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The Moral Judgement of the Child

Book by Jean Piaget · 12 quotes · Children, Moral, Adults

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The Moral Judgement of the Child Quotes

“Before games are played in common, no rules in the proper sense can come into existence. Regularities and ritualized schemas are already there, but these rites, being the work of the individual, cannot call forth that submission to something superior to the self which characterizes the appearance of any rule.”

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“As far as the game of marbles is concerned, there is therefore no contradiction between the egocentric practice of games and the mystical respect entertained for rules. This respect is the mark of a mentality fashioned, not by free cooperation between equals, but by adult constraint.”

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“In certain circumstances where he experiments in new types of conduct by cooperating with his equals, the child is already an adult. There is an adult in every child and a child in every adult. ... There exist in the child certain attitudes and beliefs which intellectual development will more and more tend to eliminate: there are others which will acquire more and more importance. The later are not derived from the former but are partly antagonistic to them.”

ChildrenCertainBeliefAttitudeTypeDevelopmentCircumstancesIntellectualAdultsImportanceExperimentsFormerAcquireCooperatingIntellectual Development
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“There is little mysticism without an element of transcendence, and conversely, there is no transcendence without a certain degree of egocentrism. It may be that the genesis of these experiences is to be sought in the unique situation of the very young child in relation to adults. The theory of the filial origin of the religious sense seems to us singularly convincing in this connection.”

MayChildrenLittlesSeemsYoungCertainReligiousSituationTheoryDegreesElementsUniqueAdultsConnectionsRelationMysticismConvincingTranscendenceGenesisYoung ChildrenFilial
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“The need to speak the truth and even to seek it for oneself is only conceivable in so far as the individual thinks and acts as one of a society, and not of any society (for it is just the constraining relations between superior and inferior that often drive the latter to prevarication) but of a society founded on reciprocity and mutual respect, and therefore on cooperation.”

ThinkingNeedsIndividualSpeakRelationOneselfSuperiorsLatterMutualCooperationInferiorsSpeak The TruthReciprocityMutual RespectPrevarication
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“It is as his own mind comes into contact with others that truth will begin to acquire value in the child's eyes and will consequently become a moral demand that can be made upon him. As long as the child remains egocentric, truth as such will fail to interest him and he will see no harm in transposing facts in accordance with his desires.”

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“For the fundamental fact of human psychology is that society, instead of remaining almost entirely inside the individual organism as in the case of animals prompted by their instincts, becomes crystallized almost entirely outside the individuals. In other words, social rules, as Durkheim has so powerfully shown, whether they be linguistic, moral, religious, or legal, etc., cannot be constituted, transmitted or preserved by means of an internal biological heredity, but only through the external pressure exercised by individuals upon each other.”

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“The relations between parents and children are certainly not only those of constraint. There is spontaneous mutual affection, which from the first prompts the child to acts of generosity and even of self-sacrifice, to very touching demonstrations which are in no way prescribed. And here no doubt is the starting point for that morality of good which we shall see developing alongside of the morality of right or duty, and which in some persons completely replaces it.”

WayFirstsChildrenPersonsSelfParentDoubtSacrificeDutyMoralityRelationStartingAffectionDevelopingGenerosityNo DoubtMutualTouchingSpontaneousDemonstrationConstraintsSelf SacrificeStarting PointPromptsChildren And Parents
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