[ ## Seven years old ]

A natural end point for this investigation is children of six to seven years of age. In the eyes of many cultural institutions and traditions, across many centuries and societies, children’s sixth or seventh birthday heralds their entry into the “age of reason.” In British common law, this is the first age at which a child may commit a crime. In the Catholic Church, this is the age at which a child may first take communion. In cultures requiring formal education, this is the age at which a child is ready for serious instruction in literacy and numeracy. And in traditional societies, this is the age at which a child is first given important independent tasks such as tending a flock, gathering firewood, or delivering a message (Rogoff et al. 1975).

Overall, children of this age have become, from a cognitive point of view, mostly reasonable—beings with whom one may reason, and expect a reasonable response in return—and they have become, from a social point of view, mostly responsible—beings whom one may hold accountable, and expect to hold themselves accountable, for their beliefs and actions. The result is nascent “persons,” who have taken a giant first step toward internalizing the culture’s norms of rationality and morality, making them for the first time capable of and indeed responsible for normatively self-regulating their own beliefs and actions.»