[dragonwriter]

> Empirical evidence can't decide on moral issues.

It can, depending on whether the moral question is one of fundamental axioms or applications of axioms to objective conditions. That is, if you take as a moral axiom that it is wrong to raise children in ways which cause certain harms, empirically showing day care does not cause those harms would answer whether (under that rule, at least) day care was morally wrong.

OTOH, if you take “day care is morally wrong” as itself axiomatic, it's true that empirical evidence has no role.

> In simple everyday terms I'd say small children need love and attention like a plant needs water. They can't get these reliably at day care.

The first sentence is very loosely true (empirically, even); in the sense in which it is true, however, the second is not in the general sense (that is, it is not true that there is no way care choice for which it is true), though it may be in a naive sense (if one assumes that all parents have I'd a binary choice between day care and Monday care, and then the children are blindly sent to something meeting the definition of “day care” if that option is chosen.)

[tremendulo]

>“day care is morally wrong” as itself axiomatic

Good people already know that daycare is bad, even those who use it, even though they can't explain. So yeah, it's axiomatic.

>however, the second is not in the general sense

Au contraire, it's a perfectly true general statement that children can't get love and attention at daycare. From minimum wage, high-turnover staff looking after a large number of kids in a bureaucratically-controlled environment? No way.

Actually I guess most people wouldn't want or expect employees to love their charges anyhow. It would likely be construed as 'inappropriate', as when a teacher hugs a pupil.

[mcv]

  > Good people already know that daycare is bad

Good lord, are you wrong. Just no. Good people investigate daycares and send their kids to a good one, rather than spreading harmful lies on the internet.

A bad daycare is bad, a good daycare is good. Do your homework as a parent. It's possible you live in an area where there are no good daycares, but you need to understand that your situation is not universal. But instead of just badmouthing people who are making responsible choices for their children, you could also help create a market for better daycares, you could join the parent committee for the daycare to help improve it, or petition the government to better regulate or fund daycares.

[dllthomas]

> [I]t's a perfectly true general statement that children can't get love and attention at daycare.

That's a question that can be settled empirically.

> From minimum wage, high-turnover staff looking after a large number of kids in a bureaucratically-controlled environment?

That sounds like a bad situation. It also sounds very little like the daycare my 2-year-old attends.