It’s Complicated – Moral Nativism, Moral Input and Moral Development

Abstract

The paper provides a critical discussion of certain limitations of current nativist approaches to the question of moral development. The aim of the paper is to warn against a lingering reductive tendency found among certain contemporary moral nativists: a tendency to exaggerate the importance of innate mechanisms for moral development while simultaneously downplaying the importance of other factors in this process. The paper argues that the morally relevant input available in the social and cultural environment of human beings is much richer and more varied than typically acknowledged by moral nativists. By ignoring this richness the nativist runs the risk of distorting our understanding of the phenomenon we want to explain.