Children exhibit moral behavior, but are not morally praisworthy for it.

.. that said, I'll begin addressing his points. If our esteemed audience will look at the comment section for the question of age, we are treating all ages before the threshold of complex reasoning. This may or may not include 7 years of age, depending on a child's cognitive capability. I also mentioned that there is literature suggesting that children of 18 months or 3 years are capable of moral reasoning. Yraelz's case of the adult that lacks moral reasoning is simply a case of an individual that COULD morally reason but DOESN'T or in some cases of an individual that CAN'T. The same distinctions apply to individuals regardless of age. >> "For instance the church is a great method of control that lays out an entire moral doctrine. " I would like to head this line of thought off early by stating that morality is authority IN-dependent. For example, killing people would be morally wrong qua wrong even if a church or powerful figure state that it was ok. As Yraelz states, moral praise "does very little for those who do not know why they hold the morals that they do. " This actually belongs as one of MY points. If an individual has no idea why they believe something, praise for that belief is equally arbitrary. Consider: "John - why do you believe in god? (or X)" "I don't know. " "Well good job for believing. " This scenario seems to propagate blind faith in whatever X is. While it does perpetuate what the praise-er believes to be moral, it does nothing for the child in question. It is exactly the same as when you talk to a dog in a light, praising tone, calling it the foulest, most despicable creature to walk the planet, and the blessed creature wags its tail. Likewise, the praise to the children, while judged to be moral by the praise-er, only carries praising quality, but not moral content. The child understands that you are praising it, and that the behavior is good, but lacks comprehension of any underlying moral content in the actions. >> "But more importantly we see severe disadvantages from a lack of moral praise. " I take extreme issue with this statement. Any disadvantages are a result of a lack of PRAISE, not MORAL PRAISE. Simply because an action is not morally praiseworthy in the sense that the individual performing the action had moral intentions or was acting from non-self-interest does not indicate that the action is not praiseworthy. By all means, we should praise the child for responding to distress cues in others. What I argue is that we should not treat this action as though it carries with it some higher moral content. Consider: A child responds to its mother's distress by crawling into her lap and letting her hold him. .. A chimp responds to another chimp's distress by bringing it a banana and a piece of honeycomb. .. A dog responds to its owner's distress by going to her and letting her pet him. .. A cat responds to it's owner's distress. .. A guinea pig. .. . So do we have a moral child and a moral chimp, but that's it? A moral child and a moral guinea pig? I would consider the actions of ALL the actors in the above example to be amoral (NOT immoral) and arising from instinct. Actions of this and similar categories simply carry no moral import. They are praiseworthy, but simply lack moral import. Lastly, I'd like to address something in Yraelz's final paragraph. The moral praise of children DOES serve to inform their normative opinion of what is right and wrong. However, this is different from what I speak of in two ways. First, normative opinions of morality are culturally relative and therefore somewhat useless in a discussion of "objective" morality - those actions that are broadly recognized as wrong qua wrong. While a good normative theory can lead to a "better moral sense" if you will, it is of little use when regarding fundamental moral concepts like harm norms. Second, moral praise does not reward the child's sense of morality. One cannot reward what is not there. Consider: A baby finds a lost diamond ring under the couch while looking for its toy. "Oh what good finding skills you have! " says the mother. A baby toddles to its crying brother and offers him a security blanket for comfort. "Oh what good moral skills you have! " says the mother. In cases where the actor has no conception of what morality actually is, even though they may engage in moral BEHAVIOR, bestowing them with moral praise or attributing moral praiseworthiness to their actions does not foster their sense of morality. Most people think that the violation of harm norms is authority independent and objective - i. e. that killing people for no reason is wrong qua wrong. However, moral praise informs a normative sense that renders judgments like "polygamy is morally wrong. " Once again, I affirm - Children may engage in moral behavior, but are not morally praiseworthy for said behavior, even if such behavior is praiseworthy or advances social utility in some fashion. ********************** A brief thought occurred to me as I was about to post this. If we state that morality is simply that which advances the interests of the most people (utilitarian morality) then very little would be needed to understand moral behavior. Once a child understands social utility as "I don't hit Bobby because that HURTS Bobby and other children won't play with me" then they can understand utilitarian morality. However, I'd like to stay away from this, both because it seems to be rejected by some modern philosophers (Joyce & Nichols) as well as more classic philosophers (Hume & Kant), but because it also would make this debate somewhat moot. Looking forward to Yraelz's reply.