A Case for Inherent Morality

[arewethereyet]

From my experience, I would say this is a rough assessment but pretty close.

Babies are born with a drive to live.  That's about it.  They cry for the things you mention...food and to be warm and dry.  Some still want to be swaddled to feel the comfort felt in the womb.  Some don't care for that as much.  Now the big thing is getting babies to bond with the mother in particular and the father too by laying the child immediately after the birth skin-to-skin on mom.  This is supposedly for bonding reasons and wasn't a thing when I was having kids in the 70s and 80s.  And before that kids were whisked away from the mother because she was probably unconscious during the birth anyway.  

Potty training is a real test of ought/ought not and the desire for approval in whatever form that takes or even to escape disapproval.

Most little ones are me-centric.  They tend not to come out into the world knowing a thing about sharing or how to be nice.  Those are things that they must learn.  Some kids are more and some are less prone to pick up these concepts.  That's where things like personality, general demeanor, and guidance come in.  Some kids are simply more hot headed and/or stubborn while some are more laid back.  I have three grown kids and if it were possible to have three polar opposites, that's how I would have described them until the last few years when the oldest and youngest seem to become more alike while the middle one seems to be completely alien to the rest of the family.

None of those things have a thing to do with morality until the child is old enough to make actual decisions regarding their moral decisions.

Every parent has encountered the biter.  That kid at daycare who is always biting other kids...I think it's out of frustration and they haven't been guided into dealing with that frustration.  But that's not a moral shortcoming either.  That kid has to be taught it's not acceptable to bite/hit/scratch the other kids.

I am by no means saying that an infant's brain is well enough developed at birth for it to immediately be aware of its surroundings and make a moral assessment as to what is good and what is bad. I am saying that I believe that when the brain of the infant has developed enough for it to make moral judgements it in most cases does so at least in part according to an inborn sense of right and wrong that exists as the result of the genetic code of the infant.

A sense of what is or isn't moral is not part of DNA.