Evidence for Intuitive Morality: Preverbal Infants Make Sociomoral Evaluations

Abstract

AbstractTraditional views of morality and moral development rooted in rationality and demonstrations of explicit reasoning suggest that moral evaluations emerge in childhood. In contrast, definitions of morality rooted in intuition allow scholars to examine the emergence of moral evaluations among those who cannot reason this way, such as human infants. Consistent with an intuition‐based view of morality, infants evaluate prosocial individuals positively and evaluate antisocial individuals negatively. These evaluations are sensitive to the intent and epistemic states of the person who is helping or hindering, and to the previous behavior of the person who is being helped or hindered. Early‐emerging intuitions regarding others' morally relevant behaviors may have evolved to support wide‐scale cooperation in human societies.