Re: [xmca] moral life of babies

[Larry Purss <lpurss@shaw.ca>]

Ivan
I just wanted to say  Hi and welcome to this fascinating conversation.
The etiquette on a listserve is confusing and the "giving/receiving of ideas and reflections travels so quickly on this format that sometimes we forget to acknowledge the "gifts" of replies to our posts.
I think this topic is fascinating and like you and Etienne I have more questions than answers.  I'm just stumbling towards "meaning" and am not even close to having a coherent "conceptual" theory worked out.  However the conversation Martin and Jay are participating in [which has an HISTORICAL perspective on how these questions have been described and interpreted in the past] gives me the privlege of tagging along and opens new vistas and pathways for me to explore.

---- Original Message -----
From: Ivan Rosero <irosero@ucsd.edu>
Date: Friday, May 7, 2010 10:09 am
Subject: Re: [xmca] moral life of babies
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>

> I too am finding this discussion very interesting.  
> Etienne, I'm dwelling a
> bit on what you and Larry are saying, which is kind of 
> summarized (for me)
> in
> 
> "My own view, however, is that by and large in the case of these 
> babiesthere is nothing conceptual or linguistic (or proto-
> conceptual or
> pre-linguistic) going on.  It's that actions themselves, 
> and the
> pattern of those actions, which constitute the plan of activity and
> moral intelligibility."
> 
> Which sounds like "actions" and "pattern of those actions" have 
> not only a
> kind of *logic/telos* ("constitute a plan"), but also constitute 
> "moralintelligibility".  I will assume (but correct me if 
> I'm wrong) that by moral
> intelligibility you are implicitly indexing the 
> intersubjectivity of
> activity, so that it is participants for whom intelligibility, 
> in a sense,
> unfolds --or rather, for whom the logic/telos of the activity is 
> manifest. IF all of this sounds right to you and Larry (and 
> maybe to the rest of
> you), it seems that what the burning question is is "how is this 
> logic/telosmanifest for the child" ?  Especially if we 
> adopt the stance that there is
> nothing "proto-conceptual or pre-linguistic" about the child's 
> participation(competent participation?) in the activity.
> 
> Is the child recruited into the activity by way of some kind of
> interpellation that operates even before the advent of language, 
> but that
> nevertheless is already rich enough to 
> funnel/direct/structure/determine"choice"?  Or are we 
> saying that "choice", outside of this expanded unit of
> analysis ("giving-accepting-receiving") is more or less meaningless
> (illusory) and what the child is "doing" should be considered 
> somethingelse?  Agency without intention or something like that?
> 
> Ivan
> 
> 
> On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 9:44 AM, Etienne Pelaprat 
> <pelaprat@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > hi Larry,
> >
> > yes -- exactly.  The pattern of giving-accepting-
> receiving and
> > possibly reciprocating must be seen as a single 
> activity.  To be
> > honest, since I am at best causal thinker in child-development and
> > even cultural-historical activity theory, I can only speculate about
> > what is meant by proto-concept or pre-linguistic.  
> Perhaps others can
> > enlighten me.
> >
> > My own view, however, is that by and large in the case of 
> these babies
> > there is nothing conceptual or linguistic (or proto-conceptual or
> > pre-linguistic) going on.  It's that actions themselves, 
> and the
> > pattern of those actions, which constitute the plan of 
> activity and
> > moral intelligibility.  I think to ask if babies "have a 
> concept of
> > right and wrong" is already to mislead the experimental question.
> > "Right" and "wrong" are themselves terms we use to break up patterns
> > of moral life and render them tractable for a whole series of other
> > purposes -- deciding who was right and who was wrong, punishing,
> > discipline, evaluating, etc.
> >
> > Again, for me what is important here is, as Larry says, to 
> give a
> > different language to the pattern of activity itself.  
> That's why I
> > turned to the language of "gift" which, as Marcel Mauss taught many
> > years ago, exists on a different plane of social meaning than
> > language, representation, or concept.... and which manages the moral
> > life of many societies.
> >
> > etienne
> >
> > On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 12:27 PM, Larry Purss 
> <lpurss@shaw.ca> wrote:
> > > Hi Etienne
> > > Your differentiating the constructs "choice" and "giving-
> receiving"> speaks
> > > directly to the notions I'm trying to articulate on this topic.
> > > "Giving/receiving as a SINGLE ACTIVITY that is a dialogical 
> unit of
> > analysis
> > > rather than giving and then receiving recognizes the primavy 
> of the
> > "other"
> > > in our notions of THEORY of MIND constructs.  Choice as 
> a concept is one
> > > particular way to index this pattern of activity.  
> Giving/receiving> [similar
> > > to teaching/learning as a single unit of analysis] is 
> another way to
> > label
> > > and index this particular pattern of activity.
> > > Giving/receiving I think is a better DESCRIPTION [I'm not 
> sure if I can
> > use
> > > the term explanation] of the RELATIONAL quality of this 
> intersubjective> > activity.
> > >
> > > Larry
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: Etienne Pelaprat <pelaprat@gmail.com>
> > > Date: Friday, May 7, 2010 7:56 am
> > > Subject: Re: [xmca] moral life of babies
> > > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > >
> > >> dear XMCA,
> > >>
> > >> i'm really fascinated by this discussion and am by no means 
> an expert
> > >> here, but I thought I'd weigh in anyway.  I'm 
> certainly not
> > >> as well
> > >> armed, conceptually, as the rest of you are, but here are the
> > >> questions this news article, and the corresponding video, 
> raised for
> > >> me.
> > >>
> > >> I couldn't escape the significance of the structure of the 
> experiment> >> itself.  A baby is placed in front of a 
> theatre, watches an
> > >> "interaction" of sorts between two puppets where (in case 
> one, a
> > >> puppet helps another puppet reach its goal; in case two, a
> > >> puppet is
> > >> an obstacle to the goals of another puppet), and then, in the
> > >> words of
> > >> the researcher, "is asked to make a choice" between the 
> help-puppet
> > >> and the obstacle-puppet.
> > >>
> > >> My own view is that morality-as-choice, in the sense that
> > >> morality is
> > >> reducible to choice, is a fairly important framing of
> > >> morality.  What
> > >> I saw when I watched the video of the experiment was 
> different: the
> > >> researcher was *offering* both puppets to the baby and the 
> baby was
> > >> choosing which to *accept* from the researcher.  In other
> > >> words, I was
> > >> tempted to view this important moment of the experiment as 
> one of
> > >> giving-receiving (as in a gift) vs. choosing.
> > >>
> > >> What did the baby do with the puppet after they had selected
> > >> it?  This
> > >> is what I would like to know.  Did the baby offer the
> > >> puppet they
> > >> selected to someone else?  Did they play with it? Does 
> the kid
> > >> interact with the puppet as if it were another person?
> > >>
> > >> What I'm getting as is made clearer in the experiment described
> > >> at the
> > >> very beginning of the article: three puppets on stage, the middle
> > >> puppet has a ball, passes to the puppet on its left, who promptly
> > >> returns the ball.  Then the center puppet passes the ball
> > >> to the
> > >> puppet on its right, who promptly disappears with the
> > >> ball.  In the
> > >> first case, there is reciprocity, in the second there is none.
> > >>
> > >> Last year, Tomasello came to UCSD and presented the results 
> of a
> > >> series of comparative studies between chimps and children 
> on their
> > >> moral life and the origins of coordination.  Many of the
> > >> experimentsused physical structures where chimps or young
> > >> children (i forget the
> > >> age, but they were old enough to speak and know names) had to
> > >> cooperate to reach a price -- typically food or 
> treats.  What
> > >> Tomasello invariably found was that children *divided* the 
> winnings> >> whereas chimps did not.  In fact, if one child 
> did not
> > >> share the prize
> > >> the other would say, "hey, share with me!"
> > >>
> > >> Tomasello's argument, if I remember correctly, was 
> basically that
> > >> while chimps only have some kind of self-interest and 
> cannot recognize
> > >> a "shared goal" between themselves and conspecifics, children
> > >> are able
> > >> to fold their self-interest into the interests of others 
> and recognize
> > >> that they have a "shared goal." This was an extremely economical
> > >> reading of the moral life of young children and 
> chimps.  It
> > >> largelyturned, again, on isolating actions as moral
> > >> choices.  But for me, the
> > >> question here was not of self-interest, but of
> > >> reciprocity.  The
> > >> children are coordinating not only (simply) because they 
> fold their
> > >> self-interest into the interests of others when they share 
> the same
> > >> goal, but because they are *acting for others at the same 
> time they
> > >> are acting for themselves.*  It was precisely a norm of
> > >> reciprocitywhich was violated when one kid chose to hoard the
> > >> treats that cause
> > >> the other kid to intervene and say, "hey, some of that is 
> mine, let's
> > >> share it evenly."
> > >>
> > >> To return to the NYT article.  My extremely unlearned view
> > >> is that
> > >> reciprocity precedes and conditions moral life.  
> Perhaps we
> > >> need to
> > >> think here of "pre-linguistic" concepts, or proto-
> > >> concepts.  But in my
> > >> view this is again to isolate the child from a social 
> situation of
> > >> interaction and reciprocity.  My unit of analysis 
> would be
> > >> larger: not
> > >> the choice itself "as moral," but the fact that the kid is being
> > >> offered a *gift* (if I may so say) and that this gift is 
> from another
> > >> human being (the researcher).  What is at stake in
> > >> accepting this gift
> > >> from the other is another very huge conversation ... but in 
> my view
> > >> that is where i would begin thinking about the moral life 
> of babies...
> > >>
> > >> etienne
> > >>
> > >> 
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