PSYC 2110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Tabula Rasa, Social Philosophy
30 May 2018
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PSYC 2110 Lecture 12 Notes
Introduction
Social Philosophers
• Why did attitudes toward children change so drastically in the 17th and 18th centuries?
• It is likely that the thinking of influential social philosophers contributed meaningfully to
the e look at hildre ad hild are.
• Lively speculation about human nature led these philosophers to carefully consider each
of the issues
• Are children inherently good or bad?
• Are children driven by inborn motives and instincts or, rather, are they products of their
environments?
• Are children actively involved in shaping their characters or are they passive creatures
moulded by parents, teachers, and other agents of society?
• Debates about these philosophical questions produced quite different perspectives on
children and child rearing.
• For eaple, Thoas Hoes’s /9 dotrie of origial si held that hildre
are inherently selfish egoists who must be restrained by society, whereas Jean Jacques
Rousseau’s /9 dotrie of iate purit aitaied that hildre are or ith
an intuitive sense of right and wrong that society often corrupts.
• These two viewpoints clearly differ in their implications for child rearing.
• Proponents of original sin argued that parents must actively control their egoistic
children
• The innate purists argued that parents should give their children freedom to follow their
inherently positive inclinations.
• Another influential view on children and child rearing was suggested by John Locke
9/9, ho elieed that the id of a ifat is a taula rasa, or lak slate,
and that children have no inborn tendencies.
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