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Spotlight October&November/2011, (Spotlight4814)Moral Babies 24 October, 2011

(Spotlight4814)Moral Babies 24 October, 2011

Voice 1

Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Nick Page. Voice 2

And I'm Mike Procter. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.

Voice 1

Recently, scientists at Yale University in the U.S.A. asked themselves a difficult question. They said, 'Can a young baby understand good behaviour and bad behaviour?' These scientists are psychologists - experts in human behaviour. The psychologists wanted to know if young babies could tell the difference between right and wrong. They were asking, 'Do even young babies have a moral conscience?' Voice 2

The psychologists developed some experiments. In one experiment, they used three model animals as actors in a short play. Babies aged between six months and one year watched the play. In the play, the three model animals play with a ball. The animals roll the ball to each other. They return it to each other. But then, one of the animals takes the ball - and runs away. The play is finished.

Voice 1

Each baby watched the play several times. Then a psychologist held the model animals in front of the baby.

The psychologist waited for the baby to choose one of the animals. Almost all the babies chose the animal that always returned the ball. Very few babies chose the animal that stole the ball.

Voice 2

Paul Bloom leads the study team at Yale University. In a story for the New York Times newspaper, he wrote,

Voice 3

'Some sense of good and evil seems to be bred in the bone.' Voice 2

He believes that some sense of right and wrong is present in people from the very start of life.

Voice 1

The team of psychologists put the results of their experiments on the University website. There, members of the public wrote their comments about these results. A lot of people rejected the idea that babies can tell the difference between right and wrong. They do not believe that babies are born with a conscience. They believe that young babies have no morals. In believing this, they are accepting the ideas of Sigmund Freud.

Voice 2

Sigmund Freud was a doctor who lived about a hundred years ago. He studied the working of the human mind.

Freud taught that no-one begins life with a conscience. He said that babies are amoral animals. They have no moral conscience, no sense of right and wrong. They just do the things that make them happy. Freud believed that babies have to learn what is good and what is evil. He said that this teaching comes from their families and their culture. Freud died in 1939 but some of his ideas now influence people all over the world.

Voice 1

The psychologists from Yale University faced a problem when they decided to test Freud's ideas. The problem was this; how can you tell what a baby is thinking if the baby is too young to talk?

In the experiment with the model animals and the ball, the babies chose the helpful animal. But the psychologists also found another way to discover what babies are thinking. Scientists have discovered that people look for a longer time at something they like than at something they do not like. The psychologists used this information to find out what the babies considered was good.

Voice 2

One of the experiments involved showing the babies a film. The film used three objects with faces painted on them. One object was a red ball. The red ball tried to climb a hill. A yellow square helped to push it up. But a green triangle tried to force it back down.

Then the scientists showed the babies pictures of the different shapes they had been watching. They measured how long the babies looked at each picture. The result was the same as in the first experiment. Eighty per cent of the babies approved of the helpful yellow square. Paul Bloom said,

Voice 3

'With the help of well-designed experiments, you can see the beginnings of moral thought, moral judgement and moral feeling even in the first year of life'. Voice 1

Who is right? Is it Freud or the psychologists at Yale University? Or is there some truth in both ideas?

Voice 2

Everyone knows that babies and children sometimes behave badly! But does that mean that they have no sense of right and wrong? Maybe they know what is right but they do not always do what is right! If that is the case, then this research raises important issues about human behaviour and religion. Paul Bloom says that people do not need to believe in God in order to explain the babies' behaviour. However, religion and morality are closely linked. All major religions have a strong sense of right and wrong - a sense that they believe comes from a higher authority.

Voice 1

Are these religions right? Does an inborn sense of right and wrong come from God? Some people say 'no'. They say that the baby chooses a particular play animal not because the animal character is good, but because it is helpful. These people say that babies depend on adults for everything. So they would naturally choose the more helpful person. This theory suggests the babies' behaviour is not about morality, it is about survival. Voice 2

But religious teaching says different. For example, the Christian Bible teaches that everyone is born with a moral conscience. Everyone is able to understand God's main laws of right and wrong. The experiments the psychologists did seem to support this idea.

But the Bible agrees with Freud too. Freud said that children must be taught good behaviour. The Bible says, 'Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will keep to it'. Voice 1

Altogether, the Bible is saying that although people know the difference between right and wrong, they need to be trained to choose to do right. The Bible says this is because God gives people free will - he gives them freedom to choose between right and wrong. Still, it says, all people do wrong sometimes. No-one is perfect. It says there is only one man who never did wrong, who never sinned - and that is Jesus Christ.

Voice 2

For people of all faiths, knowing right from wrong is at the heart of their experience of God. That is what makes the Yale experiments with the babies so interesting. The experiments raise very basic questions.

Voice 1

Is there a universal 'right and wrong' that everyone understands? If so, where does it come from? If not, what was happening in the Yale experiments? If we are born with a sense of right and wrong, does that mean we are all responsible for the things we do - just by being people? What do you think? You can write to us atradio@english.net, or leave your comments on our website.

Voice 2

The writers of today's programme were Joy Smith and Mike Procter. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted and voiced by Spotlight. This programme and many more are on our website -http://www.radio.english.net. This programme is called 'Moral Babies' Thank you for listening to Spotlight today. Goodbye.

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(Spotlight4814)Moral Babies 24 October, 2011 |Moral|| (Spotlight4814)Moralische Säuglinge 24 Oktober, 2011 (Spotlight4814)Bebés morales 24 octubre, 2011 (Spotlight4814)Bambini morali 24 ottobre, 2011 (Spotlight4814) モラル・ベイビーズ 2011 年 10 月 24 日 (스포트라이트4814)도덕적 아기, 2011년 10월 24일 (Spotlight4814)Moral Babies 24 października, 2011 r. (Spotlight4814)Bebés Morais 24 outubro, 2011 (Spotlight4814)Нравственные дети 24 октября, 2011 (Spotlight4814)Ahlaklı Bebekler 24 Ekim, 2011 (Spotlight4814)道德宝贝 2011 年 10 月 24 日

Voice 1

Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Nick Page. Voice 2

And I'm Mike Procter. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.

Voice 1

Recently, scientists at Yale University in the U.S.A. |||Yale|||||| asked themselves a difficult question. 難しい質問を自問しました。 They said, 'Can a young baby understand good behaviour and bad behaviour?' 彼らは、「幼い赤ちゃんは良い行動と悪い行動を理解できますか?」と言いました。 These scientists are psychologists - experts in human behaviour. これらの科学者は心理学者であり、人間の行動の専門家です。 The psychologists wanted to know if young babies could tell the difference between right and wrong. 心理学者は、幼い赤ちゃんが正しいことと間違ったことを区別できるかどうかを知りたがっていました. They were asking, 'Do even young babies have a moral conscience?' 彼らは、「幼い赤ちゃんにも道徳的良心はありますか?」と尋ねていました。 Voice 2

The psychologists developed some experiments. 心理学者はいくつかの実験を開発しました。 In one experiment, they used three model animals as actors in a short play. ||||||Modelltiere||||||| ある実験では、3 匹のモデル動物を短い劇の俳優として使用しました。 Babies aged between six months and one year watched the play. 生後 6 か月から 1 歳までの赤ちゃんが劇を見ました。 In the play, the three model animals play with a ball. 劇中では、3匹のモデル動物がボールで遊んでいます。 The animals roll the ball to each other. ||rollen||||| 動物たちはお互いにボールを転がします。 They return it to each other. 彼らはそれをお互いに返します。 But then, one of the animals takes the ball - and runs away. しかし、動物の 1 匹がボールを取り、逃げてしまいます。 The play is finished. プレーは終了です。

Voice 1

Each baby watched the play several times. それぞれの赤ちゃんはその劇を数回見ました。 Then a psychologist held the model animals in front of the baby. 次に、心理学者がモデル動物を赤ちゃんの前に置きました。

The psychologist waited for the baby to choose one of the animals. 心理学者は、赤ちゃんが動物の 1 つを選択するのを待ちました。 Almost all the babies chose the animal that always returned the ball. ほとんどすべての赤ちゃんが、いつもボールを返す動物を選びました。 Very few babies chose the animal that stole the ball. ボールを盗んだ動物を選んだ赤ちゃんはほとんどいませんでした。

Voice 2

Paul Bloom leads the study team at Yale University. エール大学のポール・ブルームが研究チームを率いています。 In a story for the New York Times newspaper, he wrote, ニューヨーク・タイムズ紙の記事で、彼は次のように書いています。

Voice 3

'Some sense of good and evil seems to be bred in the bone.' 「善悪の感覚は骨の中で育まれているようです。」 Voice 2

He believes that some sense of right and wrong is present in people from the very start of life. 彼は、人生の最初から人には何らかの善悪の感覚が存在すると信じています。

Voice 1

The team of psychologists put the results of their experiments on the University website. 心理学者のチームは、実験の結果を大学のウェブサイトに掲載しました。 There, members of the public wrote their comments about these results. そこでは、一般の人々がこれらの結果についてコメントを書きました。 A lot of people rejected the idea that babies can tell the difference between right and wrong. ||||wiesen zurück|||||||||||| 多くの人が、赤ちゃんは善悪の区別がつくという考えを否定しました。 They do not believe that babies are born with a conscience. 彼らは、赤ちゃんが良心を持って生まれるとは信じていません。 They believe that young babies have no morals. |||||||Moralvorstellungen 彼らは、幼い赤ちゃんにはモラルがないと信じています。 In believing this, they are accepting the ideas of Sigmund Freud. |||||||||Sigmund Freud|Freud これを信じることで、彼らはジークムント・フロイトの考えを受け入れています。

Voice 2

Sigmund Freud was a doctor who lived about a hundred years ago. ジークムント・フロイトは、約 100 年前に生きた医者でした。 He studied the working of the human mind. 彼は人間の心の働きを研究しました。

Freud taught that no-one begins life with a conscience. フロイトは、良心をもって人生を始める人はいないと教えました。 He said that babies are amoral animals. |||||amoral| 彼は、赤ちゃんは不道徳な動物だと言いました。 They have no moral conscience, no sense of right and wrong. 彼らには道徳的良心がなく、善悪の感覚もありません。 They just do the things that make them happy. 彼らは自分を幸せにすることをするだけです。 Freud believed that babies have to learn what is good and what is evil. フロイトは、赤ちゃんは善と悪を学ばなければならないと信じていました。 He said that this teaching comes from their families and their culture. 彼は、この教えは彼らの家族と彼らの文化から来ていると言いました. Freud died in 1939 but some of his ideas now influence people all over the world.

Voice 1

The psychologists from Yale University faced a problem when they decided to test Freud's ideas. |||||||||||||Freuds| イェール大学の心理学者は、フロイトの考えをテストすることにしたとき、問題に直面しました。 The problem was this; how can you tell what a baby is thinking if the baby is too young to talk? 問題はこれでした。赤ちゃんが話すには幼すぎる場合、どうすれば赤ちゃんが何を考えているかを知ることができますか?

In the experiment with the model animals and the ball, the babies chose the helpful animal. モデル動物とボールを使った実験で、赤ちゃんは役に立つ動物を選びました。 But the psychologists also found another way to discover what babies are thinking. しかし、心理学者は、赤ちゃんが何を考えているかを発見する別の方法も発見しました。 Scientists have discovered that people look for a longer time at something they like than at something they do not like. 科学者は、人は嫌いなものよりも好きなものを長時間見ることを発見しました。 The psychologists used this information to find out what the babies considered was good. 心理学者はこの情報を使用して、赤ちゃんが何を良いと考えているかを調べました。

Voice 2

One of the experiments involved showing the babies a film. 実験の1つは、赤ちゃんに映画を見せることでした。 The film used three objects with faces painted on them. ||||Objekte||||| この映画では、顔が描かれた3つのオブジェクトが使用されました。 One object was a red ball. The red ball tried to climb a hill. A yellow square helped to push it up. 黄色い四角がそれを押し上げるのに役立ちました。 But a green triangle tried to force it back down. |||Dreieck|||||| しかし、緑色の三角形がそれを押し下げようとしました。

Then the scientists showed the babies pictures of the different shapes they had been watching. その後、科学者たちは赤ちゃんたちに、これまで観察してきたさまざまな形の写真を見せました。 They measured how long the babies looked at each picture. 彼らは、赤ちゃんがそれぞれの写真を見た時間を測定しました。 The result was the same as in the first experiment. 結果は最初の実験と同じでした。 Eighty per cent of the babies approved of the helpful yellow square. ||||||stimmten zu||||| 赤ちゃんの 80% が、役立つ黄色の四角形を承認しました。 Paul Bloom said,

Voice 3

'With the help of well-designed experiments, you can see the beginnings of moral thought, moral judgement and moral feeling even in the first year of life'. |||||||||||Anfänge|||||Urteil|||||||||| 「適切に設計された実験の助けを借りて、人生の最初の年でさえ、道徳的思考、道徳的判断、道徳的感情の始まりを見ることができます. Voice 1

Who is right? 誰が正しいですか? Is it Freud or the psychologists at Yale University? Or is there some truth in both ideas? それとも、両方の考えにいくつかの真実がありますか?

Voice 2

Everyone knows that babies and children sometimes behave badly! 赤ちゃんや子供が時々悪い行動をすることは誰もが知っています! But does that mean that they have no sense of right and wrong? しかし、それは善悪の感覚がないということでしょうか。 Maybe they know what is right but they do not always do what is right! 彼らは何が正しいかを知っているかもしれませんが、いつも正しいことをしているわけではありません! If that is the case, then this research raises important issues about human behaviour and religion. もしそうなら、この研究は人間の行動と宗教に関する重要な問題を提起します。 Paul Bloom says that people do not need to believe in God in order to explain the babies' behaviour. ポール・ブルームは、赤ちゃんの行動を説明するのに神を信じる必要はないと言っています。 However, religion and morality are closely linked. |||Moralität||| しかし、宗教と道徳は密接に結びついています。 All major religions have a strong sense of right and wrong - a sense that they believe comes from a higher authority. ||||||||||||||||||||Autorität すべての主要な宗教は、善悪の強い感覚を持っています - 彼らが信じる感覚は、より高い権威から来ると信じています.

Voice 1

Are these religions right? これらの宗教は正しいですか? Does an inborn sense of right and wrong come from God? ||angeborenes|||||||| 生まれつきの善悪の感覚は神から来るものですか。 Some people say 'no'. They say that the baby chooses a particular play animal not because the animal character is good, but because it is helpful. |||||wählt|||||||||||||||| 彼らは、赤ちゃんが特定の遊び動物を選ぶのは、動物の性格が良いからではなく、役に立つからだと言います. These people say that babies depend on adults for everything. これらの人々は、赤ちゃんはすべてのことを大人に依存していると言います。 So they would naturally choose the more helpful person. したがって、彼らは自然に、より助けになる人を選ぶでしょう。 This theory suggests the babies' behaviour is not about morality, it is about survival. |||||||||||||Überleben この理論は、赤ちゃんの行動は道徳に関するものではなく、生存に関するものであることを示唆しています。 Voice 2

But religious teaching says different. しかし、宗教の教えは違うと言います。 For example, the Christian Bible teaches that everyone is born with a moral conscience. たとえば、キリスト教の聖書は、誰もが道徳的な良心を持って生まれると教えています。 Everyone is able to understand God's main laws of right and wrong. |||||Gottes|||||| 誰もが、善悪に関する神の主な律法を理解することができます。 The experiments the psychologists did seem to support this idea. 心理学者が行った実験は、この考えを支持しているようです。

But the Bible agrees with Freud too. しかし、聖書もフロイトに同意しています。 Freud said that children must be taught good behaviour. フロイトは、子供たちに良い行いを教えなければならないと言いました。 The Bible says, 'Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will keep to it'. 聖書は、「子供をその行くべき道で訓練しなさい。そうすれば、年をとったとき、彼はそれを守ります」と言っています。 Voice 1

Altogether, the Bible is saying that although people know the difference between right and wrong, they need to be trained to choose to do right. The Bible says this is because God gives people free will - he gives them freedom to choose between right and wrong. Still, it says, all people do wrong sometimes. No-one is perfect. It says there is only one man who never did wrong, who never sinned - and that is Jesus Christ. |||||||||||||gesündigt|||||

Voice 2

For people of all faiths, knowing right from wrong is at the heart of their experience of God. ||||Glaubensrichtungen||||||||||||| That is what makes the Yale experiments with the babies so interesting. The experiments raise very basic questions. ||werfen auf|||

Voice 1

Is there a universal 'right and wrong' that everyone understands? If so, where does it come from? If not, what was happening in the Yale experiments? If we are born with a sense of right and wrong, does that mean we are all responsible for the things we do - just by being people? What do you think? You can write to us atradio@english.net, or leave your comments on our website.

Voice 2

The writers of today's programme were Joy Smith and Mike Procter. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted and voiced by Spotlight. |引言|||||| This programme and many more are on our website -http://www.radio.english.net. This programme is called 'Moral Babies' Thank you for listening to Spotlight today. Goodbye.