Just Babies
The Origins of Good and Evil
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Narrated by:
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Mike Chamberlain
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By:
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Paul Bloom
About this listen
A leading cognitive scientist argues that a deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. From John Locke to Sigmund Freud, philosophers and psychologists have long believed that we begin life as blank moral slates. Many of us take for granted that babies are born selfish and that it is the role of society—and especially parents—to transform them from little sociopaths into civilized beings. In Just Babies, Paul Bloom argues that humans are in fact hardwired with a sense of morality. Drawing on groundbreaking research at Yale, Bloom demonstrates that, even before they can speak or walk, babies judge the goodness and badness of others’ actions; feel empathy and compassion; act to soothe those in distress; and have a rudimentary sense of justice.Still, this innate morality is limited, sometimes tragically. We are naturally hostile to strangers, prone to parochialism and bigotry. Bringing together insights from psychology, behavioral economics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy, Bloom explores how we have come to surpass these limitations. Along the way, he examines the morality of chimpanzees, violent psychopaths, religious extremists, and Ivy League professors, and explores our often puzzling moral feelings about sex, politics, religion, and race.In his analysis of the morality of children and adults, Bloom rejects the fashionable view that our moral decisions are driven mainly by gut feelings and unconscious biases. Just as reason has driven our great scientific discoveries, he argues, it is reason and deliberation that makes possible our moral discoveries, such as the wrongness of slavery. Ultimately, it is through our imagination, our compassion, and our uniquely human capacity for rational thought that we can transcend the primitive sense of morality we were born with, becoming more than just babies.Paul Bloom has a gift for bringing abstract ideas to life, moving seamlessly from Darwin, Herodotus, and Adam Smith to The Princess Bride, Hannibal Lecter, and Louis C.K. Vivid, witty, and intellectually probing, Just Babies offers a radical new perspective on our moral lives.
©2013 Paul Bloom; 2013 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"One comes to Paul Bloom for his unfailingly brilliant psychological research; one stays for the wise and relaxed way he writes about it." (Jim Holt, author of Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story)
"The rich cognitive and moral life of babies is among the most fascinating discoveries of twenty-first-century psychology. Paul Bloom explains how this work illuminates human nature, and does it with his trademark clarity, depth, discernment, and graceful style." (Steven Pinker, professor of psychology, Harvard University; author of How the Mind Works)
"Take a tour through the latest and most amazing research in child psychology, and come back with a better understanding of the strange things adults do. Bloom shows us how a first rate scientist integrates conflicting findings, broad scholarship, and deep humanity to draw a nuanced and often surprising portrait of human nature, with all its beauty, horror, and wonder." (Jonathan Haidt, Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, New York University Stern School of Business; author of The Happiness Hypothesis and The Righteous Mind)
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- Length: 2 hrs and 21 mins
- Abridged
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In The Science of Good and Evil, psychologist and science historian Michael Shermer explores how humans evolved from social primates into moral primates, how and why morality motivates the human animal, and how the foundation of moral principles can be built upon empirical evidence. Along the way he explains the implications of scientific findings for fate and free will, the existence of pure good and pure evil, and the development of early moral sentiments among the first humans.
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Read by author
- By Gregory A. Townsend on 04-16-23
By: Michael Shermer
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Bozo Sapiens
- Why to Err Is Human
- By: Michael Kaplan, Ellen Kaplan
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Our species, it appears, is hardwired to get things wrong in myriad different ways. Why did recipients of a loan offer accept a higher rate of interest when a pretty woman's face was printed on the flyer? Why did one poll on immigration find the most despised aliens were ones from a group that did not exist? What made four of the Air Force's best pilots fly their planes, in formation, straight into the ground?
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A tour de force
- By Ivan on 07-05-11
By: Michael Kaplan, and others
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The Belief Instinct
- The Psychology of Souls, Destiny, and the Meaning of Life
- By: Jesse Bering
- Narrated by: Jesse Bering
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Why is belief so hard to shake? Despite our best attempts to embrace rational thought and reject superstition, we often find ourselves appealing to unseen forces that guide our destiny, wondering who might be watching us as we go about our lives, and imagining what might come after death. In this lively and masterfully argued new book, Jesse Bering unveils the psychological underpinnings of why we believe.
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engaging and insightful
- By juliagee on 01-02-15
By: Jesse Bering
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Mindwise
- Why We Misunderstand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want
- By: Nicholas Epley
- Narrated by: Nicholas Epley
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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You are a mind reader, born with an extraordinary ability to understand what others think, feel, believe, want, and know. It's a sixth sense you use every day, in every personal and professional relationship you have. At its best, this ability allows you to achieve the most important goal in almost any life: connecting, deeply and intimately and honestly, to other human beings. At its worst, it is a source of misunderstanding and unnecessary conflict, leading to damaged relationships and broken dreams. How good are you at knowing the minds of others?
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Finally gave up - no real point
- By Thomas on 05-12-14
By: Nicholas Epley
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The Moral Animal
- Why We Are the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology
- By: Robert Wright
- Narrated by: Greg Thornton
- Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Are men literally born to cheat? Does monogamy actually serve women's interests? These are among the questions that have made The Moral Animal one of the most provocative science books in recent years. Wright unveils the genetic strategies behind everything from our sexual preferences to our office politics - as well as their implications for our moral codes and public policies.
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Ridiculously Insightful
- By Liron on 10-25-10
By: Robert Wright
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You Are Now Less Dumb
- How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself
- By: David McRaney
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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You Are Now Less Dumb is grounded in the idea that we all believe ourselves to be objective observers of reality - except we’re not. But that's okay, because our delusions keep us sane. Expanding on this premise, McRaney provides eye-opening analyses of 15 more ways we fool ourselves every day. This smart and highly entertaining audiobook will be wowing listeners for years to come.
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Not a lot of guidance
- By A. Yoshida on 02-08-14
By: David McRaney
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The Self Illusion
- Why There Is No "You" Inside Your Head
- By: Bruce Hood
- Narrated by: Bruce Hood
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The Self Illusion provides a fascinating examination of how the latest science shows that our individual concept of a self is in fact an illusion. Most of us believe that we possess a self - an internal individual who resides inside our bodies, making decisions, authoring actions and possessing free will. The feeling that a single, unified, enduring self inhabits the body is compelling and inescapable. But that sovereignty of the self is increasingly under threat from science as our understanding of the brain advances.
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Disappointing
- By David R Pinsof on 05-10-12
By: Bruce Hood
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The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking
- How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane
- By: Matthew Hutson
- Narrated by: Matthew Hutson, Don Hagen
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In this witty and perceptive debut, a former editor at Psychology Today shows us how magical thinking makes life worth living. Psychologists have documented a litany of cognitive biases and explained their positive functions. Now, Matthew Hutson shows us that even the most hardcore skeptic indulges in magical thinking all the time - and it's crucial to our survival. Drawing on evolution, cognitive science, and neuroscience, Hutson shows us that magical thinking has been so useful to us that it's hardwired into our brains.
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Highly enjoyable
- By David R Pinsof on 05-01-12
By: Matthew Hutson
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The Age of Empathy
- Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society
- By: Frans de Waal
- Narrated by: Alan Sklar
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Is it really human nature to stab one another in the back in our climb up the corporate ladder? Competitive, selfish behavior is often explained away as instinctive, thanks to evolution and "survival of the fittest", but in fact, humans are equally hard-wired for empathy. Using research from the fields of anthropology, psychology, animal behavior, and neuroscience, Frans de Waal brilliantly argues that humans are group animals.
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A Lot Of Things In Common With Our Animal Friends!
- By James on 08-14-11
By: Frans de Waal
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Blindspot
- By: Mahzarin R. Banaji, Anthony G. Greenwald
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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I know my own mind. I am able to assess others in a fair and accurate way. These self-perceptions are challenged by leading psychologists Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald as they explore the hidden biases we all carry from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, and nationality. Blindspot is the authors’ metaphor for the portion of the mind that houses hidden biases.
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Difficult to interpret.
- By Ryan Arnold on 12-21-15
By: Mahzarin R. Banaji, and others
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The Blank Slate
- The Modern Denial of Human Nature
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits, denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts.
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Don't bother. Outdated science & poor logic...
- By ejf211 on 03-31-10
By: Steven Pinker
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Before You Know It
- The Unconscious Reasons We Do What We Do
- By: John Bargh PhD
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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For more than three decades, Dr. John Bargh has been responsible for the revolutionary research into the unconscious mind, research that informed best sellers like Blink and Thinking Fast and Slow. Now, in what Dr. John Gottman said "will be the most important and exciting book in psychology that has been written in the past 20 years", Dr. Bargh takes us on an entertaining and enlightening tour of the forces that affect everyday behavior while transforming our understanding of ourselves in profound ways.
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Political jab
- By Brad on 10-20-17
By: John Bargh PhD
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The Better Angels of Our Nature
- Why Violence Has Declined
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 36 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence.
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I'd kill for another book this good
- By Eric on 11-11-11
By: Steven Pinker
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starts off with a bang
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The Philosophical Baby
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What listeners say about Just Babies
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kindle Customer
- 10-18-21
Great Insight
This books gives you a view of how complex morality can be, and how much the system was thought as it was developed
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- Shlomo
- 07-08-24
The best book about morality that I've ever read
Fascinating perspective of developmental psychology, combined with very rich range of insights from philosophy, history, literature and religion. I've read quite a lot on the subject, yet this reading was a significant leep forward. Highly recommended!
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- Christian M. Adriano
- 01-19-17
Feels like taking a hot shower
Author touches many scientific studies in a very fast pace. In my opinion this makes the book a good pointer to these studies.
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- Robyn
- 07-28-14
Excellent science, irritating narrator
I'm biased because I really dislike narrators with American accents and far prefer listening to the author read their own work. I found the narrator really grating on the ears. But the science and content of the book is excellent, as expected from Bloom who did an amazing MOOC on Coursera on morality (which led me to read the book)
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- Aubrey
- 04-08-17
Loved it
The narrator was clear and articulate. The book was compelling and concise. It did a wonderful job of arguing a scientific foundation for inborn morality.
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3 people found this helpful
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- CBlox
- 11-19-13
What the he!! do babies know?
Provocative and engaging, this book will make you think!
I really enjoyed this well-written and well presented book by Paul Bloom which takes the reader on a quick and sometimes cringe-worthy ride through the science behind moral decisions made in our infancy. Are we born evil or good? While that sub-title is slightly mis-leading it nevertheless portrays the idea behind the work.
I also liked the chapter on morality versus compassion and the pitfalls of over-compassion.
if this helped you in your Audible search, please hit YES below. Thanks
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7 people found this helpful
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- Joshua
- 12-20-13
Interesting but short
Where does Just Babies rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
This is a great book for someone who can't stomach lets say a 30+ hour book by other notable authors on the same subject matter. Its very much a Malcom Gladwell like attempt to ad short story narrative to much larger subjects.
Any additional comments?
This book is an overall interesting but somewhat short and incomplete look at human behavioral psychology. It begins with a novel hook that fades somewhat early in the book and gives way to more classical information on the subject matter. A great read as a primer on the subject but dwarfed by the likes of Pinker etc.
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5 people found this helpful
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- M. M. Jack
- 11-20-13
This was so terrible I didn't make it past intro
What disappointed you about Just Babies?
The methodology behind Paul Bloom's research was unscientific to the point of ridiculousness. He bases his theories on "If I haven't seen it, it doesn't exist," which is a) stupid and b) a concrete example that his studies are nowhere near wide enough to support his sweeping generalizations.
What could Paul Bloom have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
Actually studied the cultures he dismissed as non-existent
What three words best describe Mike Chamberlain’s performance?
Engaging
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
No
Any additional comments?
The short time I listened to this was entirely wasted
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2 people found this helpful