The Latest Research on Good, Evil, and Infants

As far back as Aristotle, philosophers have assumed that the human mind at birth is a blank slate—tabula rasa. The articulated modern theory is generally attributed to John Locke, who argued that since people are born as a blank slate, they can author the content of their soul. Psychologist Sigmund Freud further asserted that the job of society, particularly parents, is to form children into moral, civilized beings. Subscribers to this view generally favor nurture in the classic nature versus nurture debate.