomoral reasoning on the developmentally differentiated ways children and adolescents understand a number of key political concepts. The findings of the study indicated points of convergence between the developmental pattern of political thinking and socio-moral reasoning that concerned the conceptualization of government and law in the ages of 12-15 and the concept of political authority in the ages of 15-18 years. The findings did not support any association in primary school students.