It suggests the possibility that "justice and morality get inherited from parents"

ByJ. K. Califf

It is known that physical ability, intellectual ability, appearance, etc. are inherited from a parent to a child, but it turned out that there is a possibility that a "sense of justice" may also be inherited.

Precursors to morality in development as a complex interplay between neural, socioenvironmental, and behavioral facets
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/08/27/1508832112

Babies have a better moral compass when parents are fair and just, too | Ars Technica UK
http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2015/09/babies-have-a-better-moral-compass-when-their-parents-are-fair-and-just-too/

Mr. Jason Cowell and Ms. Jean Deserty investigated 73 infants and their parents from 12 months to 24 months of age to see if the sense of justice and moral inheritance are inherited.

In general, researching the behavior of infants is very effective in separating the genetic character that human beings were born and acquired characteristics acquired from the environment after birth. However, since young children can not explain their own ideas and behaviors, it is also a fact that it is very difficult to judge the causal relationship of an event.


Since it is difficult to directly investigate the feelings of justice in young children in this survey, we use an electroencephalography (EEG) headset to measure brain waves and estimate the strength of justice by measuring brain waves of young children.


In the experiment, firstly, a test was conducted to check the feelings of justice and ethics for the parents of the infant. This test is a test to see how people respond by seeing an unfair case, and it is classified as a person with strong sense of justice or morality and a person not so.

Next, I showed an animation in which two kinds of hero appeared, namely "a character devoted to dedication and strong sense of justice" and "a mean character only to disturb other people". Examining the brain waves of an infant while watching anime, some young children show a stronger reaction than when they are watching animation in which a justice character appears when watching animation of mean characters I understood. And most of the parents of the young children showing these reactions were found to have been classified as "a person with high sense of justice" in the justice test.


Although it is difficult to decide immediate sense of justice and moral inheritance from the experiment of this time, it is difficult to decide immediately that morality and sense of justice are inherited by genetically inherited properties from parents It is suggested that there is a possibility.