Scan barcode
A review by 11corvus11
Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil by Paul Bloom
3.0
This book is difficult to rate and review. I found it incredibly interesting, very accessible, and also flawed in many ways. I read a lot of radical literature so when I move over to science on occasion, I notice many things. unsurprisingly from a field dominated by white straight men.
What I enjoyed were the writing style being accessible and not trying to show off with academic language most people don't understand, the many studies and discussions of morality, and even the author sharing how his own theories differed from other researchers' even when I disagreed. These alone made the book an easy an fast read.
There were many things I struggled with as well. There is a lot of discussion of violence towards nonhuman animals in this, including in animal research where they are harmed to study "empathy" without any discussion of the empathy and compassion one must lack in order to put animals through this in research. There are also many incorrect assumptions about nonhuman animals (macaques never imitate each other, other animals don't show compassion, etc) that are shown to be untrue (and are obvious to people who show empathy, understanding, and compassion towards other animals even outside of studies.) It is full of anthropocentric conclusions drawn from animal research that demean animals complete with a few shots at people who believe in animal rights missing out on veal and somehow even hurting humans by saying we shouldn't harm animals, comparing it ignorantly to abortion.
He also makes many statements centered in white male experience. He highlights many studies claiming distinct biological differences in the brains of men and women, something repeatedly shown to be inaccurate in better studies. He makes claims like- nobody cared about racism until recently. What he means is slavery and genocide were more publicly accepted by white colonizers in the past than they are now. Pretty sure black folks and native folks cared about racism forever. He will say hunter gatherer societies (now shown to be scavenger gatherer) were egalitarian. Then as a side note will mention women were oppressed. Sorry dude, that's not egalitarian. You can say more egalitarian amongst men or something. There are more things like this.
This is odd because the book brings great attention to racial bias, in/out group struggles, and moral developments in different cultures. He does this rather well at times but in the end, defaults back to centering his own experience. I can't completely blame him since he's probably never been told to do otherwise. But, I'd like to see this written with more attention to diversity in more places than inside a laboratory.
What I enjoyed were the writing style being accessible and not trying to show off with academic language most people don't understand, the many studies and discussions of morality, and even the author sharing how his own theories differed from other researchers' even when I disagreed. These alone made the book an easy an fast read.
There were many things I struggled with as well. There is a lot of discussion of violence towards nonhuman animals in this, including in animal research where they are harmed to study "empathy" without any discussion of the empathy and compassion one must lack in order to put animals through this in research. There are also many incorrect assumptions about nonhuman animals (macaques never imitate each other, other animals don't show compassion, etc) that are shown to be untrue (and are obvious to people who show empathy, understanding, and compassion towards other animals even outside of studies.) It is full of anthropocentric conclusions drawn from animal research that demean animals complete with a few shots at people who believe in animal rights missing out on veal and somehow even hurting humans by saying we shouldn't harm animals, comparing it ignorantly to abortion.
He also makes many statements centered in white male experience. He highlights many studies claiming distinct biological differences in the brains of men and women, something repeatedly shown to be inaccurate in better studies. He makes claims like- nobody cared about racism until recently. What he means is slavery and genocide were more publicly accepted by white colonizers in the past than they are now. Pretty sure black folks and native folks cared about racism forever. He will say hunter gatherer societies (now shown to be scavenger gatherer) were egalitarian. Then as a side note will mention women were oppressed. Sorry dude, that's not egalitarian. You can say more egalitarian amongst men or something. There are more things like this.
This is odd because the book brings great attention to racial bias, in/out group struggles, and moral developments in different cultures. He does this rather well at times but in the end, defaults back to centering his own experience. I can't completely blame him since he's probably never been told to do otherwise. But, I'd like to see this written with more attention to diversity in more places than inside a laboratory.