Jennifer Kahn: "Psychopaths are estimated to make up 1 percent of the population but constitute roughly 15 to 25 percent of the offenders in prison and are responsible for a disproportionate number of brutal crimes and murders." So how does this backmap to adolescents? DSM has no answer because of its adult focus. In the works: new "callous-unemotional" diagnosis for kids who exhibit pre-psychopathy.
- Jennifer Kahn, "Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath?," New York Times Magazine, May 11, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-year-old-a-p...

Counterpoint: Bonobo research suggests strength of "Orchid hypothesis" - genetic makeup less effective at predicting behavioral traits, such as "callous-unemotional" disorder; better at accounting for degree of sensitivity to environmental factors, especially approach of mother to child-rearing.
- David Dobbs, "The Science of Success," Atlantic Monthly, December 2009, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/12/the-science-of-succe...

The experiences I've had with my son (he'll be six years old next month) suggest that Scott's idea of helping a child *develop* what some call a moral imagination - that is, learning to imagine experiencing how an-other feels in response to a specific situation or action - iey them if ths an effective way to promote or modify particular attitudes and behaviors. This virtue, if you will, is typically learned over time, as Jim's invocation of Aristotle suggests.

Or, you can just throw rocks at the kids and see how they like it.

DS

(1) The subject/object stuff is tangled at best. There's a degree to which elevating something to the 'dignity' of the subject makes it easier to commit violence against them. Or at the very least: there's a sweet spot between the ant that kids step on and the (non-dehumanized) human imbued with rights that makes violence easier. That's why you get post-battle fantasies from WWI that enemies killed as cannon-fodder actually battled heroically, which retroactively takes the sting out of some of the trauma.

(2) Similarly I wouldn't be too concerned about the vegan/violence consistency. First, kids' behavior isn't disrupted by cognitive dissonance because they're not smart enough to line up two complicated thoughts for an extended period of time. Second - and more pointedly - full-fledged adults can maintain literally a lifetime's worth of "being animal lovers" and eating meat. How many progressive non-vegetarian Democrats are outrageously outraged at Romney's dog on a roof story? It might not be consistent, but apparently the inconsistency can be held at bay for an entire biological lifetime. And if it slips, there are other ways to deal with it, e.g. squishy "I don't eat anything on my plate that has a face on it" approaches.

(3) Even more fundamentally: I'm not sure that technical (rational?) "persuasion" is what we're after here. I wouldn't be surprised if over-indulgent parenting - of the kind of self-esteem based nonsense that eschews chiding for pedantic questions like "why did you do that" and pathetic statements like "don't you know it hurts the bird when you do that" - is how the little monster ended up being a little monster.

I agree with Nate: cut thru the nonsense, which has no reason to work and won't work, and appeal to shame. A boy who hurts an animal can't be persuaded out of it, but he can be deterred from doing it in the future by the disapprobation of his peer. Tag him for doing the equivalent of trying to kill the other kids' puppies.

Two things, speaking as a father and an Aristotelian:

1. You have to be strict about adhering to moral codes for people "under the age of reason" until it becomes a habit. I've never hit my kids (although I've been tempted, just as I am with faculty), but punishment does in fact work.

2. Surely, some appeal to any religious tradition still works in Northern Minnesota, e.g. Jesus on a sparrow's fall, the Torah on obligations to animals, Buddhists on compassion? Surprised no one mentioned this.

My experience with kids (having one, having been one) is that they're pretty short sighted and lack impulse control, particularly when they're in a group. Simply stating that throwing rocks at seagulls is lame by any standard, asking what the kid was trying to prove, basically embarrassing the kid will more than likely do the trick. I realize we're missing a valuable opportunity to discuss ethics, the subject object distinction, metaphysics (what it feels like to be a seagull), and Newton's laws of motion, but sometimes you're better off playing the shame game until you have them locked in a car, away from their creepy buddies. That's when you explain qualia and the merits of veganism relative ovo-lacto vegetarianism.

As a former naturalist, role reversal can sometimes work. It can also disrupt the process of objectifying animals so that kids begin to consider them in different ways. (Even asking, why are you doing that?, can sometimes make kids account for their behavior.) I've also had success appealing to the classic "leave no trace" ethic. Rather than connecting to veganism, a leave no trace ethic suggests minimum impact so that eco-systems can be maintained. This appeal can also be connected to student interests: destructive behavior like throwing rocks often means that animals flee from humans. We are less likely to see animals and fully experience natural places if we stick out or make ourselves into predators. (For kids who want to see deer, fish, and the like this can help reinforce more appropriate behavior).

None of this helps highlight the harm caused by a child. But presenting an injured animal might help students see it in different terms. Sadly, this is not compelling to everyone.

You make the kids who threw the rocks watch the new Martin Scorsese commercial praising the iPhone over and over and over for a like an hour: http://www.youtube.com/user/apple?v=LEolXYC09sw

Then, you tell them the next one who hurts a seagull will have to watch it a whole day.

(Variation of the hell lecture from Sunday school.)

...not an object? I would have guessed that they had thoroughly objectified the gulls, if they throw rocks at them.

...but it seems an appeal to empathy or role reversal might work--"how would you like it if they threw rocks at you while you ate your candy?" Your 3 answers may be too "smart" for their own good, imho :>.