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Description
This article suggests that while developmental theorists are in disagreement over many particulars about child development, one area of agreement is the moral inferiority of children. It examines the theories of Freud (psychoanalysis), Kohlberg (cognitive moral development), and Skinner (behaviorism). The article provides a brief overview of each theory, discusses the implications of its views of children, and addresses problems related to it. Each of the theorists mentioned explains moral development in a way that assumes children are incapable of acting morally, disallowing any possibility of true altruism or selfless action.
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While developmental theories in psychology are in disagreement on many particulars, one area in which all of them concur is that children are morally inferior to adults. Psychologists studying human development have examined the subject from many different theoretical angles. In this article, I will discuss three major theoretical approaches to development: Psychoanalytic (Freud), Cognitive (Kohlberg), and Behavioral (Skinner). Each of these theorists contributes to a different perspective on the moral development of a child, yet implicitly--if not explicitly in places--assumes that adults are morally superior to children. The significant implications of this moral superiority will be reviewed below.
In the discussion of the three theories, a basic summary of each theory will be provided, followed by the resultant view of children and their moral abilities and experiences. The article will then discuss how each of them influences our views of children, followed by some theoretical problems associated with each theory. Some of the consequences of this theoretical agreement will then be addressed.
It is important to note at the outset that the focus of this article is a critical look at the developmental theories, rather than a presentation of an alternative viewpoint. In fact, many psychologists and parents would see no problem in arguing that children are, at least in some ways, morally inferior to adults. Alternative views of morality do exist (for example, Levinas), but the space limitations in this article do not permit any significant exploration of these alternatives. While I will address some of the consequences of the theories discussed, I am not arguing that these theorists are wrong. In other words, developmental psychologists may well be right in assuming that children do not initially have the ability to reason, or act, as altruistically or morally as adults, but the theories can, and should, be questioned in terms of their method and consistency.
Freud and Psychodynamic Development
Without question, Freud's theory of psychological development has had a dramatic impact on everyday, as well as academic, reasoning about child development. His framework has provided a rich set of post-Freudian theories, as well as fruitful criticisms. Freud's theory of psychosexual development derives its name from his emphasis on the flow and focus of libidinal energy (or sexual energy, broadly defined) throughout the development of a child into adulthood. His primary focus, as well as those of other theorists who followed, is on the youngest stages of development. His theory ends in late adolescence. Adulthood is seen as a time of living out our development, rather than a time of further development.
Freud's basic stages of development are, in order: oral, anal, urethral, phallic, latency, and genital (An Outline of Psychoanalysis 10-15). In each of these stages, a child's sexual energy is directed toward achieving pleasure in a certain bodily area. As the title of the first stage suggests, a child initially seeks pleasure orally. Whether suckling its mother's breast, or sucking a thumb, the child experiences pleasure in the oral stage from the mouth. As a child develops, these erotogenous zones change, and different psychological issues become manifest. For example, in the anal stage, a child learns to control the anal muscles, and therefore become more 'civilized' and acceptable to the adult world. The desire for cleanliness, control, and order are all part of the psychological aspects of this psychosexual stage. The exact nature of these stages is not the focus of this article, rather it is the issue of development from one psychosexual stage to another, culminating in the genital stage. The genital stage signifies the arrival at an adult level of development where sexual satisfaction comes through healthy heterosexual relationships and marriage. The psychosexual stages of development can be seen as a kind of across-time model of development. However, the topographical model of development is another factor that helps understand Freud's view of children, and which this article will briefly address.
At the very depth of the mental structure, we find the "id." The id is the most basic identity of the psyche and personality. Children are born as pure id (An Outline of Psychoanalysis 2). The nature of the id is described by Freud as selfish, egotistic, aggressive, hedonistic, and animalistic. The following citation from Freud gives a good indication of the nature of this most basic part of the human psyche:
Men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved.... [T]hey are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness. As a result, their neighbor is for them not only a potential helper or sexual object, but also someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus [man is a wolf to man]. (Civilization and Its Discontents 69)
The child, as id, is therefore nothing like an innocent and naive neophyte. Instead, the child is a seething, passionate creature seeking its own needs, even at the expense of others. The child is unhappy in its subordinate role and "the child's ego has to content itself with the unhappy role of the authority--the father--who has been thus degraded. Here, as so often, the real situation is reversed: 'If I were the father and you were the child I should treat you badly'" (Civilization and Its Discontents 92). A child does not submit to parental authority out of respect or love (and indeed cannot), but out of fear of punishment. If a child had the... |
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