RiverDad
DP Veteran
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Yes and hopefully not.
What's the difference? Where does jealousy come from if it's not taught?
If a moral compass is taught, then what principles underlie the differing conclusions we see from this thought experiment:
A trolley is coming down a track, and it’s going to run over and kill five people if it continues. A person standing next to the track can flip a switch and turn the trolley onto a side track where it will kill one but save the five. Most people think that’s morally permissible—to harm one person when five are saved. Another case is when a nurse comes up to a doctor and says, “Doctor, we’ve got five patients in critical care; each one needs an organ to survive. We do not have time to send out for organs, but a healthy person just walked into the hospital—we can take his organs and save the five. Is that OK?” No one says yes to that one. Now, in both cases your action can save five while harming one, so they’re identical in that sense.
Orphanages that do no harm are great, I am even sure a few probably exist somewhere for a few lucky children.
The key point here is - "do no harm." This applies to parents, to foster parents, to orphanages. Don't work to retard what nature is developing within the child. Orphanages differ from family life with either parents or foster parents in that they lack parental figures instead substituting adults who provide care but don't have the time to develop the close relationships with the children which enable the supposed tutoring of a moral conscience.
In 1952, ten-year-old Richard and his 12-year-old brother were delivered to the Home, a Presbyterian orphanage in rural North Carolina, after their mother committed suicide and their father was found too chronically drunk to care for them. They remained there until they graduated from high school. McKenzie's remembrance of those years is neither whitewashed nor nostalgic; he gives evidence that orphanages can be "a refuge and a source of inspiration" to neglected children. McKenzie, an author and professor of economics, has prefaced this work with responses from a survey of over 1000 living "alumni" of the Home supporting the positive attributes of institutional care: security, stability, permanence, direction, and a value system. McKenzie presents a compelling argument in favor of giving abused or homeless children an opportunity to begin a new life by escaping both their sordid past and their hopeless present. Highly recommended for both lay readers and policymakers.
I am sure for some children this is true, but not 70% of them. which is the incarceration rate.
Please, I show you respect by reading what you write and I try to engage your points, so could you return the favor? Your response completely neglects the selection effect I detailed in my comment. If you want to isolate the effect of "no parents" and see how it affects incarceration rates, then you need to control from kids who are already troubled, already carrying the baggage of mental illness, etc.
You are arguing from an absolute, why?
You need to come up with an explanation for how a moral conscience can develop in children when no parents are present to instill it. That's a pretty big point, don't you agree?