Keywords:: PermanentNote
Tags: morality makePublic psychology
Reference: R: The Righteous Mind by Jonatan Heidt
Morality is a construct kids create based on their experiences with harm. They hate to be harmed and because of that they gradually learn that it's wrong to harm others. However, how this morality gets shaped depends also on the cultural influences.
Is morality (or some part of it) also universal – e.g., stored in our collective unconscious?
What's important here is that this learning comes mostly from action, not from theory (PN: Internalization leads to expertise). Childrens' brains are not developed enough to be able to grasp abstract concepts and transform them into action. Children learn by imitation and doing. This means that the most important catalysts for learnings will be the examples the adults set and daily tasks, challenges, activities they face. And these two things are mostly the product of particular a particular culture.
PN: Apprenticeship is the way to learn new skills: Greene talks about the most natural form of learning which is using one's mirror neurons through observation and imitation.
That said, "If you want your kids to learn about the physical world, let them play with cups and after; don’t lecture them about the conservation of volume. And if you want your kids to learn about the social world, let them play with other kids and resolve disputes; don’t lecture them about the Ten Commandments. And, for heaven’s sake, don’t force them to obey God or their teachers or you. That will only freeze them at the conventional levels."
Relevant notes:
Link to lessons of history about morality is a part of culture which we need to transmit through education. If we stopped doing that, we would turn into savages.
Link to Sapiens that morality is not objective, it's intersubjective - it exists only in our imagination.