A Case for Inherent Morality

[Angrboda]

Are you sure adult behavior cannot be similarly explained?  We feel altruism is good and virtuous, yet we know its roots go down to self-interest in kinship selection.

Never said it couldn't. The difference is that you can question the adult and debate alternative motives. Not so much with infants.

There could also be all kinds of non emotional reasons for the babies choices, but I chose to give John emotional reasons as that seems to be part of his position.

The point I was making was that you seemed to be suggesting that the babies' "moral behavior" wasn't truly moral if it could be explained that way, so you were implying that behavior explained that way wasn't truly moral. If adult behavior can be similarly explained, then adult behavior would similarly not be an example of moral behavior. I'm not sure I fully understand what value you're assigning to those feelings. Self-reporting of behavior doesn't necessarily resolve the ambiguity as those self-reports have plenty of confounding factors, including a history of being told that their feeling concerning the subject are moral feelings, when in fact they may be no different than the self-interested babies' feelings. Are you, then, suggesting that there is no such thing as moral behavior, in adults or in babies? Or are you arguing for John's position that morals are simply evolved behaviors?