Descartes’ Baby: How The Science Of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human

CONTENTS About the Book Also by Paul Bloom Title Page Dedication Epigraph Preface I: FOUNDATIONS 1 Mindreaders II: THE MATERIAL REALM 2 Artifacts 3 Anxious Objects III: THE SOCIAL REALM 4 Good and Evil 5 The Moral Circle 6 The Body and Soul Emotion IV: THE SPIRITUAL REALM 7 Therefore I Am 8 Gods, Souls, and Science Notes References Index Copyright ABOUT THE BOOK Why is a forgery worth so much less than an original work of art? What’s so funny about someone slipping on a banana peel? Why, as Freud once asked, is a man willing to kiss a woman passionately, but not use her toothbrush? And how many times should you baptize a two-headed twin? Descartes’ Baby answers such questions, questions we may have never thought to ask about such uniquely human traits as art, humour, faith, disgust, and morality. In this thought-provoking and fascinating account of human nature, psychologist Paul Bloom contends that we all see the world in terms of bodies and souls. Even babies have a rich understanding of both the physical and social worlds. They expect objects to obey principles of physics, and they’re startled when things disappear or defy gravity. They can read the emotions of adults and respond with their own feelings of anger, sympathy and joy. This perspective remains with us throughout our lives. Using his own researches and new ideas from philosophy, evolutionary biology, aesthetics, theology, and neuroscience, Bloom shows how this way to making sense of reality can explain what makes us human. The myriad ways that our childhood views of the world undergo development throughout our lives and profoundly influence our thoughts, feelings, and actions is the subject of this richly rewarding book. ALSO BY PAUL BLOOM How Children Learn the Meanings of Words Language, Logic, and Concepts (co-editor) Language and Space (co-editor) Language Acquisition: Core Readings (editor) DESCARTES’ BABY How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human PAUL BLOOM For Karen Since the eighteenth century, there has been in circulation a curious story about Descartes. It is said that in later life he was always accompanied in his travels by a mechanical life-sized female doll, which, we are told by one source, he himself had constructed “to show that animals are only machines and have no souls.” He had named the doll after his illegitimate daughter, Francine, and some versions of events have it that she was so lifelike that the two were indistinguishable. Descartes and the doll were evidently inseparable, and he is said to have slept with her encased in a trunk at his side. Once, during a crossing over the Holland Sea some time in the early 1640s, while Descartes was sleeping, the captain of the ship, suspicious about the contents of the trunk, stole into the cabin and opened it. To his horror, he discovered the mechanical monstrosity, dragged her from the trunk and across the decks, and finally managed to throw her into the water. We are not told whether she put up a struggle. —Stephen Gaukroger, Descartes: An Intellectual Biography PREFACE Sex with dead animals is disgusting. Someone slipping on a banana peel can be wildly funny. Killing babies is wrong. Splashes of paint on a canvas can be a work of art. Your body will change radically as you age, but you will remain the same person. And when you die, your soul may live on. There are people who lack these basic notions, such as psychopaths who commit horrific acts without the slightest twinge of conscience, or severely autistic children, who have no understanding that other people have thoughts and emotions. But these unusual cases just prove the rule that notions such as morality, humor, art, and p