A P S Y C H O L O G I C A L APPROACH TO ETHICAL REALITY
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A PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO ETHICAL REALITY
Kenneth HILLNER Psychology Department South Dakota State University Blvokings, SD, USA
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DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to the memory of David Fee, theologian and keen observer of life, whose own was cut short by cancer.
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VII
CONTENTS PREFACE
ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
xiii
1:
DOMAIN OF THE OUGHT: PROLEGOMENA
2:
PSYCHOLOGY:PROLEGOMENA
23
3:
WHY PSYCHOLOGY IS INTERESTED IN ETHICS
35
4:
WHY A PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF ETHICS IS NECESSARY
57
ORIENTATIONS; CONTENT OF OBSERVATION: TYPES OF MORAL JUDGMENTS 6:
EPIPHENOMENA:DOMAIN OF ETHICAL PHENOMENA
63 83
EPISTEMOLOGY: EXISTENTIAL STATUS OF MORAL JUDGMENTS/VALUE QUALITIES
103
8:
METAPHYSICS' CONTENTUAL ETHICAL ISSUES
121
9:
APPLICATION:CONSTRUCTION OF AN ETHICAL REALITY
159
BIBLIOGRAPHY
195
NAME INDEX
205
SUBJECT INDEX
207
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ix
PREFACE
The pre-eminent nineteenth century British ethicist, Henry Sidgwick, once wrote: "All important ethical notions are also psychological, except perhaps the fundamental antitheses of 'good' and 'bad,' 'right' and 'wrong,' with which psychology, as it treats of what is and not of what ought to be, is not directly concerned." (Quoted in T. N. Tice and T. P. Slavens, 1983, page 401.) Taken at face value, Sidgwick's statement can be interpreted to mean that psychology is relevant for ethics or that psychological knowledge contributes to the construction of an ethical reality. Although this interpretation serves as the basic impetus to the book, Sidgwick's statement must be analyzed to demonstrate why a current exposition on the relevance of psychology for ethical reality is necessary and germane. 1. What Sidgwick meant by psychology is not what contemporary psychologists necessarily mean by the term. This is the case because Sidgwick antedates both the formal founding of the discipline and the subsequent evolution of its primary focus, behavior conceived as a real-time, real-space naturalistic entity.
At best, what Sidgwick probably meant by
psychology is folk psychology, Scottish faculty psychology, or psychology in some generic sense. Contemporary psychology constitutes an independent, codified, intellectual discipline whose recognized function is the construction of psychological reality, i.e., specification of the nature of the psychological universe. It is psychology in the latter sense that must be related to ethics. One note of caution must be mentioned here. Contemporary psychology is not monolithic; rather it is pluralistic: there are as many views of the nature of psychological reality as there are first-rate theoretical psychologists. However, contemporary ethical doctrine is just as pluralistic. Expounding on the relevance of psychology for the construction of ethical reality amounts to a joint analysis of two equally pluralistic and ever-changing disciplines. 2. Contemporary psychology generically constitutes a social science, just as sociology and anthropology do. Taking a conservative view, ethics primarily, if not exclusively, is a philosophical endeavor, correlative with ontology and epistemology. We are not going to be concerned with the issue of whether or how much philosophy is independent of twentieth century scientific knowledge. Suffice it to note that ethical theorists have zealously guarded the autonomy of their discipline. The most popular recent way of doing this involves adoption of the naturalistic fallacy, which prevents an ethical notion from
x
Preface
possessing any physical, empirical properties. We are going to assume that current ethical thinking must take cognizance of contemporary social science knowledge. In this context, Sidgwick's original statement is too limited. Not only is every significant ethical notion psychological in nature, it also is sociological, anthropological, political, and the like in nature. An ethical reality really should represent the blending of every conceivable other reality: psychological, political, economic, sociological, anthropological, legal, even historical, theological, biological, chemical, and the like. The current treatise in many respects merely is illustrative: it focuses on psychology as representative of the many other disciplines that also contribute to the construction of an ethical reality. 3. Sidgwick's relegation of psychology to matters of existence alone, i.e., what is, and not to matters of value, i.e., what ought to be, and his consequent elimination of the fundamental ethical concepts of good, bad, right, and wrong from the set of those that also are psychological in nature are capricious. Sidgwick takes the traditional descriptivenormative dichotomy too seriously. Neither is scientific psychological knowledge valuefree, nor are ethical statements devoid of descriptive content. If the notions of good, bad, right, and wrong are conceived as possessing empirical properties at all, by definition, some of these must be psychological in nature or at least admissible to a psychological analysis. Both the use of the descriptive-normative distinction and the possible assignation of properties to the fundamental ethical concepts that are so esoteric or elusive that they no longer are continuous with other pragmatic concepts currently employed to interpret the world are delusive means of attempting to preserve the autonomy of ethics. $
$
$
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It could be argued that ethics possesses both an end and a means function. As an end in itself, ethics primarily is an intellectual pursuit and the exclusive province of philosophy. As such, the fundamental ethical issues revolve around (1) the existential nature and status of good, bad, right, and wrong and (2) the relationship between ethics and the other areas of philosophy. As a means, ethics merely is a tool: one possible pragmatic approach to the betterment of humankind or the human condition. As such, ethics interfaces with other kinds of knowledge, primarily empirical in nature, and can be evaluated by analytical dimensions not customarily regarded as indigenous to the discipline. " The means function of ethics requires the fundamental structure and distinctions of the discipline to correspond to those characteristic of social science in general and psychology in particular. It is not generally realized that the phenomenon of concem to both ethics and psychology are the same: behavioral action, anticipatory or preparatory mental events, consequential outcomes, and the like. It is just that some, but not all, psychological events partake of an additional ethical reality. What distinguishes between a psychological event with ethical significance and one without such significance will be of especial concem in our analysis. Our psychological analysis of the nature of ethical reality roughly is divided into five parts: 1. Ethics and psychology are introduced and set up as separate disciplines.
Preface
xi
2. Psychology's interest in and analytical relevance for ethics are established. 3. The extant types of ethical/moral judgments and the domain of ethical phenomena are formally derived from more basic psychological distinctions. 4. The classic epistemological and metaphysical ethical issues are considered from a psychological perspective. 5. The construction of an ethical reality is detailed from a psychological point of view.
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xiii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Work on this book was facilitated by (1) the Psychology Department, chaired at various times by Dr. Allen Branum, Dr. Virginia Norris, and Dr. Kenneth Hillner, who allowed the project to contribute to my total faculty workload, (2) the Arts and Science College, under the guidance of Dean Herbert Cheever, who accorded me some released time for a semester and a number of summer grants, and (3) South Dakota State University and the South Dakota Board of Regents, who granted me a one-year sabbatical leave to finalize its composition. Appreciation should be extended to Diana Jones, Senior Publishing Editor for Psychology, and Joyce Happee-Winkelman,Production Editor, of Elsevier Science Limited (North-Holland)--as well as to Dr. G. E. Stelmach, Editor of the Advances in Psychology Series. This book could not have been transformed into camera-ready copy without the able assistance of my oldest son, Paul, who is a wizard at setting up and resolving word processing strategies and parameters on a computer. Finally, mention should be made of my wife, Sally (nee Sarah), who realized a long time ago that writing functions as a form of therapy for me.
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1
DOMAIN OF THE OUGHT: PROLEGOMENA
The domain of the ought includes ethics, morality, and human conduct. Ethics probably best can be construed as the subarea of philosophy that is concerned with values and duties or obligations. Morality has to do with codes, systems, and rules of proper human conduct. Human conduct in turn is the ultimate focus of ethical/moral distinctions and judgments. Ethical thought subsumes two distinct issues: (1) the nature of good and (2) the nature of right. The denotative object for which good can be a qualifying adjective traditionally is regarded as open-ended; the notion of right usually only is applied to human acts. Moral codes typically possess a strong theological underpinning and constitute the specific component of the domain of the ought that is most salient in the consciousness of the general public. An instance of human conduct is the most basic existential event about which an ethical/moral judgment can be made. While the terms 'ethics' and 'morality' can be and often are used equivalently, especially at an informal level, it is pragmatic to treat them as existing in a hierarchical relationship, along with human conduct, such that the domain of the ought constitutes a three-level hierarchy. See
Figure 1-1: The domain of the ought Figure 1-1. This hierarchical organization has the advantage of allowing the content of a lower level of normative reality to serve as both input into and an object of analysis for a higher level.
2 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality For instance, a moral rule can dictate the choice among a series of alternative courses of action; an ethical principle can arbitrate between two conflicting moral prescriptions. Note that the position of ethics at the top of the hierarchy requires at least some ethical disputes to be adjudicated by considerations external to the normative domain itself. It is the purpose of this chapter to sketch in enough detail about the three levels of the domain of the ought so that they can be related to critical psychological distinctions later. Proceeding from the top downwards constitutes the most judicious sequencing. ETHICS Ethics is the branch of philosophy that analyzes the nature of our moral experience and judgments. It is supposed to be a normative endeavor, concerned with values, ideals, goals, and end states; however, ethical phenomena possess an existential context, a major component of which is reality as construed by contemporary social science, such that assumptions about the nature of homo sapiens and society serve as input into any naturalistically based ethical doctrine. The nature and status of ethics best can be abstracted in terms of the following: (1) initial characterization, (2) normative-descriptive distinction, (3) hypothetical and categorical imperatives, (4) function of the discipline, (5) existential status, (6) relationship to epistemology and metaphysics, (7) relationship to law or jurisprudence and religion or theology, (8) relationship to science, (9) contemporary decentralization, (10) reference individual, and (11) folk ethics. Initial Characterization The domain of ethics is multifaceted and infinitely descriptive.
It is anything and everything that can occupy our consciousness: life, liberty, happiness; physical world, psychological world, social world; people, society, habits; deeds, dreams, duties; love, sex, desire; ad infinitum. Ethics in effect focuses on life, human existence, or the human condition. The subject matter of ethics certainly is continuous with that of other intellectual disciplines concerned with the nature and status of the human being, except for a crucial addition. Ethics goes beyond the current state of affairs, the immediately given, the way things presently are; it transcends existential reality as represented by the descriptive labels and categories characteristic of empirical science.
Ethics goes beyond the descriptive what is and gives
substance to the notion of a prescriptive what should be. Although the prescriptive focus of ethics sets the discipline apart from other endeavors, it also serves as the source of some fundamental problems. For instance: 1. What kind of intelligence can conceive of the existence of a should be in the first place? 2. How can a specific 'should be' be meaningful unless it already is part of a person's past experience? 3. How is a specific should be given substance operationally? 4. What is the origin of a specific should be? How does one arise?
Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 3 5. According to what criterion or standard does a specific entity constitute a should be? 6. Are the evaluation conditions for a should be different from those of a mere is? 7. Are the epistemological status of a should be and an is the same? The above sampling should suggest that the construction and eventual evaluation of an ethical reality are far from a simple process. This fact has been recognized since the days of David Hume, the eighteenth century British empiricist, who argued that statements containing a should be cannot be derived from statements containing only factual what is referents. It is not possible to argue that a particular combination of empirical properties constituting factually what is the case also should be the case. For instance, certain stimulation might afford an individual pleasure. It does not follow that the stimulation is good or pleasure is a desirable end state. Ethical systems, as normative endeavors, require a logic or justification milieu all their own. Implicit in the prescriptive focus of the discipline is the assumption that the natural world possesses some order, structure, design, or perhaps even purpose: human existence has meaning. Ethical doctrine embodies this order and meaning; it is one thing that contributes to the realization and maintenance of order and meaning. This makes the task of constructing an ethical reality an awesome responsibility.
(Contrast Nazi order and design with that of
Buddhism.) In other words, the ethical enterprise itself is a value-laden endeavor.
Normative-Descriptive Distinction The prototypical example of a descriptive endeavor is science in the generic sense of the term: science is supposed to deal with facts and descriptions of empirical entities. Description involves manifestations and categories of existence. A normative endeavor, such as ethics, is supposed to be prescriptive or evaluational: ethics deals with qualitative distinctions relative to worth, moral acceptability, and personal or social welfare that often serve as guides to action. Prescription involves manifestations and categories of value. It simply is not the case that science strictly is a descriptive endeavor or that ethics exclusively is a normative enterprise. No description or fact is ever value-free; an evaluative ethical statement is never expressed in a descriptive, empirical vacuum. Each discipline is both descriptive and normative concurrently. Descriptive scientific statements only arise because of priorly, but implicitly, made evaluative distinctions; and ethical statements merely expand on descriptive ones. The normative-descriptive distinction in practice amounts to a continuum, one in which science is customarily regarded as responsible for descriptive reality and ethics is traditionally assigned the task of originating normative distinctions. The ramifications of the notion of a normative-descriptive continuum readily become apparent in the context of the existence-value terminology.
Existence and value do not
constitute two independent, unrelated metaphysical categories: they are ineluctable components of the same underlying reality. It is delusive to assume that one can be analyzed independently of the other. Existence and value are codetermined entities: one's values dictate the nature of existence, and the nature of existence dictates one's values.
4 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality Hume's proscription about deriving statements of value from those concerning existence is unaffected by transforming the normative-descriptive dichotomy into a continuum. Because any statement, whether a descriptive, scientific one or a normative, ethical one, is a combined existential-evaluational entity, the logical and conceptual problems involved in derivation are even more extensive than Hume ever believed.
Hypothetical and Categorical Imperatives The order and design that underlies an ethical system eventually can lead to prescriptive statements of directive force, better known as imperatives. Immanuel Kant is credited with distinguishing between two types of imperatives: (1) hypothetical and (2) categorical. 1. Hypothetical imperatives are related to ethics as an applied endeavor: the means function (see Preface). The canonical form of such an imperative is "If Y is the goal, then do or be X." The directed action or state X is conditional on the desire or necessity of achieving a certain outcome Y. This kind of imperative embodies a means-end relation, i.e., some technique or skill that accomplishes the objective. Hypothetical imperatives are directly amenable to empirical evaluation with respect to how effective they are. 2. Categorical imperatives are related to ethics as a conceptual entity: the end function (see Preface). The canonical form of such an imperative is "Do or be X." The directed action or state X is unconditional. This kind of imperative embodies the highest level, or most abstract, moral prescription(s) of an ethical system. Kant himself promulgated a few presumably equivalent versions of a categorical imperative relative to how other human beings should be treated; however, the term has more general application than to Kantian ethical philosophy. Categorical imperatives are metaphysical statements whose validity is not independent of the epistemological and evaluational assumptions embodied by a specific conceptual approach to ethics. Categorical imperatives tend to possess hallowed status: they are usually regarded as universal in applicability and as epistemologically prior, special, or unique. This kind of imperative in effect expresses exceptionless, foundational moral precepts from which hypotheticals are derivable. Ostensibly, a categorical imperative basically is normative in nature, while a hypothetical imperative is a combined normative-descriptive statement with the normative 'if' component constituting an implicit categorical. In other words, the categorical "Do or be X," could be the goal Y of a hypothetical.
Function of Ethics To fully appreciate the purpose of ethics, it is necessary to recall that the discipline stands at the top of the domain of the ought hierarchy and possesses both an end and means function. As an end, ethics is the area of philosophy concerned with value and obligation: it attempts to resolve fundamental conceptual issues relative to the notions of good, bad, right, and wrong. As a means, an ethical system implicitly serves as a philosophy of morality: it is the impetus, arbiter, or justifier of numerous phenomena that reside at the morality level of the hierarchy.
Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 5 End Function
The end function minimally entails (1) the construction of ethical universes, (2) clarification of ethical terms, and (3) a vision of the ideal. Ethical theorists construct hypothetical universes just as others do: viz., physicists, chemists, psychologists, sociologists. The ethicist constructs a normative reality, as opposed to a strictly descriptive one. In this context, about a dozen classic theoretical issues concern the discipline. For instance: (1) are ethical properties empirical or nonempirical, (2) is the notion of a summum bonum meaningful, (3) are there universally recognized or valid standards of human conduct, (4) is ethical reasoning continuous with nonethical reasoning, or (5) what is the nature of the relationship existing between good and right? These kinds of issues will be analyzed later in Chapters 7 and 8. A critical task of the discipline is clarification of the meaning of ethical terms. The nature of this activity can involve (1) the active construction of a new ethical vocabulary in a manner reminiscent of hypothetico-deductive theories, (2) surveys of the typical range of applicability of key ethical notions, or (3) a linguistic analysis of the types of uses of everyday ethical words. The general trend in clarification is away from the attempt to establish an absolute set of defining characteristics for an ethical term toward an exhaustive descriptive account of the many different ways in which a term can be used or of the many different linguistic contexts in which it can appear. Meaning is not an absolute, fixed property of an ethical term: the exact meaning of an abstract ethical concept is a function of various historical and/or contextual factors. How the discipline currently addresses the problem of meaning usually is a good indication of the current state of ethical thought as a whole: meaning is the microcosm of the disciplinary macrocosm. Ethics historically provides a vision of the ideal. This is the case at both the individual level, i.e., the good life, virtuous person, content of self-realization, and the group level, i.e., good government, social welfare, human rights in general. The general public usually is not aware of this aspect of ethics, because the vision of the ideal is argumentative, symbolic, or contemplative, not physical or institutional in nature. For instance, Bentham's brand of utilitarianism served as the impetus for social and political reform in nineteenth century England; likewise Hegel's and Nietzsche's ethical musings provided an intellectual foundation for the Third Reich.
Means Function The means function involves the relationship of ethics to morality and will be abstracted in terms of ten possible subfunctions. 1. Ethics plays a role in the generation and shaping of moral standards, principles, norms, and even practices. 2. Ethics provides the ultimate set of evaluative criteria by which moral standards, principles, norms, and practices are justified.
6 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality 3. Ethics is involved with both the phenomena of and use of sanctions; namely, devices employed to get people to act morally. 4. Ethical knowledge is used to facilitate moral education and training. 5. Ethics serves as a vehicle for analyzing and resolving moral controversy, disagreement, or conflict. 6. Ethics serves as an impetus for making our accepted moral beliefs consistent with each other. 7. Ethics should allow us to reconstruct our moral beliefs in such a way that they agree with the content of our everyday moral experience. 8. Ethics serves as an implicit theory of moral choice. 9. Ethical principles directly guide conduct on occasion. 10. Ethics should enhance and enlighten our conscious moral awareness. These ten subfunctions are not necessarily mutually exclusive or exhaustive: the listing could be condensed or expanded, depending on one's purpose.
The most important
subfunctions probably are those related to (1) moral evaluation and justification and (2) moral conflict and consistency. These topics are the ones that are most intimately related to ethics as an interpretive philosophical endeavor. It should be noted that there is no one-to-one relationship between a specific approach to ethics and a particular moral view. The same ethical system can be used to justify different conceptions of morals, and a particular morality can be justified by an appeal to different ethical systems. A specific morality can exhibit a prodigious longevity and acceptance level, but be justified by appeal to vastly different ethical principles over time, i.e., different historical eras. A specific set of ethical principles likewise can endure and be reinterpreted in the context of many different moralities. Existential Status One of the fundamental assumptions underlying our analysis will be that ethics is a
naturalistic phenomenon. This means that ethical doctrine is as much a real-time, real-space component of the natural universe as anything else is. This view of the existential status of ethics has at least four significant consequences. 1. The question of why ethics is the way it is exists at two levels: (1) internal content and (2) external factors. Internal content is a matter of historical evolution, and external factors involve functional change. Intemal content and extemal factors merely amount to opposite sides of the same coin.
External factors constitute input; intemal content amounts to
output. 2. Ethical ideas and ideals cannot transcend the epistemological beliefs of the people that hold them. This includes the notion of ought or should be. This nontranscendence will become apparent later in the context of discussing the human conduct level.
Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 7 3. Ethics is more reactive than proactive in many respects. The primary stimulus for ethical change is not new or enlightened intellectual knowledge per se, but rather moral conflict, degeneracy, or irrelevancy occasioned by fundamental societal/economic change. 4. Social science knowledge relative to homo sapiens, society, the economy, technology, political organization, and the like is absolutely necessary for understanding and interpreting ethical doctrine.
Relationship to Epistemology and Metaphysics One of the influences on ethics is philosophy itself, the intellectual discipline of which ethical analysis is a component. The ethical analysis characteristic of a given historical period is not unrelated to the nature of the philosophical inquiry associated with the period. Two areas of philosophy of especial concern in this regard are (1) epistemology and (2) metaphysics.
Epistemology Epistemology concerns the nature and source of true knowledge: what is knowable and under what conditions? An epistemological issue is one involving the mechanics of knowledge acquisition and justification. The dominant epistemological orientation of contemporary, if not modem, philosophy is empiricism. The relationship of ethics to epistemology is clear-cut: ethics is subsidiary to epistemology. Ethical issues are constrained by epistemological considerations and limitations. This is true even if a particular ethical theorist does not adopt the currently dominant epistemological viewpoint, i.e., is an intuitionist with respect to the source of moral knowledge. The fundamental epistemological issue in the context of ethics is whether normative ethical knowledge is different from strictly descriptive nonethical knowledge.
Metaphysics Metaphysics focuses on the nature of reality and the kinds of substances out of which it is composed: what really exists? A metaphysical issue, currently at least, is one that transcends scientific resolution or logical analysis. The dominant metaphysical orientation of contemporary, if not modern, philosophy is a material or physical realism. The relationship of ethics to metaphysics is problematical. Some philosophers claim that ethics is subsidiary to metaphysics: the ethical universe is superimposed on an already given metaphysical universe. Other philosophers argue that metaphysics is subsidiary to ethics: the ultimate nature of reality is contingent on ethical considerations. Subsumed by the first view is the belief that the metaphysical universe is value-free; inherent in the second view is the assumption that the metaphysical universe is not value-free. My own belief is that, while the first view would constitute the ideal, in actuality metaphysics and ethics are so interminably intertwined they amount to co-ordinate, interpenetrating areas. The universe is both descriptive and normative concurrently; any
8 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality epistemological statement is both metaphysical and ethical simultaneously. The relationship of ethics to metaphysics in effect is both a metaphysical and ethical issue simultaneously. Relationship to Law or Jurisprudence and Religion or Theology Assuming that ethics and morality constitute separate, but overlapping domains, ethics
most often is confused with law and religion.
Because both these endeavors are as
multifaceted and infinitely descriptive as ethics, the relationship of ethics to them is complex. We only are going to focus on the more apparent aspects of the relationship in the context of the assumption that ethics merely is an intellectual, philosophical endeavor, while law and religion constitute virtual social institutions. Law Law in a sense amounts to an institutionalized morality: it specifically is the one associated
with civil authority.
Law is the official secular system of morality deriving from our
organization into various types and levels of political, governmental subdivisions, although the content and validity of the law transcends the state. This system of morality is characterized by five things: 1. The basic distinction between permissible and impermissible is operationalized in terms of legal and illegal. Illegal activities are those that break the law. 2. The body of law is constructed in terms of objective, third-person access properties of external behavior. An illegal act must exhibit various externally resolvable properties. 3. People committing illegal activities are subject to various sanctions or penalties, which can include forfeiture of money, personal freedom, or even life. 4. Sanctions or penalties can only be imposed after a trial proceedings which involves institutionalized and well-regulated sources and rules of evidence. 5. Law is universally recognized as necessary for the preservation of civilized society, but it cannot be presumed that this is the only purpose of the law. The relationship of ethics to law is the same as the relationship of ethics to any morality, as mentioned previously in the chapter: arbiter, justifier, clarifier, resolver, and the like.
The
direct influence of ethical doctrine on jurisprudence has been minimal historically: we typically don't consider a jurist to be an ethicist.
The purpose of law is not to formalize or
institutionalize abstract ethical doctrine. The notions of ethical and unethical do not covary with those of legal and illegal in any systematic or consistent way. Ethics at times has had a salutary ancillary effect on the law, as in the case of Bentham's utilitarianism. More recently, in the context of the British ordinary language analysis approach, distinctions and concepts in the English common law have served as models for ethical clarification. This reverses the prototypical relationship of ethics and law.
Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 9
Religion Religion is one mode of assigning meaning to life, the universe, or existence. This is done by an appeal to some divine being, or principle, that serves as the source, or justifier, of virtually everything. In the dominant Western religions at least, the notion of a deity has been formulated in such as way as to include both normative (value) and descriptive (existence) aspects. Any entity that is credited with creating the universe and human life also is supposed to be the embodiment of perfect goodness, virtue, concern, love, and the like. Such a being can be presumed to have definitive expectations about proper human conduct and how life should be lived. Religion interfaces with the domain of the ought hierarchy more at the level of morality than it does at the level of ethics. Religion either serves as the source of morality or is a morality. As we shall see later in the chapter, the over-all Hebraic-Christian tradition serves as the source of our common morality. The relationship of ethics to religion strictly is a matter of personal preference or belief. Some philosophers deem it necessary to provide ethical doctrine with a theological underpinning: it certainly is possible to advocate a "will of God" ethics. Other philosophers consider theology to be irrelevant for ethics: ethical doctrine need not possess any theological foundation. Unlike ethics, religion is a social institution with certain vested interests.
For a true
believer, religion is all-pervasive: it provides a pair of conceptual sunglasses that colors life and reality such that if ethical distinctions exist at all they are distinctly subsidiary to theology. For someone who is neutral with respect to religious belief or does not see any particular need for it, normative matters are not conditional on the existence of some divine being.
Relationship to Science The relationship of ethics to science involves more than the traditional normativedescriptive dichotomy or the naturalistic existential context in which ethics is embedded. According to Vargas, who takes a behavioristic approach to ethics, both the conduction of science and the practice of ethics are concerned with control. Control merely is a "buzz" word for how certain physical or psychological mechanisms operate.
Whenever a behavioral
psychologist uses the term "control," it is assumed for benign purposes or the betterment of humankind.
In other words, Vargas has an instrumentalist conception of both science and
ethics. But the sources and consequences of control differ in each case. In science, the immediate source of the controlling contingencies is nature, i.e., the physical environment. The goal of science is the attainment of stimulus control by properties of the environment, such that we know more about the world. In ethics, the immediate source of the controlling contingencies is us. Ethics deals with control of people by other people. It entails a body of practices which specify how this control should be exercised. The goal of ethics is the attainment of a benign social control by society at large, such that we can function more effectively as moral beings.
10 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality Contemporary Decentralization Contemporary ethical doctrine is quite fragmented: the discipline is decentralized. This is true at virtually every level of analysis: (1) specific models, (2) target population, (3) problem situations, (4) substantive content areas, and the like. For instance, we have medical ethics, business ethics, legal ethics, governmental ethics, reproductive ethics (or biogenetic engineering), psychotherapeutic ethics, scientific ethics, computer ethics, even battlefield ethics. It even has come to the point where each individual ethical sentence constitutes an analytical universe unto itself. This state of affairs parallels that of contemporary social science in general and psychology in particular, where there is not even agreement on the purpose and goals of the discipline. Decentralization has both advantages and disadvantages. The primary advantage is an increase in descriptive precision; the primary disadvantage is a decrease in explanatory comprehensiveness.
The next section details the consequences of decentralization in the
context of target population.
Reference Individual What constitutes the basic reference individual or group about which ethical distinctions and judgments are to be made; how general are ethical principles supposed to be? There is no absolute answer to these questions. 1. Ethics is the product of human consciousness, and the human being ordinarily is conceded to be the discipline's usual focus of concem. But the notion of a human being is not a technical or operationally definable one, and certainly the concept of a standard human being is vacuous. 2. Traditional Westem ethics at least is said to apply to everyone or be impersonal. But the inclusiveness, or generality, of the notion of everyone varies and tends to be contingent on relativistic, idiosyncratic factors. The primary intemal factors restricting the domain of everyone are age and cognitive status: the notion of everyone usually is limited to rational adults. Children and members of the abnormal population usually are considered to be beyond the realm of ethics. The primary extemal factor restricting the domain of everyone is group membership: the notion of everyone usually is limited to rational adults comprising a certain group. The notion of group can be defined variously: tribal affiliation, nationality, race, religion, sex typing, economic or political status, and the like. The notion of everyone in effect is a complex psychological-sociological one that is embedded in some ideological context. It can be defined in different ways to cater to various vested interests: most blatantly, it can be a tool of the establishment. At a more abstract level, everyone is not an ethically neutral term. Delineation of the domain of everyone is as much an ethical issue as determining the properties of good or right.
The notion of a basic reference
individual or group involves value judgments with unavoidable ethical consequences.
Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 11 3. Various competing ethical communities as well as noncompeting ethical populations exist in the context of contemporary decentralization. An example of the former would be abortion advocates versus the Roman Catholic Church; an example of the latter would be children versus adults. The goals or desires of competing ethical communities cannot both be met. For instance, if the Catholic Church's position on abortion were to be universally adopted, women would lose absolute control over their bodies. The goals or desires of noncompeting ethical populations ordinarily can both be met. For instance, society's protection of and special provisions for children in no way infringe on the privileges of adulthood. Folk Ethics
Does a folk ethics, analogous to folk psychology or folk medicine, exist?
Some
philosophers, such as Mandelbaum, presume so. What Mandelbaum means by folk ethics are the implicit, but enlightened, precepts of the moral consciousness of the general public. Interpreted this way, the notion of folk ethics would more appropriately be assigned to the morality level of our domain of the ought hierarchy. Folk ethics in effect really amounts to folk morality. Folk ethics is a critical notion for Mandelbaum because it serves as the ultimate reference point for evaluating abstract ethical doctrine.
Such doctrine must agree with the intuitive
precepts subsumed by folk ethics in order to be valid. MORALITY Morality is the level of the domain of the ought hierarchy of which the general public is most immediately aware. The average person tends to regard questions of right and wrong, virtue, good character, and the like as moral ones. Unlike the case of ethics, morality is neither conceptual nor solely conceptual in nature.
Morality is an ineluctable component of the
community to which one belongs: the notion of community can be variously defined. Morality is just as much a social phenomenon as a normative entity. Morality has to do with the everyday practices and beliefs that are regarded as necessary for a just and humane existence. It is doubtful that the unique defining property of morality can be reduced to one monolithic, universally accepted entity; however, morality historically either has been assigned a theological base or has been constructed around presumed salient features of human nature: moral precepts have been construed either as divine commands or as natural laws. Moral reality briefly will be abstracted in terms of (1) initial characterization, (2) basic reference point and goal, (3) Kant's two classes of duties, (4) common morality, (5) primary precept, (6) two thematic tensions, and (7) two kinds of moral judgments. Initial Characterization
It could be argued that the phenomenon of morality is universal; however, the substantive content of specific moralities is so varied that moral relativism seems to be the norm: there
12 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality might be some underlying absolute necessity associated with morality, but its numerous manifestations need have nothing in common. A morality entails a system of precepts of some degree of formality that specifies proper conduct, preferred qualities of character, typically approved goals, and the like, all of which must be relative to a given community. Moral precepts guide and regulate behavior. The relationship of morality to human action in general easily can be misconstrued: (1) Morality is not the sole or even the primary determinant of human behavior; and (2) rarely is an individual cognizant of moral considerations when choosing among various altemative courses of action. Morality really is a way of codifying the consequences of our humanity: it specifies what is permissible and impermissible for us by virtue of the fact that we are human beings (or creatures that might possess a special relationship to some divine being). This aspect of morality is highlighted by the fact that the natural universe which we inhabit, i.e., the material world that sustains us as biological entities, is morally neutral. Explosions, disease, famine, fire, flood, and the like can have dire consequences. None of these events ever is prevented from happening simply because human beings could regard its effect(s) to be immoral. Morality is superimposed on the physical world by a human intelligence that limits its applicability to events that are mediated by human activity and choice. Using psychological terminology, moral precepts do not serve as significant sources of behavioral control. There is a huge discrepancy between abstract moral dicta and actual dayto-day practices: immorality abounds. This should not be surprising for two reasons: (1) Morality merely constitutes an ideal, something to strive for; and (2) the consequences of immorality in contemporary society at least are desultory, i.e., there are no really meaningful sanctions that currently are triggered by instances of immorality. Basic Reference Point and Goal
Moral precepts can center on the individual person, the self, or the members of a group, others or significant others. A focus on the self is associated with the principle of culture, whereby a person is encouraged to strive for self-realization or increase its well-being. A concern for the self is considered to be a rational and/or prudent goal, one that is derivative of classical Greek philosophy. Personal welfare served as the cornerstone of pre-Christian morality; however, it typically was assumed that the well-being of the self also contributed to a general well-being or the social welfare. A focus on others can take two forms: (1) one's immediate social or reference group or (2) the generalized other, i.e., every other member of the human race beyond the self. 1. A focus on other group members generates the principle of loyalty, whereby a person is obligated to strive for the fulfillment of the wishes and interests of the group. A concem for other group members is regarded as altruistic. This kind of morality is reminiscent of primitive tribal cultures, which implicitly possessed an ingroup versus outgroup mentality.
Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 13 2. A focus on the generalized other is associated with the principle of beneficence or benevolence, whereby the individual is supposed to strive for the well-being of any and every human being. This concern is derivative of Christian morality which preaches agape, an impartial good will directed at one's fellow human beings. The Christian exhortation is to love God and your neighbor as yourself. The concern for others associated with this focus is not based on social, psychological, or anthropological considerations; rather it devolves from the presumed nature of humanity and its possible relationship to or understanding of some divine being.
Personal Fulfillment Versus Social Welfare The issue of whether morality should be directed toward personal fulfillment or the general welfare is complex and not easily resolvable. 1. It cannot be assumed that either aim is derivable from the other: personal fulfillment does not guarantee general happiness, nor does over-all societal welfare guarantee personal happiness. 2. Because morality is a social phenomenon, i.e., moral precepts only exist relative to some kind of community of people, a purely pragmatic approach to morality would have to emphasize a social welfare focus. 3. The only way to justify a personal welfare focus would involve appeal to the argument that each individual person somehow is special, either as a property of humanity or in relation to some teleological, especially theological, view of the universe. 4. As will become evident in later chapters, the self and significant other constitute technical psychological notions, neither of which can be regarded as more fundamental than the other. Kant's Two Classes of Duties
It is commonplace to characterize the substance of morality in terms of duty or obligation. Not only do possible duties or obligations to the self and others exist, but also Kant emphasized a distinction between (1) duties of perfect obligation and (2) duties of imperfect obligation. 1. Duties of perfect obligation are primary and absolute. They presumably are ideal candidates for universalization, Kant's classic criterion for determining the correctness of a possible moral precept (see Chapter 8). Donagan treats them as prohibitory in nature: they are most conveniently stated in the negative. For instance, it is impermissible to lie under any circumstances. This class of duties appeals to those people whose concern for others derives from loyalty: specifically stated "nevers" help stabilize and maintain social organization. 2. Duties of imperfect obligation entail desirable, but provisional, actions or end states. They function as nonspecific, open-ended commands. For instance, it is desirable for a person to extend charity to a specific individual or under all circumstances. This class of duties is
14 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
emphasized by those people whose concern for others is motivated by agape: benevolence is to be expected from an individual possessing impartial good will. A perfect obligation always overrides an imperfect one in cases where these two classes of duties conflict. It is never permissible for a duty of imperfect obligation to be executed by an action which is specifically prohibited by a duty of perfect obligation. The age-old dictum that a good end cannot be pursued by evil means merely is a conceptual extension of this perfect duty-imperfect duty relationship.
Common Morality By common morality is meant the everyday received morality accepted by the Westem world. It even would be appropriate supposedly to deem common morality "folk morality" (see the prior discussion on "folk ethics"). While common morality at an informal level tends to be identified with the moral tenets of Christianity, i.e., the Hebraic-Christian tradition, it actually possesses three components that function as guiding principles: 1. An enlightened concern for the self, as reflected in the notion that personal happiness, wellbeing, or self-realization constitutes a desirable end goal. 2. A conditional or reciprocal regard for others, as manifested in socially co-operative behavior, contractual relationships and obligations, promise keeping, and the like. 3. An unconditional respect for others, i.e., impartial good will, agape, or virtual reverence for humanity, culminating in charity, self-sacrifice, good deeds as ends in themselves, and the like. Common morality is much less restrictive than its detractors realize. For instance, smoking, alcoholism, neglecting to take advantage of educational opportunities, pure laziness, and the like are not immoral although they inhibit self-realization; killing and suicide are acceptable courses of action in many contexts; broken promises are readily glossed over in extenuating circumstances.
Primary Precept Most people agree that common morality possesses a primary precept; however, there is lack of agreement on how it is best expressed. The issue in effect is not whether a primary precept exists, but rather the degree to which the various versions of it correspond. Probably the most pervasive and ubiquitous version of the primary precept is the so-called Golden Rule: do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. This principle also can be stated negatively. The Golden Rule obviously is devoid of specific moral content. It merely tells you to treat people as you would have them treat you. The basic moral proposition tapped by this version is that two or more moral agents should be related in a symmetrical fashion: they should possess the same moral status with respect to each other. Kant captured the essence of the Golden Rule at a more formal level: act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.
Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 15 Another rendering of the primary precept is the general Christian dictum: love God and your neighbor as yourself. This version is more figurative than the Golden Rule. In essence it means that you should honor and revere God and treat other people with impartial good will. As is the case with the Golden Rule, this dictum does not offer specific moral advice. It merely tells you the general stance you should adopt in dealing with other people.
Kant has a
particularly cogent characterization of this stance: act so that you treat humanity, in your own person or that of another, always as an end, and never as a means only. The structure of the Golden Rule and the Christian dictum are identical. In each case, (1) the basic reference point is the self, which serves as the criterion of acceptability of some specified course of action; and (2) the object of the action is a generalized or significant other. The precepts do ostensibly differ with respect to the content of the specified course of action, i.e., "do unto" versus "love." But the behavioral effects of these two directives should be the same; namely, treating others with dignity and respect.
Two Thematic Tensions Moral reality is characterized by two opposing themes, or thematic tensions, that are only incidentally related to the personal fulfillment-social welfare dichotomy: moral doctrine can emphasize either (1) duty/obligation or (2) pleasure/fulfillment. 1. An obligation focus makes morality an extemally imposed entity. Duties and obligations are imposed on the individual, such that the execution of moral rules often requires the repression or denial of some fundamental human desires or interests. Kant even goes so far as to argue that something is not our duty unless it is contrary to our interests. In the context of this focus, morality is an absolute property of an entity; and the distinction between the moral and nonmoral is made via an appeal to formal, relational, or logical criteria. 2. A fulfillment focus makes morality an inherent property of the human condition.
The
purpose of morality is to fulfill our desires, interests, and the like, i.e., to promote pleasure and well-being. There is no inherent or necessary conflict between duty and interest. In the context of this focus, morality is a relative or contingent property of an entity; and the distinction between the moral and nonmoral involves an appeal to material or substantive conditions that constitute the usual objects of interest of the traditional social sciences: people, society, culture, habits, practices, and the like.
Two Types of Moral Judgments A distinction traditionally is made between (1) first order and (2) second order moral judgments. 1. First order moral judgments involve the rightness or wrongness of acts in and of themselves, regardless of who the performer of the act is. The individual committing the act is not the reference point; rather the specific content of the act is the focus. An act is
16 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality treated as an objective event in the universe, i.e., as a proper object of third-person access and analysis. First order precepts in effect deal with the material permissibility of acts. 2. Second order moral judgments pertain to the rightness or wrongness of an individual in performing a certain act. The reference point is the doer. What is at issue is the culpability or inculpability of the doer. An act in this context is more than an objective event in the universe: one or more aspects of the doer, such as its motive, intention, goal, desire, and the like, must be appealed to in order to fully interpret and comprehend the act. In other words, the existential status of the act from the doer's own subjective point of view must be taken into account: an act is treated formally as whatever is connoted by the doer's description of what is occurring. Second order moral precepts in effect deal with the formal permissibility of acts. First and second order moral judgments often conflict, because the material and formal descriptive interpretations of an act need not correspond. For instance, an act considered materially may be classified as stealing, while the same event is treated formally by the doer as an instance of borrowing: e.g., using a neighbor's lawn mower on a Saturday afternoon without permission. HUMAN CONDUCT The kinds of events about which ethical/moral judgments are made must be ascribable to human beings: they are overt actions or inferences based on overt actions, such as mental states, traits, qualities of character, and the like. Human conduct and whatever legitimately can be inferred from it constitute the basic epiphenomena of ethics and the first level of the domain of the ought hierarchy. Conduct is a fancy term for what people do.
A social scientist in general and a
psychologist in particular are more apt to refer to this doing as behavior; a humanist in general and a philosopher in particular are more likely to refer to this doing as action. Conduct, behavior, and action constitute congruent, but not necessarily equivalent, notions. We merely preview the notion of conduct in this section to simplify matters somewhat and will not consider the problem of legitimate inferences until later in Chapters 5 and 6. Our aim is (1) to demonstrate the open-endedness of the concept of conduct and (2) to show how different historical conceptions of action constrain ethical reality.
Open-Endedness Although human conduct is the implicit focus of virtually every social science, it is an explicit object of concern for the psychologist. It now is fairly well accepted that the explicit task of psychology is to resolve the nature of human behavior, especially that of the individual organism, treated as an analytical entity. This is one reason why an ethical reality must be superimposed on a logically prior psychological reality. Conduct is not really a given in our perceptual consciousness: we only see instances of conduct because we have been trained to do so in the context of some implicit characterization
Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 17 of it. Descriptions of conduct cannot occur in a conceptual vacuum. Conduct is a theoretical construct: there are as many conceptions of human conduct as there are people who feel the need to theorize about it. The number of perspectives from which conduct can be resolved is endless, because the notion of human conduct is embedded in a more comprehensive framework that encompasses human nature, society and custom, free will and determinism, mentation or cognition, moral responsibility, physiological processes, and the like. One aspect of the conceptual framework that usually is employed to explain instances of human conduct is origin: what is the etiology of conduct? In fact, the denotative content of human conduct rarely, if ever, is resolved independently of its presumed cause.
This will
become apparent in the next section.
Some Illustrative Historical Conceptions It is necessary to unpack the notion of etiology in greater detail to generate some representative conceptual approaches to conduct. Specifically, let us assume that the presumed primary or sole cause of conduct can be classified according to two binary-valued input dimensions, which when made orthogonal to each other establish four mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories of causes.
This etiological classificational scheme generates a 2 x 2
output table, to each cell of which many different conceptions of behavior could potentially be assigned. See Figure 1-2. LOCATION OF CAUSE
NONPHYSICAL
INTERNAL
EXTERNAL
FOLK PSYCHOLOGY
PRIMITIVE ANIMISM
SUBSTANTIVE NATURE OF CAUSE PHYSIOLOGICAL MATERIALISM PHYSICAL COGNITIVE
RADICAL BEHAVIORISM
PSYCHOLOGY
Figure 1-2: Some etiological approaches to conduct
18 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality The two input dimensions are (1) location of cause and (2) substantive content of cause. Location can be either internal or external. Internal essentially means within the organism under the skin; external means outside the organism in the external environment. Substantive content can best be abstracted in terms of nonphysical versus physical. A nonphysical entity is not a real-time, real-space event; a physical entity is part of the naturally occurring universe. Thus, the four categorical types of causes are (1) internal nonphysical, (2) internal physical, (3) external nonphysical, and (4) external physical: any event serving as a causal source of conduct must be uniquely assignable to one of these categories. The internal-external dimension is correlated with the classic free will versus determinism issue: determinism presupposes external causes of behavior, while only internal causation allows behavior to be self-generated.
The distinction between nonphysical and physical
accounts of conduct corresponds to that between informal, predisciplinary and formal, professional psychological accounts of behavior: the source of behavior must be physical in contemporary monistically oriented academic, experimental psychology.
The internal
nonphysical category serves as the implicit reference point for most traditional ethical doctrine because it views the human being as a self-willed creature, responsible for its conduct. What currently appears in each output cell of Figure 1-2 merely is the most representative, i.e., historically most significant or currently dominant, conceptual approach to conduct associated with that cell. The main diagonal cells generate (1) folk psychology and (2) radical behaviorism; the negative diagonal cells produce (1) physiological materialism and cognitive or epistemological psychology and (2) primitive animism, which is the logical approach to consider first.
Primitive Animism The notion of an extemally sourced nonphysical cause of conduct might seem anomalous in a contemporary context; however, it was not such in the days when no distinction was made between inanimate and animate motion and it was assumed that various kinds of spiritual entities inhabited physical objects and bodies and made them move. The rustling of leaves on a tree, the continuous flow of river water, the movement of a human in space were all due to possession by some invisible, noncorporeal entity, such as a demon, soul, or the like. These various kinds of nonphysical entities are classified as externally sourced because they were assumed to have an independent existence and could flit around from one physical body to another. Primitive animism constitutes a dead end for ethical doctrine for a number of reasons: 1. It contains no formal theory of action. Action at best is nothing but physical movement, and physical movement is not unique to the human being. 2. Explanatory animistic entities are circular in nature. They amount to redescriptions of the phenomena to be explained at another, presumably higher, level of reality. To say that human movement is the result of possession by a spiritual entity explains nothing: it merely extends ignorance to another level of reality.
Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 19 3. In primitive animism the important ethical entities are not human beings or their exhibited activity, but rather the spiritual entities serving as the source of human action: there are good and bad spirits, which serve as the source of good and bad acts. 4. The causal determinism inherent in primitive animism is random, capricious, nonrational, or emotional.
Animism breeds superstition, which in turn leads to magicalism as the
primary behavioral control technique. Human beings are at the mercy of spiritual forces that must be courted and appeased. Ethical behavior is not so much a matter of proactive choice, but rather long-term patience or survival. We have continually referred to the animistic doctrine as primitive, not because it is simplistic (which it is), but rather because it is characteristic of so-called primitive tribal cultures. The world view associated with a typical primordial tribe does not allow a high-level, abstract ethics. Morality tends to be equated with custom, and the basic ethical distinction involves a personalistic us versus them dichotomy.
By and large the moral code of the
primitive tends to be instrumental and utilitarian in nature.
Folk Psychology The internal, nonphysical category generates numerous versions of an informal, commonsense, folk psychology, the distinguishing characteristic of which is the assumption that overt action is the mere extension or by-product of one's state of mind. A specific instance of conduct in effect represents the expression of at least one mental state. A mental state is classified as internally sourced because it is a property of the individual person and has no existence independent of the person; and it is categorized as nonphysical here because the Cartesian interpretation of mind is implicitly assumed in folk psychology. The number and variety of possible mental states in folk psychology are infinite. Philosophical analysis suggests that there are two basic classes of mental states that create action: beliefs and desires. Beliefs are cognitive items, while desires are motivational entities. A given instance of behavior could possess both a cognitive and a motivational component. Folk psychology has at least two drawbacks: 1. It often leads to inconsistent, or contradictory, predictions: sometimes it works; sometimes it does not work. This state of affairs should not be surprising, given the fact that folk psychology amounts to folklore, whose validity status is personalistic or idiosyncratic and intuitive or superficial. 2. The notions of mental state and action are codetermined entities in folk psychology: they are circularly defined in terms of each other.
Mental states are inferred from the
observation of certain actions, and certain events qualify as actions because they are relatable to certain mental states. A belief, desire, and action in effect constitute an all-ornone, indissoluble triad. Because an action merely is an extension of a person's state of mind in folk psychology, knowledge of the person's state of mind is necessary to identify instances of action. Only the person committing an act has direct, or first-person, access to its mental states. The onlookers
20 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality to a piece of behavior only can make indirect, or third-person, inferences with respect to the performer's state of mind. Either of these conditions makes the notion of action a completely subjective one in the context of folk psychology.
First-person access reports are beyond
reliability and validity assessment; the content of third-person inferences can be in error. In folk psychology an action in effect is whatever an individual says it is doing or intends to be doing. The basic evaluative reference point for an action is internal. It certainly is possible for a person's descriptive conception of its act to disagree with the descriptive conception of the act derived from third-person inference. Folk psychology considers the individual human being to be an agent, or more specifically, a moral agent. Agency means that action is self-generated: the actual producer of action is the individual organism, conceived as an autonomous creature. The human being possesses free will and is morally responsible for its actions. Folk psychology interfaces very nicely with traditional Hebraic-Christian morality, as well as the deontological tradition in ethics with its stress on duties and obligations.
Physiological Materialism; Cognitive Psychology The internal, physical category generates such conceptual approaches to conduct as physiological materialism and cognitive psychology. Conduct perennially has been related to structural parts and dynamic processes of the body and to cognitive events presumed to be occurring in the brain; however, it only has been in the last century that these organismic events have been given a strictly physical, or material, interpretation and considered to be accessible to scientific investigation. It is possible for a mental state to exist in the context of this cell, but it must be given some representation as a non-Cartesian, physicalistic, physiological or cognitive entity. Contemporary physiological psychology and cognitive psychology do not put limitations on the notion of conduct above and beyond those associated with academic, experimental psychology in general. Research psychologists in fact prefer to treat the notions of conduct and action as undefined terms and focus on instances of behavior that can be used to (1) identify the existence of a specific action or (2) quantify the frequency of occurrence of a specific action. Another way of stating this is to point out that the typical experimental psychologist will willingly deal with a piece of behavior from an external, third-person access framework without ever evaluating or justifying this framework via reference to the mental state or intention of the individual performing the behavior. The advent of technical physiological and cognitive psychology certainly has not revolutionized the process of construction of an ethical reality; however, it has both broadened and refined the domain of ethical problems and issues. For instance, increased physiological knowledge and enhanced physiological technology literally have created the area of bioethics, encompassing such subissues as reproductive ethics, genetic engineering, organ transplant ethics, and even the very definition of life itself; increased cognitive knowledge and its utilization via computer modeling and computer simulation have created ethical problems in all
Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 21 sorts of areas: computer privacy, job loss and restructuring due to automation, educational opportunities and performance expectations for the developmentally disadvantaged and the like. Radical Behaviorism
The prototypical conceptual approach that treats conduct as an exclusive function of external, physical input is descriptive behaviorism, of which B.F. Skinner's radical version constitutes the best contemporary exemplar.
The critical feature of any descriptive
behaviorism is the assumption that stimulus and response events exhaust the psychological universe: only two metaphysical categories of existence are necessary to characterize psychological reality. Any presumed psychological entity, even a traditional mental event, must be assignable to either a stimulus or response category. What makes Skinner different from other descriptive behaviorists, such as John Watson, is his willingness to admit the existence of mental events; however, he regards them strictly as epiphenomenal in nature: they are just as much output as overt behavior is. Mental events in effect constitute internal responses which set up discriminative stimuli to which the person is selectively attentive due to reinforcement contingencies under the control of the surrounding verbal culture: we must learn to verbalize what is occurring "in our minds." For Skinner, an instance of conduct straightway is a piece of behavior, which in turn is some response instance from some response class. A response class is defined functionally; that is, in terms of its effect on the environment. Physiological movements or activities that have the same effect on the environment are members of the same response class.
The
meaning of a given response class always is assigned via third-person access according to some external criterion. An effect on the environment can be termed a consequence. There are two critical classes of consequences for Skinner: (1) reward or positive reinforcement and (2) punishment. The crux of Skinner's radical behaviorism is the proposition that virtually all significant responses that a human being can exhibit are potentially under the control of reward and punishment contingencies. The human being merely is the locus of certain variables, not a moral agent. Skinner's dynamics involve determinism, but it is a bidirectional one according to which the individual organism and the environment constantly are mutually influencing each other. The implications of Skinnerian psychology for ethical reality are enormous, and Skinner himself has mapped the traditional ethical distinctions onto his psychological universe: e.g., moral precept, good, bad, rights, obligations, duties, justice, fairness, and the like.
He
postulates no new or radical normative principles; rather he simply relabels the fundamental epistemological entities of his system in the framework of the over-all instrumentalist, utilitarian philosophical tradition. The unique aspects of Skinner's ethical prescriptions derive from his rejection of the individual organism as an efficacious moral agent (autonomous man in his terminology) and his construal of moral action as a property of the holistic, physical or
22 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality naturalistic system to which we belong. A brief summary and analysis of Skinnerian ethics will appear in Chapter 9.
2
PSYCHOLOGY- PROLEGOMENA
While ethics constitutes a component of the domain of the ought, the discipline of psychology, especially since its institutionalization about a century ago, is supposed to be descriptive in nature: it presumably focuses on facts, empirical givens, and the like, eschewing any formal concern with values. Yet the discipline of psychology and ethical matters are intimately intertwined because ethical reality must be superimposed on a logically prior psychological universe, as one aspect of the all-pervasive social scientific stance of twentieth century thought and culture. Psychology is just as pluralistic as ethics is, if not more so. Accordingly, our preview of the discipline will focus on (1) its existential status, (2) its possible goals, (3) various conceptual types of psychology, (4) ways in which the human organism can serve as an object of psychological analysis, and (5) possible defining characteristics of a psychological event.
EXISTENTIAL STATUS: PURE VERSUS APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY The discipline of psychology exists both as an end in itself and as a means to other ends. As an end in itself, psychology is an independent, institutionalized, academic discipline, or intellectual endeavor, concerned with the nature of psychological reality. As a means to other ends, psychology is a professional discipline, or delivery system, seeking to apply established psychological doctrine to problems believed amenable to solution by active psychological intervention. Disciplinary psychology in effect exists in two forms: (1) pure, academic, or experimental and (2) applied or professional. Experimental psychologists conduct basic research in such traditional substantive areas as sensation, perception, learning and conditioning, motivation, physiological, and comparative, typically without regard for the possible practical applicability of their research findings.
Applied psychology consists of such substantive subareas as
clinical, abnormal, psychoanalytic psychology, behavioral medicine, forensic psychology, counseling, industrial, community psychology, vocational, child, educational, and military psychology. Such areas as developmental and social are more equivocal, possessing both pure and applied aspects. Not every psychologist would agree with this rather strict dichotomization between pure and applied psychology. Many experimental psychologists consider the results of basic
24
A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
laboratory research to be inherently applicable to the behavior occurring in the natural environment; and certainly many psychologists who classify themselves as applied in orientation conduct high-level, meaningful research possessing theoretical significance. Granted that there is much overlap between pure and applied psychology, the distinction is relevant for a number of compelling reasons: 1. The historical roots of the two forms of psychology differ. Academic, experimental psychology derived from the synthesis of epistemological philosophy, experimental physiology, and sensory psychophysics. This synthesis was accomplished in Germany around 1880 under the aegis of Wilhelm Wundt as a result of certain social/sociological factors. The original establishment of psychology as an academic discipline merely represented a professional realignment in the disciplinary boundaries of those academicians interested in the mind: Wundt's brand of psychology, contemporarily known as structuralism, eschewed any practical application value of a pure science of consciousness. Applied, professional psychology derives from our perennial interest in human nature and the general cultural belief that interventionist actions are beneficial. Applied psychology in a sense is a reflection of the over-all pragmatic and utilitarian orientation of American culture and society. The establishment of psychology as a profession outside the confines of academia is implicit in Freudian psychoanalytic psychology circa 1885, but each type of applied psychology mentioned above has its own specific historical roots. For instance, the emergence of clinical psychology is associated with the distinctive nineteenth century French conception of psychopathology and abnormality characteristic of Charcot and Janet. 2. Academic, experimental psychology traditionally has served as the conceptual basis of applied psychology. Experimental psychologists like to think that how they constrain the nature of psychological reality determines the appropriateness of specific psychological interventionist techniques. When the substance of psychology is analyzed at a philosophical level, usually it is academic psychology that constitutes the basic reference point: for instance, behaviorism, Gestalt psychology, conditioning as a world view, the organism as an information processor, and the like. 3. The value system of an experimental psychologist teaching at a college or university is vastly different from that of an applied psychologist working in a nonacademic setting. An academic psychologist's basic aim is to generate and disseminate new research data and theoretical concepts; an experimental psychologist solely wants to be judged as some kind of knowledge specialist: researcher, instructor, intellectual synthesizer, or theorist.
An
applied psychologist's basic aim is to effect benign psychological change in a context that usually only allows reasonable prediction in an advocate type of setup; the typical applied psychologist likes to be appreciated and evaluated primarily as a component of the helping profession. These two forms of psychology really involve two incompatible goals: pursuit of abstract truth versus facilitation of psychological salvation. It is not uncommon for a prospective graduate student in psychology to actually feel a tug between these two aims.
Psychology: Prolegomena 25 4. The relative importance of pure and applied psychology for the over-all discipline has changed: the basic force driving the discipline has shifted from pure to applied. Professional psychology in America currently enjoys more governmental, economic, and social support than experimental psychology does. The heyday of indiscriminate governmental financial support for pure social science research is over; academic psychology barely is holding its own in the currently depressed state of education; job openings for psychologists are predominantly in the applied areas; the American Psychological Association, which is the overweaning national professional organization, basically is oriented to the needs and concerns of the psychological practitioner; the significant pragmatic and ethical issues of our time relate directly to applied, not experimental, psychology. 5. Palpable conflict currently exists between pure and applied psychologists, as evidenced by the recent withdrawal of a significant number of academicians from the American Psychological Association and formation of the American Psychological Society, an act designed to more cogently address the interests and concerns of the experimental psychologist. This situation is highlighted by the fact that there is very little conflict between the epistemological and technological aspects of the hard-core physical sciences because their pure and applied aspects constitute separate professions: for instance, physicist versus engineer or physiologist versus medical doctor. POSSIBLE GOALS Psychology is far from a monolithic entity at the conceptual level. The discipline can be construed as possessing at least five possible loci of interest, which henceforth simply will be referred to as goals. These various goals are important because they are indicative of and associated with different conceptual types of psychology. No significance should be attached to the order in which the goals/conceptual types are introduced below. 1. To resolve the nature of the mind or aspects of the mind: the content of conscious experience, both perceptual and introspective; consciousness; thinking; cognitive processes in general; and various kinds of mental states. This focus establishes the notion of epistemological psychology, although contemporarily it is more often termed cognitive psychology, and places psychology within a time-honored philosophical tradition: the mental or epistemological philosophizing characteristic of Descartes; British empiricism, e.g., Locke, Berkeley, Hume; and Kant. Although practical application extensions are possible within the epistemological focus, this type of psychology is conducted primarily as an intellectual endeavor. 2. To understand the nature of organismic adaptation to the surrounding physical and social world: this goal requires an implicit or explicit focus on overt behavior. This behavioral focus is implicit in an approach such as functionalism, e.g., Angell and Carr, that considers adaptation to be the result of the efficacy and utility of consciousness, i.e., causal mental activity. It is explicit in any form of behaviorism, e.g., Watson, Skinner, Hull, Guthrie, and
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
Tolman. Concern for adaptation establishes the notion of action psychology and puts psychology squarely in the Darwinian evolutionary tradition. The intellectual and practical application aspects of psychology are indistinguishable in action psychology. 3. To understand the psychological world of the individual organism, particularly as it relates to its goals, self-image, feeling states, and quality and degree of self-awareness in general: this focus establishes the notion of understanding psychology and places psychology in the general Continental phenomenological and Verstehen traditions, i.e., Husserl and Dilthey. Although intellectual goals are definable within a phenomenological, Verstehen focus, this type of psychology constitutes an applied endeavor in the United States and is typified by so-called humanistic psychology or the third force movement, e.g., Giorgi, Rogers, and Maslow. 4. To resolve the nature of the individual organism as a psychic entity: this goal postulates the existence of a psychological universe within each individual seething with instinctual and unconscious forces. Conceptualizing the organism as a psychodynamic entity establishes the notion of depth psychology, of which Freudian psychoanalysis constitutes the prototypical case. Depth psychology does not place the discipline in any particular historical or philosophical framework, other than perhaps a medical one: the notion of the human organism as a distinct psychological entity is indigenous to this approach. The intellectual and practical application aspects of psychology are indistinguishable in depth psychology. 5. To comprehend the organism as a point in a vast historical-cultural space, both subject to and contributory to various dialectical forces and developments: this focus establishes the notion of dialectical psychology, as promulgated by Riegel in America, and places psychology in the Hegelian, Marxist philosophical tradition. The intellectual and practical application aspects of psychology are indistinguishable in dialectical psychology. CONCEPTUAL TYPES The preceding section informally introduced five conceptual types of psychology: (1) epistemological, (2) action, (3) understanding, (4) depth, and (5) dialectical. In addition to specifying a characteristic goal for the discipline, each conceptual type (1) provides its own distinctive view of the nature of the psychological universe, (2) tends to emphasize one psychological process or a small set of psychological processes to the exclusion of others, (3) assigns a particular nature and status to mental events, and (4) serves as a functional umbrella for various systems and subsystems of psychology. It is this functional umbrella feature that will occupy our attention here. The technical psychological literature tends to focus more on the notion of a system than that of conceptual type; however, they merely are opposite sides of the same coin. A psychologist usually constructs a system or subsystem, not a conceptual type. But a system amounts to a physical representation of a conceptual type, and a conceptual type does not exist independently of its associated systems. For instance, action psychology primarily is
Psychology: Prolegomena 27 physicalized via myriad behavioristic systems. A system can be characterized as a specific philosophical, primarily metaphysical, approach to psychology that prescribes both its proper object of study and appropriate methodology: a system is a constellation of various philosophical assumptions about reality, knowledge, humanity, and the like that has implications for the psychological universe. This section briefly reviews the primary systems associated with each conceptual type.
Epistemological The first recognized system of experimental psychology, structuralism, was of the epistemological type. It focused on the content of conscious experience, through the firstperson access of highly trained, verbally facile graduate students. Its object of study represented a technical, professional adjustment by Wilhelm Wundt, who combined the talents of an epistemologically oriented philosopher and an experimental physiologist in the empirical study of the structure of the mind.
Structuralism constituted a pure psychology, with no
practical application relevance, and succeeded in effecting psychology's acceptance by the academic community as a legitimate intellectual discipline. Although the seeds of structuralism were planted in the United States by Titchener, the practical orientation of American culture fostered a concern for the utility of consciousness that was physically realized in the context of a loosely formulated epistemological system called functionalism, i.e., Angell and Carr. An organism's overt behavior in this system was related to the activities of consciousness as it presumed causal source. Functionalism provided the necessary context for America's interest in mental testing, child and adolescent psychology, educational psychology, effective teaching and learning techniques, and the like. Gestalt psychology, e.g., Wertheimer, Koffka, and K/3hler, was a formal, academically oriented cognitive system that revolutionized the psychology of perception, kept the epistemological focus alive during the heyday of descriptive behaviorism, and functioned as a germinal form of humanistic, phenomenological psychology. It served as an antithesis to the molecular, associationistic focus of both structuralism and functionalism at a conceptual level. Probably the ultimate significance of Gestalt psychology is ancillary to its status as an epistemological system. It was both a product of German rationality and intellectualism and a casualty of German irrationality and racism. The history of the Gestalt movement should serve as an eternal reminder that the discipline of psychology exists at the whim of the governmental institution. Cognitive behaviorism constitutes the dominant contemporary American physical realization of an epistemological psychology. It effects a third-person access to mentation by employing a computer-brain analogy at both a conceptual, or modeling, and an evaluational, or methodological, level. Cognitive behaviorism often is called the information processing approach and is an advanced, or more sophisticated, form of functionalism with overt behavior related to highly formalized and codified mental events.
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
Piagetian structural, genetic-epistemological psychology mapped the rational, intellectual side of our nature, just as Freud did for the irrational, instinctual components. It constitutes the canonical cognitive-developmental system to which other conceptual approaches to mentation invariably are compared. Piaget's system continues the traditional Continental emphasis on mind and epistemology: structuralism, act psychology, Gestalt psychology, and the like. It also derived from the general Kantian framework in which structure, both in a logical and physical realization sense, is regarded as a necessary component of anyone's world view. Piagetian thought transcends psychology and is unorthodox by strict behavioristic, experimental standards; but this fact makes Piaget similar to Freud in that his contributions to intellectual history belie his classification as a mere psychologist.
Action This type of psychology fills the need for an objectively based, experimentally oriented psychology by focusing on overt behavior as the basic object of interest. Functionalism constituted an implicit action system and served as a necessary transitional school between structuralism and Watsonian behaviorism. Any kind of behaviorism is an action psychology. Watsonian and Skinnerian behaviorism are strictly descriptive in nature, in the sense that external, physical stimulus events exhaust the causal sources of behavior. Logical behaviorism, or learning macrotheory, i.e., Hull and Guthrie, relates overt behavior to postulated internal events, most of which are assumed peripheral in nature. Cognitive behaviorism, in the tradition of Tolmanian learning theory, relates overt behavior to presumed internal, central brain events. Descriptive behaviorism, especially the Skinnerian variety, constitutes an applied psychology par excellence: for instance, behavior therapy, contingency management, token economies, self-help programs, and programmed learning. Skinner's emphasis on operant conditioning affords a pre-emptory degree of control of behavior. Because Skinnerian psychology de-emphasizes the specific type of organism exhibiting behavior, it permits a methodologically viable animal psychology. Commercial animal training, animal psychophysiology, animal psychopharmacology, and animal psychophysics are made possible by Skinnerian operant conditioning techniques.
Understanding This kind of psychology is best exemplified in a contemporary context by humanistic, phenomenological, existential psychology, i.e., Maslow, Rogers, Keen, Giorgi. First-person access to the content of an organism's emotional consciousness, or general feeling state, is used to infer the quality and degree of its self-awareness, the nature of its over-all adjustment to life, and the like. Humanistic psychology literally constructs the psychological world in which each individual exists. It is a conceptual extension of Gestalt psychology and represents a rebirth of interest in consciousness after decades of neglect due to the dominance of descriptive
Psychology: Prolegomena 29 behaviorism. Although empirical in nature, humanistic psychology is not an experimental system and basically amounts to a form of therapeutic intervention.
Depth Many variants of depth psychology exist, although Freudian psychoanalysis constitutes the canonical form. Depth psychology has no formal concept of behavior and de-emphasizes rational, cognitive mentation occurring at the level of immediate awareness. It regards the individual organism as a psychic entity, subject to conflicting strivings, wishes, and forces, many of which are assumed to be unconscious. The psychological universe is strictly localized within the skin and subsumes a psychodynamic system incorporating psychic determinism. Psychoanalysis possesses a tremendous degree of face validity for the general public. It has an immense influence on those disciplines that focus on the individual organism as the unit of analysis: for instance, art, literature, drama, history, and theology. Psychoanalysis heavily interfaces with the personality, developmental, and motivational areas of mainstream psychology.
Freud put the psychogenic approach to abnormality and therapy on the
psychological map. It was psychoanalysis, not one of the academic systems, that originally proffered the notion that the human organism is a psychological entity and that a characteristically unique psychological reality exists.
Dialectical This type of psychology is indigenous to Russia; however, beginning in the late 1960s, Klaus Riegel constructed an American version in an attempt to combine the objective orientation of behaviorism and the subjective orientation of humanistic psychology. What resulted was a hybrid cognitive-developmental psychology, quite similar to Skinner's descriptivism. Dialectical psychology at this point in time is strictly an academic system, although its potential practical application relevance is unlimited because it conceives of the individual organism as a point in a combined historical-cultural, or developmental-social environmental, space. WAYS IN W H I C H W E CAN SERVE AS OBJECTS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS The particular perspective from which we are studied, or the role that the human being plays in the construction of the psychological universe, is arbitrary and admits of numerous interpretations. To simplify the discussion, it will be assumed that a person can serve as an object of psychological analysis in any one of three broadly conceived, but mutually exclusive, ways: (1) means, (2) end, or (3) means and end.
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Means
The individual person is analyzed as a means to another end and does not constitute a unit of analysis. The psychological subject merely is treated as the repository of various psychological processes and mechanisms that serve as the actual objects of concern. The subject really is an object: the output of the subject is used to create a universal psychological reality. The individual subject must in some sense be typical, or representative, of all other possible subjects to facilitate this: thus, the notion of a standard, or statistical, subject. It is common practice in the context of the means interpretation to construct psychological knowledge that only applies to a group of subjects taken as a whole. The means approach is characteristic of academic, experimental psychology in general and most forms of behaviorism in particular. This pattern originally was established by Wundt in his germinal epistemological psychology, because his avowed goal involved analysis of the universal mind: the content of conscious experience common to all persons who could verbalize. End
The individual person is analyzed as an end in itself. The individual organism does serve as the unit of analysis and constitutes a psychological universe unto itself. The subject is not an object: the output of the subject is used to create an individualistic psychological reality that has validity solely for the analyzed self. The subject is treated as a repository of accumulated experiences, personal identities, and feelings that generate a true, viable self. Psychological analysis amounts to externalizing and resolving the content of the subject's psychological world in the end interpretation. The individual person is assumed to be unique in this approach: there may be similarities among people, but their differences far outweigh their common aspects. The end approach is indigenous to applied psychology, especially as practiced in a therapeutic context, and is characteristic of contemporary humanistic psychology in general and existential, phenomenological psychology in particular. Treating the reporting subject as an end in itself is not foreign to academic psychology, but is a distinct minority practice. Means and End
The individual person is analyzed as an end in itself and as a means to another end simultaneously.
The individual organism does serve as the unit of analysis, but does not
constitute a psychological universe unto itself.
The psychological subject is treated as a
repository of psychological processes and mechanisms that are assumed common to every organism, but the focus is on the current state of these processes and mechanisms in the subject. The output of the subject is used to create a personal psychodynamics that is assumed to be representative of a universal psychological reality. The means and end approach is characteristic of Freud's brand of depth psychology, which even gets its name from the way it views the organism as an object of psychological analysis:
Psychology." Prolegomena psycho-analysis. psychoanalysis.
31
This hyphenated form is the characteristic English or Continental spelling of It could be argued that Skinner's "experimental analysis of individual
behavior" also fits in this category: the individual organism is the focus of analysis, but its output is resolved strictly in terms of an underlying transcendental, universal psychological reality.
Self Versus Significant Other The three ways in which we can serve as an object of psychological analysis is associated with two different roles we can play in the generation of psychological knowledge: (1) self or (2) significant other. Although both notions constitute arbitrary psychological conventions, that of a self possesses more face validity for the general public. 1. When the individual organism is focused on as an entity unto itself in the context of the end approach, it is treated as a self.
A self possesses a validity, integrity, identity, or
uniqueness as a being in the universe. A self possesses inherent psychological reality: it operates as a psychological universe unto itself. A person obviously functions as a self in any therapeutic context.
The goal of much psychological application effort can be
described as self-actualization or self-realization, i.e., the facilitation of an individual's adjustment to the social/physical environment. Whether a self is a causative efficacious entity, i.e., an actual moral agent, or merely a descriptive, epiphenomenal social label, i.e., a locus of various externally defined variables, is a matter of one's metaphysical approach to psychology. 2. When the individual organism serves as an observational unit for the experimental psychologist in the context of the means approach, it is regarded as a significant other. The notion of a significant other merely is a pragmatic, descriptive, statistical abstraction. It possesses no inherent psychological reality: the psychological relevance of either the characteristics or output of a significant other derives strictly from the conceptual scheme that the experimental psychologist imposes on the situation. Each human being in its role as a significant other can display a value on countless dimensions of potential psychological interest: e.g., age, sex, IQ, marital status, parental status, educational level, employment status, and the like.
A significant other as a subject in the psychological
laboratory is the source of data of possible psychological interest: e.g., trials to criterion in some learning task, reaction times, choice responses among different sets of stimuli, and the like. The focus always is on the actual numerical output, as a content of measurement, not the specific organism providing it. The datum of an individual subject in most cases is pooled with that of others and loses its individual identity. D E F I N I N G C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S OF A P S Y C H O L O G I C A L E V E N T Practically everyone claims knowledge of what the term "psychological" means and can recognize instances of psychological events when they occur. Yet it is impossible to give a technical specification to psychological phenomena that would be acceptable to every
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
psychologist. The unique or indigenously characteristic property of a psychological event really is a philosophical question, presumably not admissible to final resolution. The fundamental metaphysical issue of the discipline pertains to the basis on which some natural phenomena are identified as psychological in nature and others not. The differentiation between the psychological and the nonpsychological customarily is informally accomplished by a loose combination of (1) goals, (2) conceptual types, and (3) systems. As the interpretations and relative emphases of these three aspects of the discipline vary over time, the denotation of the psychological and nonpsychological also varies. The fact that different conceptions of the psychological and nonpsychological coexist and compete with each other means that no ultimate, absolute set of criteria for delimiting the domain of the discipline has ever been developed. Although the process of postulating a set of defining characteristics for a psychological event is not difficult, it essentially is arbitrary. Any number of different sets of definitional criteria for a psychological event presumably would be acceptable. The following set was adopted and adapted from a prior analysis of the author (see Hillner, 1987). An event must satisfy three criteria in order for it to be classified as psychological in nature: 1. It must be exhibited by an autonomous, or at least semiautonomous, energy-driven, information processing system: it must be produced by some kind of nervous system or surrogate thereof. 2. It must involve or be related in some way to conscious intelligence. 3. It must be capable of specification with respect to either a material composition or a functional role. The former would identify its exact nature as a physical or physiological entity; the latter would delineate its causal agency among a series of events comprising a system or subsystem. First Criterion
The notion of an autonomous, energy-driven, information processing system includes individual humans, dyads, larger social groups, animals, insects, certain machines, such as the computer, robots, and the like. The state or status of the entity comprising the system is not a relevant consideration: psychological phenomena could be exhibited by less than an intact organism or by the member of any short-term or long-term special population, such as an amnesiac, drug addict, or developmentally challenged individual. The system even could be a subsystem of a more comprehensive entity, e.g., a rat's feeding system, a computer's memory system, a company's public relations department, a person's speech system. The intent of this criterion is to restrict psychological phenomena to living systems or automata that simulate living systems: the only entities that it functionally excludes from the potential psychological universe are phenomena exhibited by simple inanimate objects.
Psychology: Prolegomena 33 Second Criterion
The notion of conscious intelligence is original to Churchland, who uses it to characterize the kind of active, creative mentation associated with the human organism that must be resolved in the context of the traditional mind-body issue; however, the term will be used with a slightly different connotation here. Under the assumption that intelligence per se is continuously and variously distributed throughout the physical universe and phylogenetic scale, the notion of conscious intelligence serves as a convenient metaphor. When the concept is applied to the human being, it is a way of representing the fact that we are a self-aware, efficacious, reactive, creative, selfmaintaining, self-reifying, and symbolic or knowledge generating form of life. Conscious intelligence is a fundamental and primary, but not necessarily exclusive, property of humanity. Possession of conscious intelligence is what makes us a psychological being or confers on us a psychological status. It can be regarded as the reifier of all sorts of reality, including psychological reality: the psychological universe is a product of our conscious intelligence. When one realizes that the discipline of psychology focuses on the very entity that creates psychology in the first place; namely, the human being, one can appreciate that it is possible to characterize psychology as the process of conscious intelligence studying itself. Our conscious intelligence is primarily, but not exclusively, a neocortical phenomenon: as our neocortex evolved, our reifying capacity and self-awareness evolved. There is much current evidence that our two cerebral hemispheres operate in diametrically opposite epistemological modes. The left hemisphere primarily is rational, verbal, analytic, logical; the right hemisphere is intuitive, nonverbal, synthetic, nonlogical.
Sometimes this situation is
referred to as the split-brain. The left hemisphere engages in vertical thinking; the right hemisphere engages in lateral thinking. The left hemisphere in isolation would create a psychological reality reminiscent of behaviorism; the right hemisphere in isolation would create a psychological reality reminiscent of understanding psychology, in general, and contemporary humanism, in particular. The intent of the second criterion is to highlight in a noncircular way the fact that the notion of the psychological must be a human invention. Instead of stipulating that psychological reality is a product of human nature per se, it is specified that psychological reality is a creation of one of the properties that identify us as special beings; namely, possession of conscious intelligence. Third Criterion
The third criterion is a way of incorporating the existence criteria that are acceptable in contemporary philosophy. An event must be amenable to either a material composition or a functional role specification in order for it to exist, regardless of whether it is a psychological entity or not. An event has material composition if it possesses physical and/or physiological reality. The descriptive behavioristic approach characteristic of Watson and Skinner limits the
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
psychological universe to only those entities that exhibit material composition: the psychological universe is synonymous with the physical universe, i.e., the prototypical examples of materially composed entities in psychology are external stimulus and response events, or input and output events. An event has a functional role if it operates as a causal link in the presumed sequence of events intervening between stimulus input and response output. Many of the events occurring beneath the skin that are of concern to the discipline may be given a functional role specification. The best example of this is the notion of a mental state, such as pain, hunger, fear or anxiety, and the like. It should be noted that neither material composition and behavior nor functional role and mental events is associated in a one-to-one manner. It is possible to give a piece of behavior a functional role specification: Skinner does this in the process of operationally defining an operant. It also is possible to give a mental state a presumed material composition: e.g., pain is C-fiber firing.
The central state identity thesis approach to mentation in general relies on
material composition. Some Evaluation
The respective domains of the five conceptual types of psychology would be derivable from this particular metaphysical specification of a psychological event, with one possible exception: the environmental stimuli characteristic of action psychology and dialectical psychology. Such events are related to conscious intelligence and are properly specifiable materially or functionally; however, not all such events are mediated by the activity of another living organism or its surrogate. This problem is resolved by a semantic slight of hand, if we change our focus from stimulus production to stimulus reception. An environmental stimulus, regardless of how it is produced, becomes part of the psychological universe once it is decoded by an autonomous, energy-driven, information processing system, i.e., stimulus reception is an activity exhibited by such a system.
3
WHY PSYCHOLOGY IS INTERESTED IN ETHICS
The fact that the discipline of psychology and ethical matters are interminably intertwined is a two-edged sword. We have emphasized up to now that ethical reality must be superimposed on a logically prior psychological reality, i.e., a distinct psychological approach to ethical reality certainly is possible; however, it also is the case that value phenomena and moral judgments are so ubiquitous and all-pervasive that various ethical considerations constrain the nature of psychological reality: there are distinct ethical aspects of psychology, most of which tend to be implicit. Most people do not realize that both the construction of psychological reality and the application of psychological doctrine are normative, evaluative endeavors. Because the human organism is both the focus and creator of psychological knowledge, virtually no distinction relative to the psychological nature of the human organism is devoid of ethical significance. The purpose of this chapter is to delineate the ethical aspects of psychology, i.e., why psychology is interested in ethics, by doing three things: 1. Considering a few rudimentary examples of our tendency to engage in moral stipulation; 2. Focusing on those components of the psychological knowledge acquisition process that possess evaluational, normative aspects; 3. Detailing some of the ethical consequences associated with the application of psychological knowledge. The first task involves reference to such seemingly innocuous, everyday notions as age, sex, and race; the second one analyzes psychology at the observational, descriptive, definitional, epiphenomenal, causal input, classificational, and explanatory levels; the third features an in-depth evaluation of psychological tests or testing and abnormality. M O R A L STIPULATION Recall from Chapter 2 that psychology is a product of our conscious intelligence. The content of our self-awareness is discriminative in nature. We give meaning to ourselves in terms of a set of dimensions that also is used to classify every other human being. These classificatory dimensions are properties of us as significant others, but they certainly are not absolute properties of the universe and essentially are arbitrary in nature. They consequently are notions possessing a high degree of evaluative content: they have been used to assign
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36
people to qualitatively distinct classes of differential worth or desirability, i.e., discriminative characteristics with evaluative content tend to become discriminatory agents. These evaluative characteristics include, but are not limited to, (1) age, (2) sex, (3) race, and (4) intelligence quotient.
Age The notion of time is inherently arbitrary: we tend to measure the passage of time in terms of the movements of heavenly bodies. Time per se is never a causal variable. Time changes nothing. What happens in time is the efficacious entity. We infer the existence of time from the changes that occur in objects, usually their degeneration. An organism is incremented in age by a unit of one on its birthday with the passage of each calendar year. A newborn infant in Japan already is considered to be one year old. Age serves as a convenient associator or classifier. Knowledge of a person's age tells you a lot about the person. It also serves as a convenient legal and governmental criterion for access to certain privileges or obligations: voting, drinking, driving, legal responsibility, retirement, and the like. Age is not generally viewed as an arbitrary discriminator.
Chronological age is
discriminatory because it is not perfectly correlated with a person's biological or psychological capability.
This discrepancy has its most severe effects with respect to discriminatory
employment practices. Have you ever heard of a university hiring a forty-five or fifty-five year old assistant professor? Other areas exhibiting age-related discrimination include marriageability, financeability, and adoptive parenthood. Sex
No absolute definition of sex typing exists, except possibly at the chromosomal level. A person's sex is identified at birth on the basis of certain blatant primary sex characteristics. Prenatal determination of sex typing also is possible.
Sex typing during childhood and
adulthood is a heterogeneous combination of primary and secondary biologically based characteristics, behavior patterns, psychological expectations, social roles, dress codes, and the like. Sex in effect is a constellation of a host of convenience indicators. The list of evaluative adjectives differentially associated with each sex historically is endless. The Women's Liberation Movement and "Women's Studies" really are calling our attention to the devastating consequences of sex as an evaluative concept. Sexual discrimination is pervasive. While it no longer is taken for granted in the United States, it still is governmentally and religiously institutionalized in most parts of the world. We probably never will achieve a satisfactory accommodation with the evaluative component of sex for two reasons: (1) sex is the normal channel of biological reproduction and the maintenance of our species; and (2) sex probably is the most powerful and compelling reinforcer we can experience in behavioristic terms. As a Jewish rabbi once divulged to a Catholic priest, "It sure beats ham."
Why Psychology is Interested in Ethics
37
Race Not only is the notion of race arbitrary, it also is ridiculous. It is impossible to operationally define race, although people make implicit racial identifications all the time, primarily on the basis of biological appearance and superficial behavioral characteristics. The notion of nationality is a low-grade form of racial differentiation, in which social or sociological characteristics are emphasized. Have you noticed lately on affirmative action questionnaires that the Spanish or Mexican nationality has been elevated to the full status of a race: Hispanic? Race is a powerful differentiator because it (1) is confounded with institutionalized governmental, economic, and religious interests and (2) easily is ideologized. Racial discrimination is invidious and insidious. The biological and social indicators of race will disappear long before the evaluative aspects of the notion become moot. It took the Civil War in America to define the slaves as human beings; it took another century to define their progeny as equal human beings.
Intelligence Quotient Unlike the three prior discriminators, the notion of intelligence quotient (IQ) strictly is psychological in nature. It usually is defined as general scholastic or verbal ability. Human intelligence is far from a monolithic entity, but you would never know it based on the standard IQ test. The notion of IQ is not only arbitrary, but also fanciful. It has achieved an aura of legitimacy due to its (1) institutionalization by the educational establishment and (2) association with psychometrics. The evaluative aspects of IQ are devastating for two reasons: (1) IQ is used as a sociological, allocational tool for determining how certain scarce cultural/educational opportunities/benefits are distributed; and (2) IQ serves as the source of a special population: the developmentally disadvantaged, cure mentally retarded, cure mentally defective. Note the evolutionary progression of labels associated with the special population: "developmentally disadvantaged" evokes far less stigma than "mentally defective." More will be said about IQ later in the context of tests and testing.
Conceptual Note: The Notion of Special Population The comparative framework in which the concept of a significant other achieves meaning (see Chapter 2) also generates the notion of special population.
The member of a special
population is an individual who differs from a standard significant other on at least one analytical classificatory dimension or descriptive indicator considered crucial by psychology. For instance, children constitute a special population, and the descriptive indicator obviously is age; also the notion of IQ gives rise to various subnormal and supernormal categories of scholastic ability. Other special populations include the clinical, e.g., neurotics, psychotics, and the like, and the exotic, e.g., primitive tribe members, hermits, saints, and the like. The descriptive indicators associated with these two special populations are quite esoteric and elusive.
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
Special populations are insidious: they derive from discriminative characteristics with evaluative content that function as discriminatory agents. An arbitrary distinction originally made for some extraneous reason, which often is methodological, explanatory, or pragmatic in nature, becomes reified as an evaluative, qualitative one connoting inferiority or undesirability. For instance, the consequences of being assigned to a clinical subpopulation can be devastating: forced castration, psychosurgery, involuntary chemotherapy, or shock therapy. Classifications via special populations in effect constitute value judgments and amount to moral stipulation. C O N S T R U C T I O N OF PSYCHOLOGICAL K N O W L E D G E : EVALUATIVE ASPECTS The construction of a psychological reality inherently is a morally stipulative endeavor. No statement purporting to express psychological content merely "is." Any psychological statement contains implicit evaluative distinctions and subsumes normative value judgments. More often than not, these are quite subtle and beyond the awareness of the originator or user of the psychological statement. The moral nature of the psychological universe derives from the fact that it is arbitrary and involves numerous degrees of freedom at various choice points. The selection process occurring over a series of decisions has a cumulative evaluative effect: the values associated with the accepted options are implicitly enhanced; those associated with the rejected options are implicitly discarded. Psychological knowledge does not exist in a social or political vacuum. It must reflect the general moral beliefs and normative standards of the surrounding culture. In totalitarian societies, controlled by an explicit and rigid ideology, the government guarantees that this happens: for instance, the erstwhile Soviet Union. In democratic societies, maintained by a more implicit and flexible ideology, the shaping of the evaluative aspects of psychological knowledge is more subtle and involves professional peer reaction and recognition: viz, the United States. The evaluative aspects of the construction of psychological knowledge will be illustrated at seven different levels: (1) observational, (2) descriptive, (3) definitional, (4) epiphenomenal, (5) causal input, (6) classificational, and (7) explanatory. Note that the evaluational activity occurring at one level is not necessarily independent of that occurring at other levels. Observation Observation is not a value-free process. It is generally conceded that perception is selective: we perceive what we want to perceive. This state of affairs usually is interpreted at a strictly epistemological or factual level; however, our perceptions are colored by a pair of moral sunglasses, just as they are by a set of conceptual ones: they actually are melded together in the same pair.
Why Psychology is Interested in Ethics 39 People are not perceptually sensitive to events that are not congruent with their over-all belief structure in the context of everyday life: the events simply do not exist for them. The liberal Democrat sees poverty; the conservative Republican does not see poverty.
The
Christian sees divinely inspired acts of goodness and sacrifice; the atheist does not. Members of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals see untold acts reflecting the name of the organization to which they belong; nonmembers do not. What is observed in the psychological laboratory, in the sense of being actively searched for, primarily is contingent on system affiliation and theoretical preference.
Systems and
theories involve value judgments over and above purely conceptual or epistemological distinctions. The behaviorist values prediction and control; the humanist values appreciation and understanding.
These differential values help structure the respective behavioristic and
humanistic perceptual universes.
For instance, when traditional behaviorists, such as Hull,
study motivation, they see behavior driven by the hunger, thirst, or sex drive or by the need to escape or avoid pain; when humanists, such as Maslow, study motivation, they see perceptual indicants of an organism's goal structure, intentions, and degree of self-fulfillment. The Freudian values irrationality; a cognitivist values rationality.
A Freudian often is
criticized for seeing sex in everything: phallic symbols are ubiquitous.
A cognitive
psychologist sees activities reflecting different degrees of intelligence: round objects and long, pointed objects merely are a matter of geometry and the information processing rules used for their decoding.
Description Description amounts to a selective labeling process. The dimensions of a description, i.e., those aspects of an event that get represented in a labeling, are in part a function of values and normative stance. Observation and description amount to opposite sides of the same coin: in a sense observation is input, while description is output.
What is observed is eventually
transformed to verbal form and described. Examples from everyday life are endless. An artist describes a painting in vastly different terms than a nonartist. A teenager's and matron's description of a car are not commensurate with each other. A lover's and neutral bystander's description of the same woman extensively differ. A Catholic's and non-Catholics's description of the Pope are measurably different. T h e relevant descriptive dimensions of a piece of behavior in a psychological context are different for a humanist and a behaviorist.
The humanist values the psychological milieu
underlying a piece of behavior: the physical characteristics of a piece of behavior are irrelevant. The behaviorist values the very denotative content of an act: it is the psychological milieu in and of itself. A humanist would never describe, or measure, the intensity with which a piece of behavior occurs; conversely this can be a critical piece of information for the behaviorist. Sheer frequency counts, i.e., a description of all-or-none occurrence, are trivial to a humanist; they exhaust the relevant descriptive domain for some behaviorists. Divorcing a
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
piece of behavior from its exhibitor is an immoral act to a humanist; divorcing an organism from its behavior is an immoral act to a behaviorist.
Definition What explicitly is meant by definition in this context is operational definition: a statement of the procedure one must follow to measure the occurrence of an event or to physicalize the realization of some abstract concept. Operational definition merely amounts to a procedural logic: it has no substantive content in and of itself. The danger associated with operational definition, as is the case with methodology in general, is the fact that it tends to become an end in itself. Operational definition underlies both observation and description and is always evaluatively stipulative.
Even more critically, the importance one attaches to operational
definition in the first place also is a reflection of one's values. The humanist values the inner essence or intuitive meaning of things: operational definition tends to destroy this. An unmeasurable phenomenon is a nonexistent phenomenon for the behaviorist: the operational definition of a concept exhausts any empirical meaning a concept could possibly have. Let us refer back to the concept of motivation to illustrate the stipulative nature of operational definition.
The preference for prediction and control underlies a behaviorist's
operational definition of motive; intuitive understanding underlies a humanist's conception of motive. The meaning of the term motive for a behaviorist is exhausted by whatever operation an experimenter applies to the subject to measure it: for instance, food deprivation for twentyfour hours. When an organism is said to be hungry, it only means that it has been deprived of food for a specified period of time. A humanist would never operationally define motive this way. Motivation is not an externally sourced phenomenon. Motivation is self-generated and has to do with an organism's goals and intentions. A humanist would operationally define a motive simply in terms of the content of self-report. A person is motivated to achieve success, for example, simply if it says so. Experimental learning psychologists customarily operationally define the successful acquisition of some knowledge in terms of two error-free productions of the material in a row. This is an exceedingly lax criterion of learning, but one dictated by the focus on the learning process itself. This operational definition of learning attainment would be irrelevant if one were focusing on the learning abilities of the organism itself, especially if the organism has some learning deficits.
The learning psychologist values statistical truth; a learning disabilities
specialist or special education instructor has no use for statistical truth.
Epiphenomena As will be detailed in Chapter 6, the discipline of psychology possesses two traditional epiphenomenal objects of interest: (1) behavior and (2) experience. inherently evaluative.
These notions are
Why Psychology is Interested in Ethics
41
The humanist's value system downgrades behavior as the sole or primary focus of the discipline: the human being's uniqueness is best captured in terms of experience. The behaviorist's value system downgrades experience as the sole or primary focus of the discipline: the mechanism that is homo sapiens is best represented in terms of behavior. These evaluative preferences persist even though the distinction between experience and behavior merely is semantic in nature (see Chapter 6). There also is the case of Freud who downgrades both conscious experience and behavior in preference to various unconscious entities. Evaluative priorities exist even within an epiphenomenal class. All possible behaviors or experiences are not of equal significance. A significant piece of behavior in humanism must reflect the fact that the organism is a moral agent (see Chapters 1 and 9); a significant piece of behavior in behaviorism merely is one that is amenable to prediction and control. Significant experience in humanism is that of which the organism is self-aware; significant experience in behaviorism is undefinable. Society in general values certain behaviors and devalues others. Behavioral phenomena are assigned to two evaluative classes: (1) good and (2) bad. When a mother asks her child whether it is behaving she means whether it is being good, not whether it is engaged in some kind of activity. The classic evaluative distinction in psychology is that between normal and abnormal behavior: the former is considered appropriate or good; the latter is considered inappropriate or bad. The moral nature of the normality-abnormality distinction is evidenced by (1) the extreme cultural relativism associated with these concepts and (2) the qualitatively distinct etiology associated with each kind of behavior. The evaluative aspects of normalityabnormality are analyzed in detail later in the chapter. A therapist attempts to increase a client's positive experiences, while reducing its negative experiences. Positive and negative are defined in terms of the therapist's value system. What constitutes a desirable experience for one therapist is not necessarily the case for another therapist.
Causal Input The notion of causal input was introduced in Chapter 1 in the context of the conduct/action discussion and generally is evaluative. More significantly the normative value of a specific cause is not independent of that of the basic object of study, usually behavior. Society by and large dictates the acceptability of various classes of causes.
The best
contemporary example of this involves the etiology of IQ. Our current values will allow a combined heredity x environment interpretation of IQ or an exclusive environmental etiology of IQ; they will not permit a pure one-hundred per cent determination of IQ by hereditarial factors. The latter (1) would justify an immutable assignment of lower IQ individuals to qualitatively distinct classes of inferiority, i.e., they are not worth the time, expense, and effort of training, and (2) would have devastating social effects if the classes of inferiority were correlated with any of the traditional discriminators, such as age, sex, or race. In fact, whether or not the IQ of American racial minorities is being assessed fairly and whether or not their
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
lower average performance on standard IQ tests is genetically based currently constitute explosive social issues. The situation is so emotional and value-laden that a proponent of the one-hundred per cent genetic determination of IQ view is reflexively labeled a bigot or racist. The evaluative nature of IQ will occupy our attention again later in the chapter in the context of tests and testing. The evaluative status of a class of behavior and its causal source must be the same: good behaviors are the result of good causes, and bad behaviors are the result of bad causes. It is inconceivable that a good cause could result in bad behavior or a bad cause could result in good behavior. Folk psychology in general (see Chapter 1) stipulates that good behaviors are purposeful or intentional in nature: they are the result of the individual's own moral agency and conscious choice. Bad behaviors conversely are regarded as forced by external circumstances: the individual had no choice. For instance, chromosomal aberration, brain tumors, hormone imbalance, even demonic possession constitute the causes of various antisocial acts such as murder and sexual abuse.
Classification Classification is a logical extension of both description and operational definition. Any classification scheme with psychological content is morally stipulative. Any method used to differentiate among people involves vested interests and value judgments. The four traditional discriminators discussed previously, viz., age, sex, race, and IQ, constitute implicit classification schemes. The normality-abnormality distinction is classificational in nature. The abnormality category is divisible into numerous sets of hierarchically related subclassifications. The normality category conversely never has given rise to a system of subcategories. The special populations, such as clinical, child, or exotic, also amount to implicit classification schemes. Probably the most widespread tool used by the discipline to classify people is the psychological test. The personality test is next to the IQ test in saliency for the general public. Many of these are conceptualized in terms of traits: they measure the testee on its degree of possession of various habitual styles of responding. A trait is a notoriously evaluative concept. Society values certain traits and devalues others. Most of the traits assessed by a personality test happen to be those that are negatively evaluated by society. We have special tests for the authoritarian personality, free-floating or manifest anxiety, and aggressiveness. We don't seem to have special assessment devices for saintliness, wholesomeness, or integrity.
Explanation The experimental psychologist seeks intellectual closure, as provided by scientific theory. A humanistic or phenomenological psychologist seeks emotional satisfaction, devolving from empathetic identification with an individual person. Both intellectual closure and emotional satisfaction have moral components and are normatively stipulative.
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Intellectual Closure Scientific theory is germane to objective, behavioristic psychology resolved in terms of external criteria. Theoretical constructs are explicit components of the externally imposed criteria and must reflect the value system of the surrounding culture. This societal influence is particularly telling with respect to the nature of the human being and is usually exhibited negatively. Modeling the human being after the animal, characteristic of the traditional versions of behaviorism, is an anathema to many segments of our society. Modeling mind after the computer is bitterly resented by die-hard dualists committed to a significant presence of the divine spirit in human affairs. Hull's hypothetico-deductive system now is pass6, not only because it is intellectually simplistic, but also because its theoretical constructs do not interface in any significant way with the current conception of the human being as an entity possessing certain psychological rights. The theoretical presumptions of dialectical psychology concerning the nature of the human organism are foreign to American democratic society. Freudian theory was and still is criticized for making the human being a mere instinct-driven beast. The American populace in general has a preference for theoretical constructs that reinforce its conception of the United States as the land of (1) equal opportunity and (2) reward based on exhibited performance and ability. The ideal psychological universe in this context would deemphasize immutability based on innate psychological mechanisms and stress adaptability based on environmentally driven psychological mechanisms. It is no accident that the functionalistic tradition is indigenous to the United States; the same is true for the spirit, but not the mechanisms, of behaviorism. The general public seeks different explanations for approved and unapproved behavior, as variants of the good-bad and normal-abnormal distinctions. Approved behaviors are regarded as self-determined; unapproved behaviors involve some externally imposed pathology. Emotional Satisfaction
Emotional satisfaction requires some degree of similarity between the parties involved. That is why it usually is difficult to achieve an intuitive appreciation for members of a special population: they are beyond the bounds of comprehension of a so-called standard observer, i.e., their feelings or behavior appear meaningless and bizarre. It can be argued that to emotionally empathize is to moralize. It is much easier to emotionally identify with and achieve an intuitive understanding of people whom we like or of whom we approve. The similarity requirement thus extends to the normative dimension.
This is why folk psychology and
understanding psychology, of which contemporary humanism is prototypical, are so easily exploitable. It is fortuitous that the value system and goals of humanistic psychology correspond in large part to those of Christianity. The Verstehen psychology that dominated Germany in the 1920s and 1930s justified the institutionalized racism and bigotry of Nazism.
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
APPLICATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE: EVALUATIVE A S P E C T S Although both physical science and social science are evaluative endeavors, the application of psychological knowledge is a vastly different enterprise than the application of physical principles: compare the problem of designing a new radio to that of designing an optimal environment or social control system in a mental institution. When the human being serves as the object of social control, you are dealing with a self-reflective, reactive organism, a situation suffused with moral concerns and arbitrary judgmental truth. The act of repairing, kicking, or discarding a malfunctioning radio is a trivial, nonmoral event; the act of dealing with a malfunctioning human is a moral event of enormous magnitude: kicking or discarding is not allowed, and repair is not a simple matter of replacing a defective component. The rights that any form of life possesses are a function of the belief system held by the surrounding culture. The human's right to life itself, or continued life, derives from religious belief: human life is sacred. Our legal rights and obligations derive from the way our society is organized as a political entity. Our psychological rights analogously are contingent on the belief that a psychological reality exists, one that imparts special characteristics to the notion of humanity. The concept of psychological reality serves an instrumental function, i.e., possesses utilitarian status, in the over-all order of things. The application of psychological principles for the betterment of humankind cannot be separated from our status as a psychological being: psychological control and psychological rights merely are opposite sides of the same coin. It is in this sense that applied psychology constitutes an explicit ethical/moral endeavor. The practical application potential of abstract psychological principles is limitless; however, decisions must be made with respect to (1) who should receive psychological assistance and (2) what techniques should be used. These decisions inherently are evaluative in nature. Society makes value judgments about who is worthy of psychological intervention, because psychological resources are limited in supply, as is the case with most other natural resources. Technique selection is not a simple procedural matter: it involves considerations of (1) the possible loss of personal freedom, decision making capacity, or self-control on the part of the recipient, (2) possible discomfort or pain experienced by the recipient, and (3) possible negative side effects for the recipient. The social acceptability of practical application is contingent on the kind of behavior and/or special population that is the focus. Using psychological principles to increase work production or satisfaction in the industrial environment is simply good business practice; using the same principles to regulate the life of a developmentally challenged individual, prison inmate, or chronic schizophrenic has some stigma attached. The practical application facet of psychology luckily is an area of the discipline whose ethical aspects are consciously realized and under virtual continuous review. Unlike any of the other evaluative aspects of psychology already discussed, psychological application also has legal ramifications. The best reference point for modeling both the ethical and legal aspects of the delivery of psychological services is the practices of the medical establishment.
Why Psychology is Interested in Ethics 45 In this section we are going to distinguish between the descriptive and normative change imperatives and analyze the evaluative elements associated with the two flagship endeavors of applied psychology: (1) tests and testing and (2) judgments of abnormality relative to the clinical population.
Change Imperatives Any model of psychological reality must allow for the possibility of change, either in a descriptive, mechanical sense or in a normative, ethical sense. A system of psychology must assume that the relevant psychological aspects of an organism are malleable, whatever they may be. Granted that the various psychological systems constructed over the past century (see Chapter 2) bear differing degrees of approximation and commitment to this imperative, no system postulates a psychological reality that excludes any kind or degree of change. If the psychological state of an organism were immutable, the discipline of psychology would have no metaphysical reason for being. The descriptive imperative to change encompasses the operational change mechanisms comprising the content of a given model of psychological reality. The normative imperative to change is related to the explicit end goals of the model. Although there is no hard and fast division between these two kinds of change principles, the descriptive one is more related to and justifies academic, experimental psychology, while the normative one is more related to and justifies applied psychology. The change imperative motivates everything from the development of a new form of therapy to philosophical speculation about the nature of Utopia. The normative change principle is more comprehensive than the descriptive change principle, because it implies the existence of an ought, in addition to the existence of an is. It implies that an ideal psychological reality exists that is not only worthwhile, but also attainable. The trend in the more recently developed systems of psychology, such as latter-day depth psychology, humanism, and dialectical psychology, is toward a more explicit recognition of the normative change principle.
Tests and Testing Psychological tests and testing constitute both a commercial enterprise and a social phenomenon of gigantic proportions in America.
Such companies as the Psychological
Corporation and the Educational Testing Service produce and market tests that can have a profound effect on the educational and professional future of virtually every American. For instance, tests are used as selection and placement devices in industry, education, and the armed forces; they are used as diagnostic devices for the detection of possible abnormality in intelligence, reading ability, personality traits, or sensory and motor abilities.
Evaluative Nature Tests are supposed to measure individual differences. What this really means is that tests are used to classify people. A test constitutes the specific procedural means by which some
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presumably psychologically relevant discriminator, or discriminative characteristic, operationalized.
is
A test really is an operational definition specifying how some abstract
psychological concept is measured. It already has been pointed out in the chapter that (1) any psychological discriminator possesses evaluative components and (2) any operational definition is morally stipulative. The evaluative nature of tests and testing is enhanced by four rather unique features of this kind of classificational endeavor. 1. The testing movement by and large developed outside the confines of academia and uninfluenced by the precepts associated with any major system of experimental psychology. This means that the testing movement evolved in a conceptual vacuum: it developed in a milieu where the underlying evaluative assumptions were implicit. People still do not realize that a specific operational definition of IQ or of a collection of personality traits represents a value judgment with potential harmful effects. 2. Psychometrics, the process of test construction, basically is atheoretical in nature.
It is
atheoretical in the sense that no psychological theory is involved. Test theory does exist; but it is mathematical, statistical, correlational, factor analytic in nature.
Psychometrics
amounts to applied statistics, not an applied behaviorism or humanism. This means that test construction proceeds in a conceptual vacuum.
The evaluative components of the
resulting operational definitions are the accidental by-product of statistical convenience. The mere ability to number crunch people's overt response activity in certain ways dictates their morally relevant aspects. 3. Because a test is a measuring device, it must possess the property of validity: it must be demonstrated empirically that the collection of items composing the test in fact measures what it is supposed to measure.
The assessment of the possible validity of the items
constituting the test cannot be done in any logical or conceptual way because there is no psychological theory underlying the construction of the test. All the psychometrician can do is to take advantage of the fact that a test is a presumably objective sample of behavior in one situation and find out whether it allows prediction of behavior exhibited in some other situation.
In technical terms, a test is declared valid if performance on the items
composing the test is correlated with performance in another situation, usually called the criterion. The prototypical criterion for an IQ test is academic performance; the criterion for a personality test is more amorphous, but usually involves some indicant of the over-all level of adjustment of an individual. The choice of a criterion by which to assess the possible validity of a test strictly is evaluative in nature: it is solely based on values and normative judgments. The meaning and significance of IQ tests would be vastly different today if academic performance were not the prototypical criterion.
The salient traits
personality tests measure would be vastly different today if assessment of possible abnormality were not their primary aim. 4. The cultural significance of testing is independent of any real concem for the nature of the human organism, either as a psychological being or as an object of psychological analysis. Tests perform a certain distributive, allocational, or classificatory function in society. A
Why Psychology is Interested in Ethics
test is more of a sociological tool than a psychological tool in many respects.
47
A test
assesses various psychological skills, but these tend to be the ones society deems necessary for its survival. The very act of administering a test represents the implementation of some prior implicit evaluative decision.
It is no accident that the two periods of greatest
expansion in the use of tests in America corresponded to World Wars I and II.
This
sociological, allocational aspect of tests and testing should be discussed more fully. Tests as Social Contracts or Political Instruments
The content and purpose of any kind of test, as an assessment device, are arbitrary. For instance, the concept of IQ is not a noncontingent notion: it is not a God-given construct; it is our invention.
The notion of IQ, and IQ test, amounts to a social contract between
psychometricians and the general public that certain items and terms will be used in certain ways. The problem with a social contract is that certain elements of society can view it as a social conspiracy. When the terms and consequences of the social contract are interpreted as being unfair to a certain segment of the population, the contract becomes a conspiracy. The concept of IQ, and IQ test, is undergoing much current criticism because it is viewed as only being a fair assessment device for, and consequently a political instrument of, the WASP: White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant. The current controversy relative to the psychologist Jensen's and the physicist Shockley's belief in the genetic inferiority of the American Black with respect to over-all IQ level really is a social/political one, not a biological/genetic one. A projective personality test, such as the Rorschach Ink Blot Test or the Murray and Morgan Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), also is a political instrument, not so much because the concept of personality is arbitrary, but rather because the process of taking such a test can violate one of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution: the right not to answer an objective question if the answer will incriminate in any way. An item on a projective personality test possesses no face validity whatsoever.
The responder has no idea what is being tested for or how the response
information will be interpreted and used.
Abnormality The notion of abnormality is metaphysical in nature. The term can be applied to either overt behavior or the presumed internal framework underlying overt behavior: mental events, thought processes, physiological functioning, neural activity, and the like.
Academic,
experimental psychologists typically are not concemed with abnormality at either level because they usually focus on general psychological laws characteristic of some average or statistical subject in a framework that reduces extreme individual variation to random error.
The
physician, psychiatrist, or clinical psychologist conversely operates in a context in which the basic object of interest does not arise until normal functioning at either level breaks down. We
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shall focus on abnormality at the epiphenomenal level of behavior and only refer to abnormal underlying processes where necessary. The normality-abnormality distinction is the classic moral stipulation of the discipline and the one with the most far-reaching consequences. The notion of abnormality is the most valueladen term in the psychological literature and the one that is most easily exploitable by vested interests. For instance, politically dissident behavior in the erstwhile Soviet Union was labeled as abnormal, and the unfortunate dissident was committed to an insane asylum. The concept of abnormality is so ingrained in the psychological universe that many psychologists don't even realize that it carries a heavy bag of evaluative components.
The normality-abnormality
distinction does not exist in a physical science context, although sometimes natural phenomena unexplainable by physical, mechanistic means are referred to as anomalous. Abnormality functions as a convenience concept, much as age, sex, or race does. Once a piece of behavior has been assigned to the abnormal category, it helps resolve the nature of the behavior and the manner in which it should be addressed: the notion of abnormality provides the psychologist with much emotional satisfaction. The basic problem associated with the notion of abnormality is that it requires a comparative reference point. The logical one would be that of normality: abnormality is the absence of normality.
But the discipline has no serviceable conception of normality.
Normality is not even a focus of concern. We have no elaborate classification scheme for normal behavior.
Everything is constructed in terms of abnormality.
We have diagnostic
handbooks of abnormality that rival those of physical disease. The evaluative nature of the concept of abnormality can be illustrated by considering three of its separate, but interrelated, aspects: (1) reality level, (2) etiology, and (3) operational identification.
Reality Level Two broad conceptual approaches to the reality level of abnormal behavior exist: (1) a traditional view, characteristic of the medical or psychiatric establishment, and (2) a more contemporary view, characteristic of American behavioristic psychology, especially Skinnerian radical behaviorism and behavior modification.
Traditional View Abnormal behaviors really exist, constituting real-space and real-time events in the naturally occurring universe. Abnormality is regarded as an absolute property of behavior. A piece of behavior judged to be abnormal is fundamentally different from a piece of behavior judged to be normal. Normal behavior and abnormal behavior constitute qualitatively distinct epiphenomenal classes. By extension, a person exhibiting abnormal behavior is fundamentally different from a person exhibiting normal behavior; and abnormality also can be regarded as an absolute property of the individual. It is perfectly meaningful to categorize a person as insane,
Why Psychology is Interested in Ethics 49 deranged, or mentally ill, as if these were absolute features structurally possessed by the individual. A good analogy for the traditional conception of abnormality is that of physical disease or biological defect. Either one of these is an absolute structural property of the organism. For instance, a person diagnosed as having cancer is fundamentally different from a person who does not have cancer; or a person who is deaf is fundamentally different from a person with no hearing loss. It is presumed in the traditional approach that a piece of behavior, or the organism exhibiting the behavior, can be unambiguously classified as normal or abnormal. Given a set of behaviors exhibited by an individual, it is easy to assign the individual to the normal or abnormal category. The psychiatric establishment over the last one hundred years has evolved an elaborate catalogue of specific classes and subclasses of abnormality, one which is analogous to the voluminous catalogue of physical diseases/biological defects developed by the medical profession. One of the latest versions of such a catalogue is the DSM-IV.
Contemporary View Abnormality merely is a descriptive label attached to a piece of behavior or to the organism exhibiting the behavior by society. The notions of normal and abnormal are like the descriptive social labels of (1) Democrat and Republican, (2) Catholic and Protestant, or (3) liberal and conservative. These are characteristics that can be used to differentiate people, but they are not regarded as absolute properties of the organism. People can change their party affiliation, religious belief, or political philosophy anytime they wish. Abnormality is a subjective, relative notion. Abnormality and normality merely constitute opposite ends of the same continuum, and the boundary line separating these two categories of behavior is arbitrary. An organism and/or its behavior cannot be unambiguously classified as normal or abnormal. Contemporary behaviorism, as exemplified by the behavior modification approach, does not put much value on a systematic typology of abnormality. Behavior modification rejects any elaborate attempt to assign specific behaviors and individuals to the traditional psychiatric diagnostic classificatory slots. It deals directly with the content of the specific behavior in question, independently of any descriptive labeling it could receive. Behavior modification consequently can and does focus on certain maladaptive behaviors that are not regarded as abnormal in the traditional, psychiatric sense of the term: for instance, test anxiety, smoking, poor study habits, overeating, and such.
Evaluative Connotations We have two fundamentally distinct classes of behavior that are legitimatized by analogical reference to physical disease categorization practices in the traditional approach. We merely have descriptive, linguistic labels that operate as convenience indicators in the contemporary approach. The first approach is much more easily exploitable than the second and serves as the source of moral inferiority, or at least social stigma, because it reifies
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
abnormality as an absolute property of the universe. The second approach subordinates the notion of abnormality to that of the less evaluative concept of maladjustment and does not lead to reflexive classes of inferiority: it recognizes the inherent ambiguity and arbitrariness associated with the use of the normality-abnormality distinction.
Etiology There are two classic interpretations of the etiology of abnormal behavior: (1) a somatogenic view, characteristic of nineteenth century German psychiatry, and (2) a psychogenic view, associated with the nineteenth century French psychopathological movement.
Somatogenic View This interpretation relates abnormal behavior exclusively to disturbances in bodily, physiological, or neuronal activity. The somatogenic view of abnormality was emphasized by nineteenth century German psychiatry. Wilhelm Griesinger believed that the brain and its pathology was the essential factor in all forms of mental illness. He recognized no distinction between neurology and psychology, and any instance of abnormal behavior had to be diagnosed as possessing a physiological cause. Emil Kraepelin postulated two major classes of psychoses: dementia praecox and manic-depressive. He related dementia praecox to sex gland activity and manic-depressive psychosis to metabolic dysfunction. Eugen Bleuler later reconceptualized the monolithic notion of dementia praecox as the more heterogeneous concept of schizophrenia. The somatogenic view allowed orthodox clinical medicine to absorb psychiatry and its focus on extreme forms of abnormality, such as the psychoses. This interpretation of the source of abnormality survives today, not monolithically, but in the context of the organic psychoses, i.e., those psychoses with known physiological causes.
Psychogenic View This interpretation relates abnormal behavior exclusively to psychological causes. The psychogenic interpretation of abnormality primarily originated with nineteenth century French psychopathology. The chief figures in this movement were Charcot, Li6beault, Bernheim, and Janet. Charcot and Janet were neurologists; Li6beault and Bernheim were practicing physicians. They were concerned with (1) hypnosis, (2) hysteria, and (3) their relationship. Hysteria is a classic form of neurosis, involving limb paralysis, body anesthesia, blindness, or deafness, all with no known neurological cause. The French psychopathologists demonstrated that hysterical symptoms were both treatable and reproducible through the use of hypnotic suggestion, either alone or in combination with other operations. Janet formulated the first formal psychogenic theory for hysteria in particular and neuroses in general, emphasizing the concept of dissociation of consciousness. Freudian psychology can be regarded as a logical extension of the French psychopathological movement. Freud studied under both Charcot and Bernheim and also
Why Psychology is Interested in Ethics 51 treated hysterical patients in Vienna with Breuer. Freud's interpretation and treatment of hysterical neurosis led to the founding of psychoanalysis, the most inclusive psychogenic approach to abnormality ever devised. Freud's resolution of the neuroses, a less extreme form of abnormal behavior than the psychoses, at a psychogenic level institutionalized the psychotherapeutic approach to the treatment of abnormal behavior. Every contemporary form of psychotherapy is an outgrowth of or reaction to psychoanalysis. Freudian and non-Freudian psychotherapeutic techniques basically differ with respect to the denotation of the critical psychological factors leading to abnormal behavior. Psychoanalysis, as a depth psychology (see Chapter 2), stresses internal, organismic events. Many contemporary non-Freudian psychotherapeutic
techniques,
such
as
behavior
modification,
emphasize
external,
environmental events. The psychogenic view of abnormal behavior survives in the context of the neuroses, the functional psychoses, and any form of maladaptive behavior that is assigned only the descriptive label of abnormal.
Evaluative Connotations The somatogenic view permits pathology to be forced on the individual and the result of bad causes. The psychogenic view is more heterogeneous and is open-ended with respect to the evaluative nature of abnormality; however, it does not necessarily prevent social stigma from being associated with assignment to the abnormal category.
Operational Identification Regardless of how the existential and etiological aspects of abnormal behavior are resolved, we still have the problem of identifying instances of abnormality when they occur. While it could be argued that this usually is done capriciously, there are three general classes of operational definition for the specification of abnormality: (1) the statistical or frequency approach, (2) the cultural or relative approach, and (3) the personal adjustment criterion. These three classes of operational identification are not mutually exclusive. The same piece of behavior quite often will be classified as abnormal by all three operational criteria. Each of these approaches to abnormality identification is inadequate in at least one respect, and this fact will be emphasized in the ensuing discussion. Each of the operational criteria will be illustrated in terms of the same example to provide some continuity in presentation: homosexuality as an instance of abnormality.
Statistical, Frequency Approach The notions of normal and abnormal are resolved at a quantitative level.
The most
frequently occurring behaviors in a population of behaviors are classified as normal, and the least frequently occurring behaviors are classified as abnormal. Modal behavior is normal; rare behavior is abnormal. What the vast majority of people do is considered normal; what the small minority of people do is considered abnormal. Homosexuality is abnormal because only a few individuals engage in homosexual behavior relative to the entire population.
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
This operational approach to abnormality involves no qualitative considerations whatsoever. It just so happens that the population of people living outside mental institutions exceeds the population of people consigned to institutional incarceration. The total number of people who commit behaviors that lead to institutional commitment is less than the total number of people who do not commit behaviors that lead to institutional commitment. If the situation were the reverse, the people who commit behaviors that are regarded as normal according to the current situation would have to be forcibly separated from society. For instance, if most people hallucinated, nonhallucinators would be abnormal and have to be removed from society. There are two problems associated with the statistical, frequency approach to abnormality: (1) More often than not, the exact distribution of a class of behavior in the general population is unknown; and (2) even when the distribution is known, the cutoff line separating the normal and abnormal categories is arbitrary. For instance, with respect to the first problem, we do not really know the exact frequency of occurrence of different variants of heterosexual and homosexual behavior in the general population. We can illustrate the second problem by an appeal to a psychological characteristic whose exact distribution in the general population is known; namely, the intelligence quotient or IQ. An organism's IQ is not a piece of behavior, but certainly is an inference based on overt behavior. IQ is distributed randomly, or normally, in the general, unselected population with a mean of one hundred and a standard deviation of approximately fifteen. This is the case because of the way in which IQ tests are constructed. The partitioning of the over-all distribution into distinct subnormal and supernormal categories of intelligence is strictly arbitrary. Designations of idiot, imbecile, moron, gifted, genius, and the like are strictly capricious.
Evaluative Aspects. The statistical, frequency approach to operationally defining abnormality is morally stipulative at many levels: 1. It functions as a variant of Thomas Hobbes' ethical principle that might makes right. 2. It amounts to a tyranny of the majority. 3. Allowing quantitative frequency to connote qualitative inferiority has no rational basis. 4. The choice of a particular cutoff score on a distribution to determine the normal and abnormal categories is morally stipulative in and of itself. Extreme variation in this approach to operational specification in effect connotes deficiency or inferiority.
While this state of affairs might not seem absurd in the context of bizarre
behaviors of mysterious, unknown origin (note that "bizarre" itself is an evaluative term), consider the case of color vision. The vast majority of people are trichromats: they see all colors. (Note: some trichromats are capable of finer color discrimination than others, contingent on past training. The notion of all in this context merely is a social convention.) Some people are dichromats or monochromats: they do not see all colors. They suffer some form of color blindness. Color blindness is neither bizarre nor mysterious. It is a genetically determined variation, analogous to countless other variations in the natural universe. Yet the
Why Psychology is Interested in Ethics
53
statistical, frequency approach to operational identification of abnormality would reify color blindness as an abnormality. Is there something sacred about trichromatism? Did some divine being preordain trichromatism as orthodoxy? Not really! Natural selection is merciless: fine color discrimination is adaptive. But everything is relative. No human can decode ultraviolet or infrared rays; other organisms can. Does this make the human abnormal? Or, is it the other organisms that are abnormal?
The point is that there is rich intraspecies and interspecies
variation in color vision capacity. Variation in receptor-contingent perceptual realities is one of the facts of the universe.
It is idiotic to identify any one intraspecies or interspecies
variation as abnormal.
Cultural, Relative Approach This approach to identification is indigenous to sociology, but is readily extendable to psychology.
Sociologists distinguish between so-called deviant behavior and nondeviant
behavior, or between deviant individuals and nondeviant individuals. The notion of deviant in sociology corresponds to that of abnormal in psychology; the notion of nondeviant corresponds to that of normal. Deviancy and nondeviancy are operationally defined by reference to the social norms that are characteristic of a given culture or subculture. A piece of behavior that is in accord with the social norm is nondeviant; a piece of behavior that violates the social norm is deviant. Society in general does not value deviancy, probably because one of the purposes of a social norm is to preserve the continued integrity of society.
This is unfortunate, because
deviancy serves as a primary source of social/cultural change. Heterosexuality is nondeviant because it is in accord with the over-all social norm specifying appropriate sexual expression. Homosexuality is deviant because it violates the over-all social norm regarding proper sexual expression. Heterosexual behavior helps maintain the continued integrity of society because it leads to recruitment, the acquisition of new members for society. Homosexual behavior does not lead to societal recruitment. The basic problem with the cultural approach to abnormality derives from its relativity, with respect to both (1) space and (2) time. 1. Two spatially separated cultures, or two subcultures existing in the same essential space, can have different social norms at a given point in time. For instance, in ancient Greece homosexuality was acceptable among members of the upper class, but not among members of the lower class.
Analogously there are subcultures in America today in which
homosexuality is the norm: for instance, in San Francisco or New York City.
As an
example of this kind of relativity not involving sexual behavior, consider a man with long hair in a flowing white gown claiming to be revealed to by God. If this happened on a mountain top in rural North Carolina, the man probably would be revered by the local population; if this happened on Times Square in New York City, the people in little white coats eventually would come and take him to Bellevue.
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
2. Two temporally separated cultures can have different social norms at a given point in space. For instance, while homosexuality flourished in ancient Greece among the upper class, this is not true of contemporary Greece. As an example of this kind of relativity not involving sexual behavior, we can refer to a woman in Salem, Massachusetts exhibiting certain bizarre behaviors. She would be labeled as a witch and be in danger of being burned at the stake in Puritan times; she now simply would be labeled as odd and perhaps encouraged to undergo some form of therapy.
Evaluative Aspects.
The cultural, relative approach to operationally defining abnormality
explicitly is morally stipulative: it allows the values underlying the social norms characteristic of a culture/society to determine the content of the normal and abnormal categories.
This
approach to operationalizing abnormality has the potential of being the most ideologically influenced specification method: it is possible in certain contexts for the notion of normality to be fully equated with that of morality and for the notion of abnormality to be equivalent to that of immorality. For instance, abnormal usually is defined in terms of unnatural in a religious context; but what the theologian means by unnatural is immoral, as based on Holy Writ.
Personal Adjustment Criterion Normality and abnormality are defined in terms of the degree of personal adjustment exhibited by the individual. An organism is normal to the extent that its behaviors do not interfere with its adjustment to life; that is, do not interfere with its everyday interaction with the surrounding physical and social environment. A piece of behavior analogously is normal to the extent that it is adaptive. Normality and abnormality are not really digital, all-or-none states in this approach; rather they are graded entities, coexisting in certain degrees. The personal adjustment criterion suffers the same deficiency that the cultural approach does: relativity. This is easily illustrated with homosexuality. Nighttime janitors who are avowed homosexuals would not necessarily be classified as abnormal. Their homosexuality does not interfere with their life: who cares if a nighttime janitor is a homosexual? Star players of a college basketball team who are avowed homosexuals on the other hand are in grave danger of being labeled abnormal.
Their homosexuality does interfere with their life: the
alumni and alumnae will not tolerate a homosexual scoring points. Other examples of the relativity of the personal adjustment criterion might be helpful. Assume a person avoids people, refuses to talk on the telephone, and walks close to the wall down corridors.
If the person is a nighttime janitor, these behaviors do not interfere with
personal adjustment; if the person is a lawyer, doctor, or business executive, these behaviors do interfere with personal adjustment. Consider the case of professional rock musicians: they can engage in all sorts of bizarre behaviors and wear all sorts of offbeat clothes. The same behavior and clothing exhibited by a member of the clergy would lead to immediate social disapproval and perhaps even expulsion from the pulpit.
Why Psychology is Interested in Ethics 55 Evaluative Aspects.
The personal adjustment criterion is the least morally stipulative operational approach to abnormality identification. Achieving a satisfactory adjustment to life is rarely viewed as evaluatively negative. Evaluative problems arise because the notion of satisfactory adjustment to life, in turn, must be operationally defined. It is at this level that cultural values and vested interests can have an influence.
Addendum." Informal, Implicit Operational Specification The operational specification of abnormality in the applied medical/clinical context tends to be subjective. Anyone who is in the profession of treating abnormality, such as a doctor, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, psychotherapist, counselor, member of the clergy, or behavior modification specialist, implicitly uses the personal adjustment criterion.
A psychological
practitioner usually knows that a given piece of behavior is maladaptive and, therefore, abnormal through the self-judgment and self-report of the client/patient according to a personalistic criterion of adjustment. The individual quite often only knows that something is wrong or reports anxiety or unhappiness. The original identification of abnormality many times is implicitly done by an informal link in the over-all helping chain, such as spouse, minister, or family doctor. The therapist accepts the client's predetermined abnormal status at face value. This suggests that abnormality really is a constellation of related entities. Behavior that tends to make one unhappy or anxious also tends to interfere, to be against the social norm, and to be exhibited by a small percentage of the population.
Evaluative Aspects. Informal, implicit operational specification of abnormality is not easily exploitable. Self-determination of abnormality is implicit and requires no formal operational definition. Determination of abnormality by a spouse or fellow family member usually is done via empathetic identification and achievement of some intuitive understanding; but this is a context in which the evaluative aspects of common values, mutual approval, and liking work for the benefit of the pathological diagnosis.
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4
WHY A PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF ETHICS IS NECESSARY
Recall from the Preface that the means function of ethics requires the fundamental structure and distinctions of the discipline to correspond to those characteristic of social science in general and psychology in particular, thus making the phenomena of concern to both ethics and psychology basically the same. This situation in itself would justify a psychological analysis of the nature of ethical reality; however, now that the main features of both disciplines have been individually discussed and the implicit normative stance of psychology has been revealed, it is necessary to present a more cogent case for the necessity of this analytical effort. The purpose of this chapter is to present about a half dozen classes of reasons why a psychological analysis of ethics is germane. Emphasis should be placed on the term "class." What will function as a reason for us is not some idiosyncratic, isolated entity, but rather a series of related issues and concerns that possess a certain analytical coherency and cogency. Also note that no attempt will be made to classify these classes of reasons relative to some descriptive dimensions, or to derive them from some underlying conceptual structure, although they are not discussed in a completely random fashion. These classes of reasons include (1) desirability
of combined
epistemological-social
action
statements,
(2)
relevance
of
psychology's traditional units of analysis, (3) resolution of possible loci of prescriptiveness issue, (4) possible consequences of the self-significant other distinction, (5) criterial status of the concept of human nature, (6) metaphysical status of special populations, (7) relationship of ontogeny to phylogeny in ethics, and (8) clarification of the role of an ideal observer/impartial spectator in ethics.
COMBINED EPISTEMOLOGICAL-SOCIAL ACTION S T A T E M E N T S Because the construction of a psychological reality itself is an evaluative, normative endeavor (see Chapter 3), a psychological analysis of the nature of ethical reality would help us to better understand psychology. For instance, while the conduction of academic psychology primarily is an epistemological endeavor and the conduction of applied psychology basically is a matter of social action, the ideal psychological universe would be one that represents an explicit fusion of these two interests. A psychological fact should be a combined
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
epistemological and social action statement. (This proposition itself obviously constitutes a value judgment.) There are three nonmutually exclusive senses in which a given content psychology can be viewed as applied or affording practical application: 1. The self serves as the implicit or explicit focus of interest. This sense is explicit in understanding psychology and implicit in depth and dialectical psychology. 2. Psychological reality is directly constructed in terms of what is presumably occurring in the so-called real world. This sense is explicit in depth and dialectical psychology and implicit in folk psychology. 3. The natural environment, i.e., nonlaboratory situation, is modeled after the psychological universe subsumed by the delimited confines of the laboratory situation, conceived as a generic concept.
This sense is explicitly characteristic of action and cognitive,
epistemological psychology. Which of these three ways of originating combined epistemological-social action statements is the best one for creating an ethical reality will be a matter of analytic concern in Chapter 9. P S Y C H O L O G Y ' S TRADITIONAL UNITS OF ANALYSIS Although the phenomena of concern to ethics and psychology essentially are the same, this does not necessarily mean that they possess the same existential status in each discipline. Ethical phenomena essentially are commonsense notions, taken at face value, customarily expressible via the vernacular: they correspond to the domain of pretechnical, preprofessional folk psychology (see Chapter 1). The phenomena of concern to ethics in a disciplinary psychological context would have to be verbalized via a technical vocabulary whose explicit denotative meaning is quite circumscribed and does not necessarily correspond to everyday usage. The technical psychological description of events with ethical significance would open up a virtual Pandora's box of high-level interpretive issues. This is the case because analytical notions such as operational definition and philosophical existence criteria would become matters of concern. As a for instance, entities such as thoughts, intentions, and desires possess indigenous ethical reality and often function as causal sources of behavior for the ethical theorist; however, in the context of disciplinary psychology, these notions constitute mental events: it cannot simply be assumed that they exist or are causative, as opposed to epiphenomenal, in nature. The following query becomes relevant in the context of a psychological analysis of ethical reality: Are purely mental events/acts ever ethical entities.'? At a more prosaic level, how is it possible for a thought, intention, or desire to be characterized as good or evil? This general issue will be addressed in Chapter 9.
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59
P O S S I B L E L O C I OF P R E S C R I P T I V E N E S S Recall from Chapter 1 that ethics is a prescriptive endeavor: it involves manifestations and categories of both value and obligation. One of the fundamental issues in ethics concerns the existential reality level or location of the prescriptive what should be. Correlative with this is the issue of the nature of the directive force that commonly is associated with prescriptive statements expressed in the imperative mode.
These two problems collectively help
characterize what could be unique, or special, about ethical reality. There are numerous historical interpretations of prescriptiveness, a representative sampling of which follows: 1. It is traditional to ensconce prescriptiveness in the will of God, such that its directive force resides in the fact of God's command. This approach is a subset of the general principle that associating something with divinity usually is equivalent to giving it immediate, automatic sanction. 2. Prescriptiveness amounts to an edict of rational thought: its existence is the virtually automatic by-product of the correct use of reason. 3. It is possible to locate prescriptiveness in a person's phenomenal world, where it is usually considered to be a property that is intuitively experienced.
Prescriptiveness in this
interpretation possesses an immediate, indubitable reality. 4. Prescriptiveness often is treated as a quality of a moral rule, ~ la Kant. The rule is assumed to have a binding quality, which is revealed by the feeling of respect exhibited by a person under the influence of the moral precept. Prescriptiveness for Kant also is related to the nature and structure of the human conscience, one in which the notions of duty and moral necessity have salient roles. 5. The hypothetical imperative (see Chapter 1) functions as the sole locus of prescriptivenss for many people.
Such an imperative consists of a means-end relation, and it is the
designation of means in particular that is assumed to carry the brunt of the directive force. 6. The notion of prescriptiveness can be conceptualized as merely possessing linguistic reality, i.e., it is a property of some aspect of our language system and usage. For instance: expressive, emotive statements; syntax; pragmatic performatory utterances; and the like. 7. In the context of existentialism, which emphasizes the immediacy or urgency of ethical decision making in terms of the content of the current experiential situation, prescriptiveness is self-originated whenever an individual accepts the responsibility of acting as a moral agent. 8. It is possible to argue that prescriptiveness has achieved habitual status, i.e., it is part of our typical psychological reaction to stimuli that are ethical in nature. This approach in effect makes prescriptiveness a learned phenomenon that is a product of our past experience. A psychological analysis of the nature of ethical reality conceivably could help in resolving
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
the prescriptiveness issue.
Ethical reality is just as constructional and arbitrary as
psychological reality is. The imposition of ethical reality on a logically prior psychological reality in a sense amounts to ascertaining a locus for prescriptiveness. Some conclusions with respect to the prescriptiveness issue will appear in Chapters 8 and 9. SELF-SIGNIFICANT O T H E R DISTINCTION Recall from Chapter 2 that the self-significant other distinction derives from the different roles that we can play in the process of constructing the psychological universe. Because the ethical universe merely is a conceptual extension of the psychological one, the self-significant other distinction ipso facto carries over to the ethical field. Ethical reality must be constructed in terms of this dichotomy just as psychological reality is. A psychological analysis of ethical reality is necessary to see just how incisive and deep this distinction is in the normative realm, i.e., to determine the nature and extent of the consequences of this distinction for the ethical domain. Three classes of consequences briefly will be previewed here, as a representative sampling.
1. A bona fide distinction exists in ethics between moral choice and moral evaluation. A self makes moral decisions, or choices, with respect to its own behavior; the behavior of a significant other serves as the object of moral judgment, or evaluation. Moral choice and moral evaluation need not be continuous phenomena: they might require separate analysis and explanation. 2. It is possible for a person to serve as a self and significant other concurrently in an ethical context, as is the case in psychology. The obvious case of this is when the content of a person's moral choice is simultaneously evaluated by a separate, independent observer. A less obvious instance occurs when a person reconsiders one of its past moral choices: the content of the choice is evaluated as if it had been exhibited by a separate significant other. In effect, moral choice only can be a characteristic property of current behavior, while moral evaluation can occur for past or present behavior. 3. Virtue, vice, general moral worth, and the like constitute prototypical ethical phenomena. But they primarily are properties of significant others, not selves: they basically are matters of moral evaluation, not of moral choice. People possess moral worth only to the extent that others judge them to do so. People typically are not considered to be virtuous based on self-judgment or as a preordained strategy of moral response in some ethical situation. Some closure on the significance of the self-significant other distinction will appear in Chapter 9. C O N C E P T OF H U M A N N A T U R E One of the primary assumptions of a naturalistically based ethics certainly is that moral doctrine must be grounded in human nature. The concept of human nature minimally operates as one of the boundary conditions that must be taken into account by any ethical system. For instance, it would be manifestly ridiculous to expect a person to do X or refrain from doing X
Why a Psychological Analysis of Ethics is Necessary
61
if it were beyond the person's capability. So, the notion of human nature in a sense possesses a sort of criterial status in the context of ethics. Psychologists universally are recognized as the experts on human nature; however, recall that psychology is pluralistic and virtually no contemporary psychologist would define the discipline as the science of human nature. The label "human being" is not a technical term and the concept of human nature is vacuous for many psychologists, especially academic, experimental ones: it is not regarded as a causal source of behavior or as a relevant epiphenomenal output event. It is the applied psychologist, focusing on the individual person, who finds the concept to be congenial and considers it to be relevant for psychological doctrine; however, even in this context, human nature is not some absolutistic, monolithic entity impervious to environmental influences.
It is virtually universally assumed that the
notion of human nature is circular when it is used in a primitive, simplistic explanatory fashion. The critical issue for ethics at a technical level is not so much the problem of human nature, as it is the nature of the human organism. As previewed in Chapter 1, contemporary academic, experimental psychology is naturalistic and mechanistic in orientation: the human organism is considered to be analyzable in strict physicochemical terms as a component of the real-time, real-space universe. A psychological analysis of the nature of ethical reality would help clarify the many options the ethical theorist has with respect to the organismic foundations of normative doctrine. SPECIAL P O P U L A T I O N S Both the discipline of psychology and the field of ethics are characterized by lists of special organisms. More significantly, for all practical purposes, the content of these two lists is the same: animals, children, insane, developmentally challenged, psychotic, and the like. In a psychological context, these organisms comprise special populations who descriptively differ from some standard significant other on at least one classificatory/analytical dimension of relevance to the discipline. Recall from Chapter 3 that the notion of a special population also is an evaluative, normative one. In ethics, these organisms comprise entities that are not regarded as morally responsible or capable of moral judgment. Recall from Chapter 1 that the closest ethics gets to the notion of a standard organism is that of a rational adult human. What is the metaphysical status of these two lists; how are they related; is one derivable from the other? A psychological analysis of the nature of ethical reality would contribute to a resolution of these questions. See Chapter 9.
O N T O G E N Y AND P H Y L O G E N Y IN E T H I C S Ontogeny and phylogeny are developmental terms: ontogeny refers to the development of an individual organism; phylogeny refers to the development of the species to which the individual organism belongs. Of perennial intellectual interest is the degree to which these two kinds of development parallel each other for different aspects of humankind.
For instance,
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
does the order of appearance of certain skills in a child's repertoire correspond to their order of evolution by homo sapiens; or is the evolutionary development of certain modes of thinking among a people duplicated at the individual level? It is meaningful to inquire in the ethical realm whether the moral development of the typical child parallels that of the evolution of moral consciousness among homo sapiens as a whole; or are there ontogenetic and phylogenetic stages of moral development that correspond to each other? These queries are at least partially empirical in nature and require reference to extant psychological research on moral development.
This would be facilitated by a
psychological analysis of the nature of ethical reality. STATUS OF IDEAL O B S E R V E R / I M P A R T I A L S P E C T A T O R Many ethical theories assume the existence of an ideal observer or impartial spectator for either the construction or interpretation of ethical doctrine.
Such a creature would be
perspective-free, devoid of bias, bereft of emotion, lacking self-interest, and the like. While in many cases it is realized that this notion merely is hypothetical and serves as a convenient fiction, the mere fact that serious ethical thinkers entertain the notion at all is a cause for concem. The properties of an ideal observer/impartial spectator must reflect the value system and goals of its creator; the revelations of an ideal observer/impartial spectator really amount to the privatistic intuitions of its creator. The use of an ideal observer/impartial spectator by an ethicist is related to the more general problem of distinguishing between the descriptive and the theoretical, i.e., discriminating between what is given and what is inferred in any situation. Psychologists are trained to be aware of this problem and possess a number of options for resolving it. As we shall see in the next chapter, constructing a psychological reality cannot be done independently of the use of one of these options. This is another reason why a psychological analysis of ethical reality would be beneficial.
5
ORIENTATIONS; CONTENT OF OBSERVATION: TYPES OF MORAL JUDGMENTS
The purpose of this chapter is to formally derive the most common types of moral judgments from a set of more basic distinctions that are used to construct a psychological reality. These distinctions are operational or procedural in nature: we are in effect operating at a methodological level of analysis, a level that many psychologists tend to take for granted. The ethical phenomena to be derived constitute the empirical givens that ethical theorists attempt to explain.
These empirical phenomena constitute the domain of the discipline that will be
analyzed in the next chapter. The psychological analysis will employ two critical methodological notions: (1) content of observation and (2) orientation. The crucial ethical distinction to be derived is that between a direct and a removed moral judgment: a direct judgment is a choice, while a removed judgment amounts to an evaluation (see Chapter 4). M E T H O D O L O G I C A L DISTINCTIONS USED TO C O N S T R U C T PSYCHOLOGICAL I~ALITY The salient feature of academic, experimental psychology is the fact that psychological knowledge is empirically sourced: it derives from observations and the inferences that can be made from observations.
Psychological reality must be imposed on the content of certain
observations that an organism makes and the inferences that can be made from these observations. One of the reasons contemporary psychology is pluralistic is the fact that agreement among psychologists breaks down once they get beyond the purely epistemological level: what constitute proper conditions of observation, appropriate observational entities, acceptable types of inferences or degrees of inferencing, and the like still are open-ended questions, ostensibly impervious to final resolution.
Thus, although psychologists concur on the source of
psychological knowledge, they do not do so with respect to the manner in which it is obtained. Before a psychologist can even begin to generate empirical data, fundamental decisions must be made with respect to content of observation and orientation.
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
Content of Observation The notion of a content of observation is not a traditional analytical tool used by commentators on the state of psychological methodology, although it does appear in prior treatises of the author (see Hillner, 1985, 1987). The notion is important for two basic reasons: 1. It is related to or determines the type of orientation a psychologist uses to produce psychological knowledge. 2. It is the primary methodological factor determining the nature of the psychological universe for an academic psychologist. For instance, it determines whether the psychological world is objective or subjective, universal or unique, physical or nonphysical, reducible or emergent, conscious or unconscious, given or derived, dialectical or nondialectical, and the like. The content of observation is assumed to involve a two-term relationship; namely, that between (1) basic object of study and (2) locus of psychological causation. Object of study and locus of causation do not constitute independent existential, observational entities at the methodological level. An experimental psychologist does not rationally select a specific object of study and then separately choose its most appropriate locus of causation. This situation is formalized in our analysis by making them indivisible components of a content of observation.
Examples Five examples of the notion of a content of observation follow. 1. In descriptive behaviorism, the content of observation entails an input-output relation, where the output is the psychological phenomenon of immediate interest, usually overt behavior, and the input is its cause, usually assumed to be some physical environmental event. Selecting an input-output relation as the content of observation requires the adoption of some form of determinism. For Watson and Skinner, the content of observation in effect is a descriptive causal law, usually stated in stimulus and response terminology. 2. In humanistic psychology, the locus of causation is inferred from the object of study: the organism's psychological world is inferred from the content of the self-report of its conscious, especially emotional, experience.
For Rogers and Maslow, the content of
observation entails a direct object of study---conscious experience--and an indirect, or inferred, object of studympsychological world. Selecting a person's psychological world, as revealed by the content of conscious experience, as the content of observation requires a belief in free will or at least in the possibility of self-generated changes in behavior. 3. In contemporary cognitive psychology, the locus of causation is the basic object of study: the focus is on the mental determinants of overt behavior. The content of observation entails a direct object of study--behaviormand an indirect, or inferred, object of study-cognitive processes. Selecting a person's cognitive processes, as revealed by overt behavior, as the content of observation requires adoption of one of the sacred cows of folk psychology: mental events control behavior.
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65
4. In Freud's depth psychology, the locus of causation is the basic object of study: the focus is on the internal, especially unconscious, psychodynamic sources of overt behavior.
For
Freud, the content of observation entails a direct object of study--behaviormand an indirect, or inferred, object of study--psychodynamic events.
Selecting the state of a
person's psychodynamic system, as revealed by overt behavior, as the content of observation requires a belief in a psychic determinism. 5. In structuralism, only a truncated content of observation is employed: the basic object of study is observed in a contextual vacuum and not related to any locus of causation. The object of study is the content of the self-report of one's conscious, especially sensory, experience. These sensory contents exhaust the psychological universe for the structuralist and are not related to any potential input, such as physical stimuli, or output, such as behavior.
Some Evaluation The content of observation serves the same function in our derivation as units of analysis do in other analyses. But the phrase "units of analysis" does not connote the experiential, or observational, source of psychological phenomena and only is relevant for objective, experimental systems. Its use is artificial in the context of a subjective, phenomenologically based psychology. The use of a content of observation also absorbs the traditional concept of object of study. The phrase "object of study" simply is not precise enough once one goes beyond the gross distinction between conscious experience and behavior. A content of observation can include both a direct object of study, such as behavior, and an indirect, inferred object of study, such as mental processes, cognitive activity, psychodynamic events, and the like.
Transition: Psychology's Observational Quandary The fact that there is no standard interpretation of the notion of a content of observation can be expressed from a slightly different perspective. The discipline focuses on the very entity that psychologizes in the first place: the human organism. Psychology is the study of the human being by the human being. This makes it impossible for psychology to be objective in any absolute sense. Any research situation purporting to generate psychological data must consist of both an observed entity and an observing entity. Both of these entities are human beings in the prototypical case, although neither entity need be an actual human being in the context of contemporary research: for instance, an electronic eye recording how often a preprogrammed robot crosses a certain line while performing its task. In other words, either the observed entity or the observing entity can be a human surrogate or analogue. The discipline's observational quandary derives from the following crucial fact: both the observing and observed entities are reactive, generative, causative agents.
By way of
comparison, only the observer is reactive, generative, or causative in a physical science context, where the observed entity is some inanimate object. More precise terminology here
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
would be self-reactive, self-generative, or self-causative, because even in a physical science context the act of observing and measuring a phenomenon can change it along one or more dimensions: viz., Heisenberg's principle. Neither the observing entity nor the observed agent is unbiased in psychology. The observer must decide what is occurring; the observed agent must produce what is occurring. What is occurring is relative to either party of the transaction. The problem entails more than mere generality or representativeness: it is an epistemological quagmire, which for many philosophers precludes any possibility of coherent objective knowledge. The solutions that the discipline has proposed are endless, ranging from complete denial of the problem to complete acceptance of the problem. As instance of the former would be traditional Watsonian behaviorism, in which it is assumed that the observed organism is completely passive. The latter would be represented by dialectical psychology, in which it is assumed that both the subject and experimenter in a psychological study constitute observing entities and observed agents concurrently, forming an emergent dyadic unit of analysis. It is possible at a purely methodological level to introduce various simplifying assumptions that attempt to eliminate the self-reactivity or biasedness of one party to the transaction. This is where the notion of orientation enters the picture. A specific set of simplifying assumptions for resolving the observational quandary amounts to an orientation. The research psychologist has many choices with respect to orientation, and the popularity and acceptability of various orientations historically have waxed and waned in cyclical fashion. Orientation It is necessary to use the self-significant other distinction in order to distinguish among different types of orientations. The two parties to a psychological transaction no longer can be referred to simply as an observing entity and an observed agent: they henceforth are called (1) the self and (2) a significant other. It is to be assumed that the self is the observer unless specified otherwise. Exposition is limited to the two-party case. Situations with multiple observers or multiple observed agents do not alter the assumptions and logic underlying the different types of orientations, although they can influence the actual physical conduction of a laboratory experiment.
Types At least four general classes of orientations exist: (1) objective, (2) subjective, (3) quasiobjective, and (4) combined objective x subjective. Each one will be characterized in terms of its simplifying assumption(s), general features, content of observation, and associated content psychology.
Orientations," Content of Observation: Types of Moral Judgments
67
Objective Orientation This orientation attempts to resolve psychology's observational quandary by assuming that the self can be neutralized, i.e., become an impersonal, unbiased observer, if it is removed from the potential psychological universe. The potential components of the psychological universe strictly are limited to (1) the external, or externally resolvable, activities displayed by the significant other and (2) the physical environmental milieu in which these occur. The significant other is called a subject.
The self is called an experimenter, but
psychological knowledge is not stated from the perspective of the experimenter.
This
orientation seeks a psychological reality independent of the consciousness of the self, as observer, and mimics the way a physicist or chemist constructs physical reality, such that the psychological universe is continuous with, or a component of, physical reality. Any sophisticated measuring instrument can serve as a self-surrogate, i.e., replace a human observer.
This is supposed to guarantee pure objectivity; however, the output from an
automated recording device is a product of the way in which the experimenter originally set up the measuring instrument. The experimenter is not allowed to make any kinds of inferences from the observations in the strict application of the objective orientation. The content of observation strictly is an input-output relation, in which behavior of the significant other is the output and some physical, environmental event is the input. Because no inferences are allowed, it is possible for an animal, machine, or any other entity displaying externally resolvable activity to serve as a subject in this approach. The objective orientation establishes the notion of an action psychology (see Chapter 2), because the content of observation encompasses both overt behavior and the presumed environmental events by which behavior is predicted and controlled. An action psychology admits of practical application and possesses indigenous social relevance. An action system often is referred to as a descriptive system, because no reference is made to inferable, hypothetical entities. The prototypical case of an action system is descriptive behaviorism, of which there are two primary exemplars: (1) classical Watsonian behaviorism and (2) contemporary Skinnerian behaviorism.
Watson formalized the objective approach to psychology around 1912 in his
"behaviorist manifesto."
His brand of behaviorism dominated academic, experimental
psychology to approximately 1930. Skinner inherited Watson's mantle during the 1930s, and the succeeding seventy years have seen his radical behaviorism become the dominant form of descriptive behaviorism (see Chapter 1). Skinner even considers his system to be a philosophy of the science of behavior.
Subjective Orientation This orientation is the virtual mirror image of the objective approach: it attempts to resolve psychology's observational quandary by assuming that the significant other can be neutralized if it is removed from the potential psychological universe. The potential components of the
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psychological universe strictly are limited to those phenomena associated with the self that it can report on as observer. The self cannot conveniently report on its own currently ongoing behavior, but it can externalize the content of its past and current perceptual and emotional consciousness. The significant other only can play two possible roles: (1) passive recording of the self's ruminations and (2) active induction of the self's psychological world from the content of its self-report. The self functions as an implicit subject, but rarely is called such; the significant other constitutes an implicit experimenter, but is not called such. This orientation seeks a psychological reality contingent on the consciousness of the self, as observer: the content of observation is some aspect of the conscious awareness of the self and the nature of the psychological world implicit in the selff s verbal descriptions. The state of the self's consciousness and psychological world is an internally resolvable event: only the self has direct access to it. This is the distinguishing feature of the subjective orientation. The content of observation is not a publicly observable, real-time and real-space event, subject to external reliability and validity check. This ordinarily is no problem, because the reported psychological world need only have meaning for the observer. This approach is empirical, as opposed to rationalistic; but it is not experimental in the usual sense of the term. The subjective orientation has generated two types of psychology: (1) epistemological or cognitive and (2) understanding or phenomenological. Initial subjective systems were classical schools of epistemological or cognitive psychology; any contemporary subjective system is an understanding or phenomenological psychology. The classical schools encompassing this orientation were Germanic in origin and included Wundt's and Titchener's structuralism, Kiilpe's structuralism, Brentano's act psychology, and Wertheimer's, Koffka's, and Krhler's Gestalt psychology, at least with respect to perceptual consciousness (see Chapter 2). Each of these psychologies focused on the self's sensory and/or perceptual consciousness or the act of thinking. They rarely are classified as subjective in orientation, because they all studied the universal mind; namely, conscious processes that were supposed to be common to all persons.
Structuralism even is regarded as the first true
exemplar of an experimental psychology. But they have to be classified as subjective in the context of our orientation typology because the cognitive psychology inherent in these approaches is all based on self-report. The canonical operational experimental technique associated with each of these systems was some form of introspection. Gestalt psychology is the only one of these epistemological systems to possess any significant contemporary residues. The primary contemporary exemplar of the subjective orientation is the so-called third force movement in psychology: a loosely formulated combination of humanism, existential psychology, and phenomenological psychology, begun under the aegis of Abraham Maslow in the early 1960s (see Chapter 2). We can use the term humanistic psychology to characterize the entire movement. Unlike classical subjective psychology, humanism focuses on all aspects of the individual's experience. The human is regarded as an emergent phenomenon,
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discontinuous with other types of organisms, and as a special type of being. The humanist focuses on the individual organism' s state of self-awareness and over-all level of adjustment to the environment. The basic aim of humanistic psychology is the resolution of an organism's psychological being in terms of its view of the world, and the only justification for activist intervention is the increased psychological health of the organism.
Quasi-Objective Orientation This orientation amounts to a conceptual extension of the objective approach, resolving the observational quandary in the very same manner, but with a significant addition: the self is allowed to make inferences from the phenomena of direct observation.
The self still is
excluded from the potential psychological universe, but its functions are expanded to include inference, besides observation. The potential components of the psychological universe still are limited to features of the external environment and aspects of the significant other; however, the latter are expanded to include any inferable internal event, besides directly observable external activities. Most quasi-objective systems of psychology are experimental in nature and differ from objectively based descriptive behaviorism only in the practice of making inferences to unobservables. The significant other is a subject; the self is an experimenter; psychological knowledge presumably is not stated from the perspective of the self as observer. Allowing the experimenter to make inferences from observables has its greatest effect on the content of observation: behavior of the significant other still constitutes the basic object of study; however, the locus of causation is expanded to include any inferable internal entity. Interest in behavior now is only incidental: it merely is a means for investigating the true objects of concern, the internal psychological determinants. Physical, environmental events still are presumed to be causative; but they are subsidiary to the ultimate internal psychological determinants. Psychological knowledge no longer is limited to descriptive causal laws. Hypothetical constructs are permissible as loci of causation, and psychological knowledge now can have a significant theoretical component. The expanded content of observation provides a vehicle for constructing a psychological reality with epiphenomena, or output, continuous with the physical sciences and loci of causation, or input, unique to living organisms: it allows the quantification of objective behavioral events and the postulation of subjective psychological factors. The quasi-objective orientation has been very popular with academic, experimental psychologists over the years and has given rise to a heterogeneous collection of systems: 1. Contemporary epistemological or cognitive psychology, such as cognitive behaviorism or the information processing approach based on the computer analogy and Piagetian geneticepistemological psychology involving fixed developmental stages and various logical capacities. 2. The many versions of depth psychology, of which Freudian psychoanalysis is the prototypical case.
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3. The classical school of functionalism, which related behavior to the operations of consciousness: it can be viewed as either an action or epistemological approach, depending on whether its basic object of study or locus of causation is emphasized. 4. The many versions of action oriented logical behaviorism, such as the classical learning psychologies of Hull, Guthrie, and Tolman: these approaches are known more as learning psychologies than as forms of behaviorism and dominated experimental psychology from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. 5. The contemporary mathematical model approach, characteristic of Estes, Bush, Mosteller, Restle, Bower, Suppes, Atkinson, and others. Each of the above psychologies, except for the Freudian approach, is indigenous to the academic environment.
Freudian psychology originated in a context where the self, as
observer, is a therapist and the significant other is a patient. Freud constructed an elaborate psychodynamic system based on inductions from patients' physical and verbal activity exhibited during psychoanalytic sessions involving free association. It should be noted that both humanistic psychologists and Gestalt psychologists can operate in the context of the quasi-objective orientation. This occurs for humanists when they induce the nature of the conscious experience and psychological world of a significant other from its overt behavior, including verbal description. Likewise for the Gestaltists when they focus on the behavior of a significant other and induce the nature of the psychological environment inwhich it occurs.
Combined Objective X Subjective Orientation This orientation combines elements of both the objective and subjective approaches, but not in a linear fashion. It probably is the most realistic solution to psychology's observational quandary; however, it is very difficult to implement in terms of actual practice. Both the self and significant other are allowed to contribute potential components to the psychological universe. The self and the significant other are assumed to be both observers and agents simultaneously.
The psychological domain consists of an interacting pair or dyad, each
member of which is both a self and significant other concurrently. This approach is objective in the sense that it focuses on externally resolvable behavior of a significant other; but it also is subjective because the observer of the significant other, the self, is a component of the psychological domain and can affect the contents of an observation. This approach also is subjective in another sense: either member of the dyad can engage in observation of its own conscious experience. The content of observation is multifaceted. One possible interpretation is that it consists of the behavior of the significant other as it occurs in an environmental milieu, tempered by the preconceptions of the self, as observer. Another is that it consists of the content of conscious experience and state of the psychological world of the self.
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The closest approximation to the combined orientation in the context of contemporary psychology is Riegel's dialectical approach, which is a logical extension of Rubinstein's (Rubinshteyn) system. Rubinstein was a Russian psychologist who advocated various versions of dialectical psychology in his lifetime. Riegel presumably integrates the objective and subjective orientations by refusing to deal with the psychological subject, i.e., significant other, independently of the experimenter, i.e., self, and by refusing to deal with the environment, as a self surrogate, independently of the psychological subject. Dialectical psychology presumes that a transactional relationship exists between the subject and experimenter in any psychological investigation, such that the subject and experimenter together constitute an irreducible, emergent unit of analysis. Psychological truth must be stated in terms of both parties to the transaction. The prototypical psychological situation for dialectical psychology is a dialogue between two organisms, either verbal or nonverbal. The content of observation is any meaningful description of the events occurring within the dialogue. Riegel's scheme amounts to a cognitively oriented developmental psychology, in which the individual organism is viewed as a point in a vast historical-cultural space. Both the individual organism and the historical-cultural milieu are assumed to both mutually influence and change each other over time.
Preliminary Assessment: Relativity of Psychological Knowledge None of the four orientations allows the creation of an absolute, or perspective-free, psychological reality.
Objective By eliminating the observing self from the potential psychological universe, the objective approach merely reduces the problem of the reactivity of the experimenter to the everyday level of research practice. One of the goals of technically proficient research practice is the creation of a neutral, unbiased observer. The objective approach only can provide for the reactivity of the significant other at a purely metaphysical level. One form of objective psychology, traditional Watsonian behaviorism, presumes that the human agent is a completely passive responder, i.e., a component of a deterministic system. An objectively oriented psychologist who denies determinism has no realistic way of handling the reactivity of the subject.
Subjective The subjective approach ipso facto denies the possibility of an absolute psychological reality: the self merely observes the self; or the observing entity and observed entity reside in the same existential object. No attempt even is made to escape the confines of an individualistic, personalistic psychological reality. But the role of the significant other in the subjective orientation parallels the role of the self in the objective orientation. The significant
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other, an implicit experimenter, minimally observes and records the observations of the self and maximally makes interpretations of the self's output. Neutral observation or interpretation in this context is a matter of appropriate training at the procedural level.
Quasi-Objective The quasi-objective approach carries over all the problems associated with the strict objective orientation and adds in the problem of appropriate inferencing with respect to the postulation of hypothetical internal entities.
The latter introduces the matter of various
philosophical existence criteria, as well as the use of a theoretical explanatory level of analysis.
Combined The combined objective x subjective approach, as the case with the subjective orientation, denies the possibility of an absolute psychological reality.
The dialectically conceived
psychological universe is in even more flux than the humanistically based, individual psychological world because of the more intricate interactional assumptions of the combined orientation.
Real Value of the Orientations: Two Perspectives Rather than successfully resolving the observational quandary, the proposed orientations merely refocus the problem and make the methodological constraints on the creation of psychological knowledge more explicit. If it is conceded that psychological truth never can be perspective-free, our orientation discussion suggests that there are basically two possible classes of perspectives: (1) that of an individual self and (2) an externally imposed one, the exact content and constituency of which are potentially multisourced and open-ended: they are not a methodological matter. Psychology must focus on the self in the context of the first perspective; it must focus on a significant other, or group of significant others, in the context of the second perspective. Focus on the self requires conscious experience, or consciousness, as the observable epiphenomena of psychology; focus on a significant other requires overt behavior as the observable epiphenomena of psychology. Focus on the self methodologically involves first-person access to personal experience; focus on a significant other methodologically involves third-person access to external behavior. First-person access to conscious experience is associated with the subjective orientation; third-person access to behavior is associated with the objective and quasi-objective orientations. It now is possible to see why the human being can serve as an object of psychological analysis in three different senses (see Chapter 2). If the individual organism is focused on as a self, it must be analyzed as an end in itself. If the individual organism is focused on as a significant other, it can be analyzed either as a means to another end or as a means and end concurrently. Psychology constructed from the perspective of an individual self must treat the
Orientations; Content of Observation: Types of Moral Judgments human being as an end in itself.
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Psychology constructed from an externally imposed
perspective can treat the human being either as a means or as a means and end simultaneously. Because the discussion up to this point has been quite abstract, it would be didactic to delineate the differential methodological ramifications of the two possible perspectives in a specific physical context: the method of self-report.
Method of Self-Report Humans talk. There probably is no more prosaic activity than human speechifying: it is an aspect of the over-all language function. No fundamental difference exists between speech in the context of daily life and that which occurs in a laboratory or therapeutic situation, with the possible exception that the latter tends to be more self-monitored and focused. The act of speaking, as an experimental or therapeutic technique, is called the method of self-report.
But a psychologist cannot deal with talk independent of an orientation, i.e.,
independent of a self-focus or a significant other focus.
Objective Approach: Significant Other Focus The speaker is the significant other in this orientation.
Speech simply is an externally
resolvable activity displayed by the subject, continuous with every other possible class of external phenomena. Speech in behaviorism is simply another kind of behavioral response, verbal in nature, continuous with purely motor behavioral responses.
The method of self-
report in this context often is called the method of verbal report, highlighting the fact that the source of speech is a significant other, not a self. The use of the method of verbal report is one of mere convenience. It is easier to have a subject say "yes" or "no" in many situations than engage in some elaborate physical activity. Saying "yes" or "no" here is equivalent to raising a hand, pushing a button, pointing to some object, or the like. These are indicative, discriminative responses that are given meaning by reference to the externally imposed perspective, whatever it is. As external, public events, they are observable and recordable by one or more experimenters. Usually only a restricted set of verbal response categories is used in an experimental situation to increase objectivity. Complete open-endedness of expression, as occurs in the presence of a Rorschach ink blot or a Murray and Morgan Thematic Apperception Test picture, typically is not allowed.
Subjective Approach: Self-Focus The speaker is a self in this orientation. Speech functions as a form of self-expression. It is not a surrogate motor response. The purpose of speech in this context is externalization of the contents of consciousness: perceptual, emotional, cognitive, and the like.
Because the
content of consciousness is only amenable to first-person access, the method of self-report has assumed virtual hallowed status in this approach. The content of the self-report itself serves as the focus of interest. No constraints typically are imposed on the categories of self-report over
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and above the type of self-monitoring that occurs in normal everyday social intercourse: the subject simply talks. The method of self-report, as a tool of the subjective orientation, has numerous derivative labels, contingent on the type of psychology involved. In the classical schools of structuralism and functionalism, it is called introspection; in Gestalt psychology, it amounts to a freewheeling phenomenology; in Rogerian client-centered, nondirective therapy or existential therapy, it has no special name.
Structuralist introspection and Gestalt phenomenology
primarily are concerned with perceptual consciousness. The self-report occurring in Rogerian or existential therapy primarily involves emotional consciousness. The reality that is reified via self-report is individualistic and personalistic. The content of self-report must be taken at face value, i.e., as true for the reporting subject. The notions of validity and reliability simply are not germane, as they are in an objective context, where some universally applicable psychological truth is the goal.
Self-Report and the Content of Observation Speech plays different roles in the content of observation associated with the objective and subjective orientations. Speech is the basic object of study in the method of verbal report: it literally constitutes what is observed. Whether this has meaning or not is independent of the reporting subject. It is a matter for the locus of causation and over-all interpretive framework. Speech is neither the basic object of study nor the locus of causation in phenomenological selfreport: it merely is the vehicle by which the basic object of study is physicalized. What is observed is the content of one's consciousness, and it is the language function that allows this to become transformed into communicable form. The phenomenal meaning of the content of self-report is implicitly given, at least from the self's perspective. Special Note: Freudian Free Association Note that the Freudian psychoanalytic technique called free association is omitted from the prior discussion. Free association certainly is a form of self-report, primarily concerned with emotional consciousness; however, it differs from introspection, phenomenology, and Rogerian or existential efforts in two critical respects: 1. It is conceptualized in a quasi-objective orientation, not a subjective orientation. Freud uses the content of verbal report of a significant other to construct a universal psychodynamics. 2. The content of the verbal report is not taken at face value or accepted at the level at which it is given: it is used to induce the nature and state of the patient's unconscious. The method of self-report in a psychoanalytic context really is a combination of the objective and subjective approaches.
A universal psychodynamics is involved, not an
individual phenomenology; the content of the report is used to resolve the nature of an individual self, not solely to pursue abstract, impersonal truth. The special methodological
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status of free association is a reflection of the fact that the human organism serves as both an end in itself and as a means to another end in psychoanalysis (see Chapter 2).
SOME ETHICAL DERIVATION: TYPES OF MORAL JUDGMENTS Recall that the central theme running through our analysis is the assumption that ethical reality must be superimposed on a logically prior psychological reality.
The empirical
phenomena of concern to ethics are contingent on the implicit methodological stance assumed by the discipline. What is observed and what is inferred are dependent on the particular focus, content of observation, and orientation that are used. It is necessary to appeal to the notion of an ethical space to demonstrate this.
Notion of an Ethical Space The ethical space is depicted in Figure 5-1 as a 2 x 2 table, with four separate quadrants, and is based on two assumptions. OBJECTS OF
INFERABLE OBJECTS
DIRECT OBSERVATION
OF EXISTENCE
SELF-ASSOCIATED
MORAL CHOICE:
PHENOMENA:
SELECTION OF THE
DIRECT MORAL
RIGHT COURSE
JUDGMENTS
OF ACTION
MORAL EVALUATION: CHARACTER TRAITS;
SIGNIFICANT OTHERASSOCIATED
MORAL EVALUATION:
VIRTUES, VICES;
PHENOMENA:
RIGHTNESS OF
MORAL WORTH;
REMOVED MORAL
AN ACT
CULPABILITY OF ACTOR
JUDGMENTS III
IV
Figure 5-1" Mapping of the traditional types of moral judgments via an ethical space
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
1. The ethical universe is composed of only three possible real-time, real-space entities: the self, one or more significant other, and the physical environment. The self and significant other appear on the figure and help carve out two separate regions of the ethical space: the area above the bisecting horizontal line subsumes phenomena associated with the self; the area below the line subsumes phenomena associated with the significant other.
The
environmental milieu in which both the self and significant other exist is not conveniently representable by the figure. It could be construed as a third dimension perpendicular to the self and significant other that generates a sphere containing the self and significant other as internal points. Visualization of such a sphere is left to the imagination of the reader. 2. Ethical reality is imposed on the content of certain observations that an organism makes and the inferences that can be made from these observations. The organism functioning as the observer and inferrer in our ethical universe is the self, not the significant other. These activities of the self carve out two more regions of the ethical space: the area on the left side of the bisecting vertical line represents objects of direct observation; the area on the right side of the line represents entities whose existence is only inferable from the objects of direct observation. The distinction between the self and significant other and that between the self's observing and inferring activities in effect operate as binary-valued input dimensions. Orthogonal use of these dimensions establishes an ethical space composed of four separate quadrants, the ultimate derivative content of which serves as the ethical phenomena of traditional concern.
Derivational Mapping The traditional types of moral judgments are easily represented by our ethical space, if we use the concept of orientation as a mapping tool. Remember that an orientation specifies how observations and/or inferences are to be made.
Each of the four classes of orientations,
indigenous to the process of constructing psychological reality, specifies the domain of ethics in terms of a different quadrant or quadrant combination from our ethical space. A different quadrant or quadrant combination exhausts ethical reality for each orientation.
It is most
meaningful to begin the derivational mapping with the subjective orientation.
Subjective Orientation Quadrant I exhausts the domain of ethics for an ethical theorist who only admits the validity of the subjective orientation: ethical reality is defined solely in terms of the content of quadrant I. In a strictly psychological context, the self would be observing and reporting on some aspect of its conscious experience.
At an ethical level, the self is engaged in and
observing one of its moral choices: it is deciding on the morally right course of action to take in some situation. Mandelbaum refers to this kind of activity as a direct moral judgment.
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Objective Orientation Quadrant III exhausts the domain of ethics for an ethical theorist who only subscribes to the strict objective orientation: ethical reality is defined solely in terms of the content of quadrant III. In a strictly psychological context, a self would be observing some aspect of the overt behavior exhibited by a significant other. At an ethical level, a self is engaged in moral evaluation: it is judging the moral rightness of an act performed by a significant other. Recall from Chapter 1 that evaluation of the act per se, independent of the actual doer, constitutes a first order moral judgment. Mandelbaum refers to this kind of activity as a removed moral judgment.
Quasi-Objective Orientation The combination of quadrants III and IV exhausts the domain of ethics for an ethical theorist committed to the quasi-objective orientation: ethical reality is defined solely in terms of the contents of quadrants III and IV. Remember that this orientation merely is a conceptual extension of the strict objective one. In a strictly psychological context, a self not only would be observing some aspect of the overt behavior exhibited by a significant other, but also would have the option of inferring the existence of various internal structural or dynamic properties of the significant other from the content of its overt behavior. At an ethical level, a self has the option of engaging in a more expanded form of moral evaluation: it can make classificational judgments of the significant other's moral character, virtuosity, general moral worth, and even culpability in performing a certain act.
Recall from Chapter 1 that the latter constitutes a
second order moral judgment. Evaluation of the moral nature or characteristics of a significant other also belongs to the genus of removed moral judgments.
Combined Orientation Adoption of the combined objective x subjective orientation by an ethical theorist would equate ethical reality with the contents of quadrants I and III. Use of the less strict quasiobjective orientation in combination with the subjective one would even add quadrant IV to the domain of ethics. Because the phenomena associated with these quadrants priorly have been derived, the ethical implications of a combined orientation would be moot.
The Mapping in Perspective This section discusses (1) temporal considerations, (2) status of quadrant II, (3) possible loci of causation, (4) significance of the first order-second order dichotomy, and (5) significance of the choice-evaluation dichotomy.
Temporal Considerations The structure and content of Figure 5-1 are implicitly set up in terms of the impersonal, eternal present.
Moral choice always involves the present or the current situation.
Moral
evaluation is conveniently introduced and set up in the context of current actions of significant
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others; however, moral evaluation can and does occur with respect to a significant other's past actions and moral nature. A problem arises when a self decides to reconsider the content of one or more of its past moral choices. This reconsideration cannot be conceptualized as a new moral choice or direct moral judgment; rather it must be regarded as a matter of moral evaluation, involving a removed moral judgment: a self evaluates its own past behavior as if it were committed by a separate significant other.
More often than not, in the context of
everyday life, this reconsideration leads to the conclusion that the erstwhile act really was morally wrong.
Status of Quadrant II Probably the most striking feature of Figure 5-1 is the emptiness of quadrant II. This indicates that no analogue for judgments of virtuosity, moral worth, and the like exist in the context of self-associated phenomena. People simply do not make evaluations of their own general moral nature. If they do, society frowns on and does not accept such judgments: one can be virtuous only in the eyes of the world, i.e., others.
Possible Loci of Causation Various classes of ethical phenomena were derived by applying different orientations to the ethical space. Recall that an orientation entails a content of observation, composed of a direct object of study and a locus of causation, which frequently functions as an indirect object of study. Various classes of ethical phenomena in effect were derived by applying different contents of observation to the ethical space; but the results of this are only fully representable in Figure 5-1 in the context of the quasi-objective orientation, where a significant other's inferred moral nature or degree of virtuosity could affect its overt behavior as a possible locus of causation. 1. In the context of the subjective orientation, which generates the phenomenon of moral choice, possible loci of causation that determine the specific behavioral outcome associated with the choice only can be known via the verbal self-report of the person making the moral decision. 2. In the context of the strict objective orientation, which generates the phenomenon of moral evaluation of overt behavior, external physical stimulus events, or their symbolic surrogates, exhaust the possible loci of causation. 3. In the context of the quasi-objective orientation, which generates both first order and second order removed moral judgments, the inferred, indirect objects of interest, such as virtues, vices, general moral character, and the like, can serve as, but do not exhaust, possible loci of causation.
Virtually any kind of inferable hypothetical entity, meeting
philosophical existence criteria, can serve as a locus of causation for moral behavior in this orientation.
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Significance of the First Order-Second Order Dichotomy Although the basic reference point switches from an act per se to its doer whenever one goes from a first order judgment to a second order judgment, and it appears as if the critical difference between them is one of generality or extent of applicability of the judgment, i.e., many versus one, our derivational scheme highlights the fact that first order judgments apply to observational givens, while second order judgments require that inferences be made about the exhibitor of the act.
Second order judgments require adoption of the quasi-objective
orientation. It is as if a second order judgment entails a decision as to whether or not the doer of an act can be released from, i.e., constitutes an exception to, the consequences of a corresponding first order judgment: act X is morally wrong; however, for certain reasons doer Y is not culpable for performing it.
Significance of the Choice-Evaluation Dichotomy The two kinds of psychological loci, self versus an externally imposed one associated with a significant other, help generate the distinction between a moral choice and moral evaluation. This dichotomy between direct and removed moral judgments represents a fundamental structural bifurcation in ethics. Many ethicists argue that there really are two kinds of ethics: (1) participant, decider, agent, or first-person ethics and (2) bystander, onlooker, spectator, critic, or third-person ethics. Moral choice, involving direct judgments, amounts to a firstperson ethics; moral evaluation, involving removed judgments, amounts to a third-person ethics. The distinction between first-person and third-person ethics is crucial because it has implications for what is probably the basic conceptual issue of the discipline: (1) deontology or formalism versus (2) teleology, instrumentalism, or utilitarianism.
For reasons that will
become apparent later, first-person ethics constitutes a natural arena of application for deontology, while third-person ethics is particularly amenable to teleology. In fact, deontology is impossible in the context of the strict objective orientation, if it involves reference to a person's mental states, desires, beliefs, and the like. Possible Status of an Act
An act, as an event in the naturally occurring universe, is both produced by a self and capable of observation by some third party: an act can be the product of a moral choice and the object of moral evaluation simultaneously. Any performed act in actuality is assignable to one of four categories: See Figure 5-2. The act produced by a self can be either a direct moral judgment (Dmj) or not the product of a moral choice (I)mj); the act observed by a significant other can be either morally evaluated (Rmj) or interpreted as possessing no moral relevance ((~nj). The respective views of the act by the producer, or self, and the observer, or third party, function as binary-valued input dimensions which, when made orthogonal to each other, generate four mutually exclusive output categories. These appear as the four internal cells of a 2 x 2 table in Figure 5-2.
80
A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality PRODUCER: SELF
Rmj
Dmj
I)mj
MORAL EVENT
MORAL DIVERGENCE
OBSERVER: THIRD PARTY
MORAL DIVERGENCE
NULL SET: NOT A MORAL EVENT
Figure 5-2: Possible existential status of an act
Cell 1 The act is a moral event for both the producer (Dmj) and the observer (Rmj). Note that the producer and observer need not assign the same moral value to the act. Under the assumption that the act would not have been produced unless the self had decided it was the morally correct course of action, the observer can judge the act to be morally wrong.
Cell 2 The act is not a moral event for the producer (Ibmj), but is regarded as such by the observer (Rmj). The act is not the product of a moral choice, but is evaluated as one by a third party. Mandelbaum terms this situation a moral divergence: the act has moral properties for one, but not for all, of the parties involved.
Cell 3 This category is the mirror image of cell 2. The act is a moral event for the producer (Dmj), but is not regarded as such by the observer (~nj). The act is the product of a moral
Orientations; Content of Observation: Types of Moral Judgments choice, but is not evaluated as one by a third party.
81
This situation also constitutes a moral
divergence.
Cell 4 The act is not a moral event for either the producer (Dmj) or the observer (t~nj).
This
category amounts to a null set and in a sense is the mirror image of cell 1. The act does not possess moral properties for any of the parties involved.
Some Consequences By
deriving
the
traditional
ethical
phenomena
from
some
basic
underlying
psychological/methodological distinctions, we can see that events regarded as moral in nature are neither generated nor evaluated in isolation. What appears to be a moral choice for one person might not so appear to another; what appears to have moral properties for one person might not so appear to another; even in cases where people agree on the moral relevance of an event, they can disagree on the moral value of the event. Ethical phenomena are not simple, one-level events: they are complex, connected, multilevel events.
Sophisticated ethical
doctrine must provide for this state of affairs. We perhaps even can begin to get a handle on the special populations: they either cannot or find it difficult to engage in self-report.
This minimally means they cannot operate as
selves, are refractory to the subjective orientation, and cannot constitute viable objects of analysis in the context of moral choice. None of the four orientations used to construct psychological reality, and by extension ethical reality, truly neutralizes the functional observer(s) or creates perspective-free knowledge. Another way of expressing this is by noting that none of the orientations can effect an impartial spectator or ideal observer. Ethical reality must be constructed essentially from a self-perspective or from some impersonal one, the content and constituency of which ultimately are a metaphysical matter.
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6
EPIPHENOMENA: DOMAIN OF ETHICAL PHENOMENA
Recall from Chapter 1 that human conduct and whatever legitimately can be inferred from it constitute the basic epiphenomena of ethics. As explicated in Chapter 5, an ethicist must adopt some focus, orientation, and content of observation to procedurally generate the domain of the discipline: moral choice, moral judgment, and various inferred entities. Our concern in this chapter is the nature and existential status of the kinds of things that can occupy the direct object of study and locus of causation, or indirect object of study, slots of the content of observation. We are essentially performing a psychological analysis: we are abstracting the psychological entities on which an ethical reality is later imposed. Recall that there is no standard content of observation.
Each conceptual type of
psychology is associated with a different interpretive realization of the notion; however, the discipline ordinarily is conceded as possessing two possible direct objects of study: (1) overt behavior and (2) conscious experience, i.e., the content of one's immediate perceptual or emotional awareness. It is not generally realized that either of these entities also can occupy the locus of causation or indirect object of study slot: both behavior and conscious experience can serve as either input or output events. Other possible causal input categories in the context of contemporary academic, experimental psychology include environmental stimulation, internal cognitive events, and physiological activity, such as various neuronal, hormonal, or biochemical events (see Chapter 1). Conscious experience, in its guise as either input or output, and various cognitive entities constitute mental events. The relationship between the mental and physical, i.e., mind and matter, mind and body, or mind and behavior, is a perennial philosophical issue: some interpretations of the notion of a content of observation tap into the mind-body problem. We shall focus on (1) both the input and output aspects of conscious experience and behavior and (2) the problem of mental events in this chapter. P R E L I M I N A R Y SETUP The denotative reference point for a removed moral judgment is behavior; the substance of a direct moral choice must involve the description of conscious experience. Behavior and
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conscious experience constitute the fundamental metaphysical categories of psychology, and psychological reality must be constructed in terms of either or both of them. No universally accepted conception of either behavior or conscious experience exists. There is no standard approach as to why or in what sense these two kinds of events are psychological in nature. Psychology's two basic objects of interest more or less accidentally evolved: they merely are a matter of convention. It could be argued that the behaviorconscious experience dichotomy ultimately derives from a fundamental precept of Cartesian philosophy: mind-body dualism. Conscious experience is a property of the mind; behavior is a property of the body. Contemporary psychologists realize that the distinction between conscious experience and behavior strictly is semantic: they merely constitute convenient descriptive labels. Neither category of description is conceptually or methodologically distinct from the other. The skin cannot even be used as an arbitrary dividing line separating conscious experience from behavior: virtually every intemal physiological activity is currently conceptualized as behavior. Conscious experience can only be extemalized through behavior, i.e., self-report or thirdperson inferences; and behavior only can be given meaning by reference to some extemal framework that usually includes knowledge of an organism's mental states, e.g., intentions, desires, and the like. Whether contemporary psychologists refer to their focus of interest as conscious experience or behavior primarily is a function of goals (see Chapter 2). Epistemological psychology and understanding psychology primarily focus on conscious experience. An action system is constructed in terms of behavior. Dialectical psychology treats both conscious experience and behavior. Only depth psychology focuses on a metaphysical category not resolvable in terms of conscious experience or behavior: the unconscious. The status of the conscious experience-behavior dichotomy in contemporary psychology in effect is one of metaphysical neutrality. This status can be further highlighted once the differential metaphysical properties of the two analytical categories have been described. We initially are going to present the characteristic features of behavior and conscious experience, as output phenomena, by comparing them on the same set of analytical dimensions: (1) historical overview, (2) access, (3) objectivity versus subjectivity status, (4) composition, (5) possible use, and (6) relationship to substrata and superstrata. The notion of behavioral output is treated first, purely for expository reasons. BEHAVIOR, AS OUTPUT Historical Overview The critical issue concerning behavior is this: how does the behavior exhibited by a living organism differ from the activity exhibited by other forms of matter? What is the unique property of organismic activity that allows it to have a psychological reality? This issue never has been addressed systematically by the discipline. Most psychologists take the notion of
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behavior as a given and display little or no concern for any metaphysical properties the notion might possess. Rather, much effort is expended on demonstrating that behavior merely is physiological activity or simply another kind of physical activity; and great pains are taken to devise sophisticated methods of isolating and recording actual response occurrences. Descartes' basically materialistic account of the body separated animate motion from inanimate motion. Inanimate motion became a matter of physics; animate motion became a problem of physiology, and ultimately psychology via functionalism and Watsonian behaviorism.
Functionalism related mental activity to organismic adaptation, the latter
operating as a surrogate for behavior. Watson was trained as a functionalist and eventually exclusively focused on behavior for methodological reasons: he related behavior solely to external environmental events, eliminating consciousness as a locus of causation.
Watson
identified behavior with stimulus-elicited reflexive responses: a particular instance of behavior involved a physiological reflex or concatenation of two or more physiological reflexes. Modeling behavior as physiologically based motion or physiologically based reflexes poses no methodological problems.
A physiological activity in effect is given straightway
psychological representation as a piece of behavior; however, it eventually became apparent that this approach to behavior was too simplistic at a conceptual level. Skinner eventually focused on the seemingly goal-directed, voluntary acts that organisms exhibit and conceptualized them as operant responses under stimulus and/or reinforcement control (see Chapter 1). The vast majority of human behaviors simply are emitted and shaped by their consequences. Skinner's approach to behavior functions nicely at the procedural level, because it affords a means of operationally specifying response occurrence in terms of functional response definition. Any stimulus situation allows for the occurrence of two possible response classes: (1) behaviors that result in consequence C and (2) behaviors that result in consequence (~. For instance, in the standard Skinner box situation, any activity that depresses the bar and results in food procurement is a bar press response; and any activity that does not result in bar depression and does not result in food procurement is a nonbar press response. Skinner's approach allows a psychologist to intervene in a natural life setting and manipulate response occurrence by exploiting an organism's preferences for certain outcomes. Behavior for Skinner merely is functionally specified physical activity that is under the control of other physical processes. Psychological reality in his system is indistinguishable from physical reality. The same basic theme is carried through by the designers of other action psychologies, such as Hull, Tolman, and Guthrie, and their mathematically oriented descendents, such as Estes or Restle. Access
Behavior is amenable to both first-person and third-person access. The self is the locus of both the observer and the observed in first-person access. significant other is the observed in third-person access.
The self is the observer, and a
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epiphenomena is built on third-person access. An organism's overt behavior is susceptible to third-person access under standard observational conditions. First-person access to behavior is limited, unless a mirror is used or the behavior is filmed or videotaped. access to the products of its past behavior.
The self also has
There are contexts in psychology where an
organism is allowed to see its current behavior, usually not for quantification purposes, but rather because it serves as a kind of feedback. Most psychologists prefer third-person access for a simple conceptual reason: it mimics the way the physical scientist constructs physical reality. Third-person access to behavior can be direct or indirect. The experimenter observes the behavior in the raw as it is being produced in direct access. Automated recording equipment quite often serves as a surrogate experimenter to prevent errors of perception or judgment on the part of a human experimenter.
Some residual of the prior behavior of an organism is
observed in indirect access: for instance, some kind of art work, intellectual construction, manufactured object, and the like. This kind of access is more prevalent in anthropological and therapeutic contexts. Group mental or psychological testing typically allows both direct and indirect access, with the residual test performance serving as the major component. The digital aspects of responding, subsuming all-or-none occurrence, usually can be observed by the naked eye; but analogical attributes of a behavioral event usually are only measurable with the use of sophisticated recording equipment: for instance, the latency of a salivary response, the intensity of a bar press, or the loudness of a nonsense syllable. When behavior is conceived as occurring within the skin, i.e., brain waves, heart rate, stomach secretion, individual neuron or receptor firing, such activity only permits indirect access in the sense that only some residual physiological recording of the event can be obtained.
An
organism's verbal behavior is perfectly susceptible to third-person access, under the assumption that it is simply a surrogate motor response: a behaviorist does not treat verbal behavior as an extemal indicant of inner consciousness (see Chapter 5).
Objectivity Versus Subjectivity Status Third-person access to overt behavior ostensibly is possible because it is an external, public, objective event. Behavior may be external and public, but it is not objective in any absolute or simplistic sense. Behavior is much less objective, or much more subjective, than its public image belies. Because behavior is a metaphysical notion, what qualifies as an instance of behavior varies from one psychologist to another.
Granted that a reflexive response is behavior for
Watson, Skinner, or any other action oriented psychologist, it is not such for a Gestalt or humanistic psychologist. Blind, trial and error activity in a Thorndike puzzle box or a Skinner box is behavior for a stimulus-response associational learning theorist, such as Hull; it is not for a Gestalt psychologist or stimulus-stimulus expectancy learning theorist, such as Tolman. Button pushing is significant behavior for a Skinnerian; it is meaningless activity for a
Epiphenomena: Domain of Ethical Phenomena humanist.
Seeing is behavior for a Skinnerian.
process, for a cognitive psychologist.
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Seeing is not behavior, but a perceptual
Seeing is not behavior, but experiencing, for a
humanistic psychologist. What constitutes behavior for a psychologist depends on the assumptions made, especially those pertaining to the locus of causation and permissible methodology. Individual psychologists set their own criteria for identifying and interpreting certain natural events as behavior. Each psychologist at a more basic level decides the kind of lawful relationships in which behavior is supposed to participate. Behavior is a concatenation of reflexive responses, amenable to classical conditioning, for Watson.
Behavior is an operant under stimulus or
reinforcement control for Skinner. Behavior is molar activity, representing the structure and dynamics of the organism's psychological environment, for a Gestaltist.
Behavior is a
dialectically determined event for Riegel. Given this variety of metaphysical conceptions of behavior, it should not be surprising that the operational specification of behavior in any research context is a complex matter. Consider Skinnerian operant psychology. A legitimate operant response must be (1) easily performable by the organism, (2) part of its natural behavioral repertoire, (3) easily isolable and discretely countable, (4) autonomous or self-reifying, (5) subject to reinforcement and stimulus control, and (6) physicalized as activation of some environmental manipulandum that is independent of the organism's effector system. operant is technically measured and recorded.
Even this listing does not specify how an
Granted that an instance of behavior is external, public, and identifiable in the context of a given conceptual approach to psychology, the notion of behavior itself is subjective. Behavior is not even considered to be a component of the psychological universe in such systems as structuralism, depth psychology, and conceivably even humanism. There is no basic continuity between one psychologist's conception of behavior and that of another even in the various action systems. The experimental psychologist is forced to create the illusion that behavior is objective, in addition to being bona fidely external and public. Elaborate precautions are undertaken at the level of research practice to guarantee that observations of behavior result in reliable and valid measurements:
use
of sophisticated
and
precalibrated
recording
apparati,
elaborate
experimental designs, standardized or uniform instructions, restricted response categories, highly trained observers, multiple observers when the behavioral phenomenon is particularly esoteric or elusive, and the like. Although behavior is external and public, the objectification of behavior in effect is the product of a psychologist's combined conceptual and methodological efforts.
Composition Composition in the context of behavior can be interpreted to mean existential reality level. What is the substantive content of behavior as a measurable real-space, real-time event? Assuming behavior occurs outside the skin, an instance of behavior consists of two things: (1)
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activation of some effector system and (2) physical movement of some limb or the body through space. The first component gives behavior a physiological reality: behavior is physiological activity of some sort. The second component gives behavior a physical reality: behavior can be measured in terms of concepts indigenous to physics. Note that the compositional specification of behavior does not define behavior or identify instances of behavioral occurrence: it merely delineates its compositional content. Compositional content is what allows already defined and identified instances of behavior to be measured. Behavior possesses more than a physiological and physical reality: it also has a psychological reality, but the substance of its psychological reality only can be specified by the dicta of some extemally imposed model of the psychological universe.
Definition and
identification of behavior require reference to its characteristic psychological reality; and there is no monolithic, universally accepted scheme for assigning behavior psychological reality. Once the psychological features of behavior are specified by a model of the psychological universe, it is possible for the absence of effector activation and overt movement to constitute a meaningful piece of behavior in certain contexts. Much has been made historically of the distinction between involuntary and voluntary behavior. Although the notions of involuntary and voluntary are impossible to operationally define, we are going to assume that Skinner's respondent-operant dichotomy approximates the involuntary-voluntary behavior distinction. The respondent-operant dichotomy can be used to illustrate the distinction between the composition of behavior and its psychological reality. A respondent is behavior that is given no psychological representation above and beyond its physiological and physical composition. It is pure physiological activity resulting in some kind of physical movement in space. A respondent is elicited by a specific stimulus and in psychological jargon usually is referred to as a reflexive response. A respondent can be defined and identified strictly in terms of its stimulus elicitor and compositional effector activation. Respondents served as the model for all behavior in Cartesian philosophy because at the time the notion of movement was equivalent to that of behavior. Watson also reduced behavior exclusively to individual respondents or a concatenation of respondents, at least at the conceptual level. An operant is behavior that is given functional specification in terms of its causal role (see Chapter 2). The classic example of an operant is the bar press response of a rat in a Skinner box. An operant possesses physiological and physical composition, but they are irrelevant for its definition and identification. The psychological reality of an operant derives from its role in a physical environmental contingency. It is the reinforcement contingency that provides the necessary functional context in Skinner's system. An operant is a response that activates the response manipulandum and duly gets reinforced. Using non-Skinnerian terminology, an operant is an act that manipulates the environment and has consequences for its performer. The psychological reality that Skinner assigns an operant still is a physical reality: remember Skinner limits the psychological universe to descriptive stimulus and response events.
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The psychological composition of a piece of behavior is highly abstract and elusive in nonbehavioristic systems that focus on behavior, such as Gestalt psychology and humanism. Behavior in Gestalt psychology must be embedded in a behavioral environment; behavior in a humanistic context must represent the fact that its performer is self-aware. Use What is the possible use associated with behavior as one of the epiphenomenal foci of psychology? The ultimate value of behavior derives from its material composition, which allows psychology to be conducted as a scientific endeavor. Instances of behavior can be related to and studied as a function of discrete environmental events. Experimental psychology seeks the uniformities in behavioral expression subsumed by nomothetic laws. It is the most efficient and practical approach to psychological intervention when a group of organisms is involved in a common environmental situation. Third-person access to behavior can be actuated in a strict objective or quasi-objective orientation.
Focus on behavior must serve as an end in itself in the objective orientation
because no inference to unobservables is allowed. Focus on behavior can serve as a means to another end in the quasi-objective orientation because inference to unobservables is allowed. Psychology historically began to focus on behavior as a logical extension of its interest in the adaptive function of consciousness in a quasi-objective orientation. Organismic adaptation served as an external indicant of an efficacious consciousness in the context of classical functionalist psychology.
The discipline eliminated any reference to consciousness and
focused on behavior as an end in itself in a strict objective orientation under Watson's tutelage. The end focus often has been criticized for dehumanizing us. But this criticism is misdirected because a purely objective psychology merely is investigating the logical consequences of conceptualizing the living organism as a real-space, real-time materialistic entity. The fact that behavior is predictable and controllable in a strict objective orientation need not detract from the status of the human being when it is used for benign goals and the betterment of the human condition. There is no more humanistically oriented psychologist than B. F. Skinner himself, who was awarded the Humanist of the Year Medal by the American Humanist Association in 1972. It is only that he prefers to work for the betterment of humankind in a deterministic, objective framework. Most contemporary content psychology is constructed in a quasi-objective framework, and interest in behavior strictly is instrumental. It allows focus on the internal determinants of behavior: unconscious forces, goals and strivings, and the like. As will become apparent in a later section, contemporary psychology can construe virtually any event as being an instance of behavior, such that the notion has achieved an aura of metaphysical indifference: the meansend dichotomy has become blurred.
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Relationship to Substrata and Superstrata The human being is a biological creature: this provides the substratum for our existence. Human beings also are social creatures: this provides the superstratum for our existence. Note that an organism can be a biological creature without being a social creature, but an organism cannot be a social creature without being a biological creature. We can say somewhat artificially that the human essentially is a biological creature within the skin and a social creature outside the skin. How does behavior interface with these two aspects of an organism? Behavior is always a biological entity and often a social entity. Its biological nature is indigenous to its material composition. Any overt behavioral occurrence involves effector system activation and entails some form of physiological activity. The social basis of behavior is more obscure: it does not derive from its material composition. When behavior is treated strictly as a reflexive response, i.e., respondent, it is not social in nature. The social aspect of behavior arises when behavior is given some psychological representation beyond its material composition. Specification of this psychological representation usually cannot be done without reference to an organism's social environment. The very fact that an instance of behavior occurs in a social framework that gives it meaning helps distinguish behavior from the activity exhibited by matter or material systems in general. The dual nature of behavior accounts for the fact that it is very difficult to distinguish between a physiological psychologist and an experimental physiologist, or a social psychologist and a sociologist, at a conceptual level. Any distinction among biology, psychology, and sociology in the context of an action system must be made at the level of locus of causation. C O N S C I O U S E X P E R I E N C E , AS O U T P U T
Historical Overview The neural structures comprising the human being are arranged in such a way that the organism experiences the surrounding physical world and also knows that it is aware of its experience. Persons can report on the content of their conscious experience and also can report that they are aware of having experience: the human being possesses both consciousness and self-consciousness. Experience in either sense has a unique epistemological status: although the content of conscious experience and the property of self-awareness can be externalized via the use of language, they are internal, private events to which only the experiencing self has direct access. This means that (1) no one else can "experience" your experience and (2) you can not "experience" anyone else's experience. This situation leads to two problems: (1) the differential qualia problem and (2) the problem of the existence of other minds. The former means that there is no way of checking whether two different people who are reporting the same conscious contents are in fact experiencing the same conscious contents: my red might be your green and vice versa. The
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latter means that the belief that people other than oneself are capable of conscious experience and awareness is an inference, beyond empirical verification: just because a self possesses consciousness and self-consciousness is no proof that a significant other does also. The problem of the existence of other minds really is a component of a more general question: what are the conditions under which mental states can be assigned to organisms other than the self?. The general public is unaware of this question; and the typical psychologist represses it, such that both conscious experience and self-awareness are assumed to be universal phenomena. As with the case of behavior, no systematic attempt has been made to justify conscious experience and self-awareness as epiphenomenal objects of psychological interest. Unlike the case of behavior, belief in the existence of efficacious mental states is an integral component of folk psychology (see Chapter 1).
Descartes gave special status to mental events in his
philosophy; and his rationalistic approach to mind led to British empiricism and its implicit cognitive psychology that eventually became physicalized in the structuralist approach to conscious experience.
Wundt had no formal concept of behavior and studied conscious
experience because he combined expertise in both epistemological philosophy and experimental sensory physiology.
No purer focus on the content of current conscious
experience existed than in structuralism: sensations, images, feelings, and their combinations exhausted the psychological universe.
Gestalt psychology maintained this epistemological,
phenomenological focus; but due to the influence of Kantian philosophy, it took a more holistic approach to perceptual consciousness. Unlike structuralists, the Gestaltists did have a formal concept of behavior, but interpreted it phenomenologically. Humanistic psychology eventually absorbed Gestalt psychology's phenomenological orientation, but expanded it to include all aspects of an organism's conscious experience. The notion of an individual consciousness in humanistic psychology is a surrogate for the human being's status as a unique, emergent, selfreifying being with significant feeling states, goals, and an efficacious willing self. Consciousness in contemporary psychology is not so much a perceptual state as it is a normative state of being: the nature and quality of a person's self-awareness are more significant than its mere perceptual experience. Access
Two modes of access to the content of conscious experience exist: (1) first-person and (2) third-person.
First-Person The organism, as observer, merely divulges the content of its conscious experience via verbal or written self-report in first-person access. Recall from Chapter 5 that methods of selfreport vary from the constrained structuralist introspection and freewheeling phenomenology of Gestalt psychology, both of which are designed to tap sensory or perceptual consciousness,
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to the Freudian free association externalize the content of emotional First-person access often is psychologists argue that the mind
techniques and Rogerian client-centered therapy that consciousness. criticized on two bases: (1) Many philosophers and cannot observe itself; and (2) the act of self-report can
interfere with, if not destroy, the content of conscious experience. The act of externalizing the content of current emotional consciousness is particularly susceptible to the second criticism. Reporting on past emotional consciousness, as in therapy, is immune from the second criticism, but is subject to errors of memory and distortion. Although everyone concedes that only the experiencing self has direct access to the content of its conscious experience, the dynamics underlying this access are still in dispute. We can distinguish between a traditional and a more contemporary view. In the traditional view, characteristic of Descartes and the structuralists, functionalists, and Gestaltists, the self is assumed to directly observe its conscious experience. The operative word here is observe. The self is assumed to be in direct contact with what it is experiencing. Introspective knowledge of the self is immediate, noninferential, given: it is supposed to be infallible and incorrigible. In a more contemporary view, characteristic of Freud and Skinner, internal perception, i.e., self-knowledge, is modeled after external perception, i.e., knowledge of the external world. The content of conscious experience is constructed, derived, inferred, not given: it is not infallible and incorrigible. The content of introspective consciousness in Skinner's view is externalized via the same categories used to report the perception of external objects. These categories are supposed to derive from exposure to reinforcement administered by the surrounding verbal community: they are socially sourced. The traditional view of direct access imparts an especial sanctity to conscious experience as an object of psychological interest. Psychological knowledge is privileged; the psychological universe is special. The contemporary view of direct access reduces introspective knowledge of conscious contents to simply another kind of perceptual knowledge and, more importantly, removes any special status from conscious experience as an object of epiphenomenal interest.
Third-Person Third-person access to conscious experience is required for nonverbals and preverbals: for instance, animals, developmentally challenged people, chronic schizophrenics, young children, and the like. Freud never psychoanalyzed children, not because they could not talk, but because they did not have sufficient past experience. The experimenter, as observer, attempts to infer the content of an organism's conscious experience from its overt behavior in third-person access. People engage in third-person access in the context of their everyday life all the time, as when they attempt to infer a friend's or relative's mood, disposition, or mental state in general via observation of overt behavior. Structuralists engaged in introspection by
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analogy with subjects that could not engage in self-report. Functionalists even introspected about the content of animal consciousness. Everyone concedes that third-person access to conscious experience strictly is constructional in nature in the same sense as described in the context of the contemporary approach to first-person access.
Third-person knowledge of mental states is inferred and
derived. No pretense is ever made that a significant other's mental states are directly observed. Third-person inferences require some surrogate psychological theory that is usually implicit, idiosyncratic, and analogically based. Notice how a person will introspect about the mental states of a pet dog or cat, but will not do so about a fly or cockroach that happens to be in the room.
The validity of introspective analogies decreases the farther down one goes on the
phylogenetic ladder. The historical standards associated with this type of access have changed, such that virtually no contemporary academic psychologist attempts third-person judgments of conscious experience or constructs a content psychology from them.
Objectivity Versus Subjectivity Status Direct access to conscious experience is limited to the first person, i.e., the self, presumably because it is an internal, private, subjective event. Conscious experience may be internal and private, but it is not subjective in any absolute or simplistic sense. Conscious experience is much less subjective, or much more objective, than its public image belies. The fact that people can label aspects of their conscious experience consistently or the fact that mental states in general have a consistent relationship to behavior demonstrates that some degree of objectivity can be attained in the study of conscious experience. The psychology of sensation and perception, the transcendence of various emotional states in a therapeutic setting, or the human being's self-awareness in general would be impossible if conscious experience were subjective in an absolute sense. It is true that the qualia or characteristic nature of an organism's conscious experience, i.e., the actual phenomenal experience of some essence, say red, green, pleasure, or pain, is ineffable and noncommunicable. But this is irrelevant, except on the strictest construal of a phenomenology of mental states. Because of this, the differential qualia problem does not prevent a psychology, or taxonomy, of conscious mental states.
As long as the symbols
representing the qualia are used in a consistent way and are interpretable in a common framework, it is irrelevant that a person's experienced essence might differ from another's. The empirical intractability of the existence of other minds likewise can by bypassed if the existence of other minds is made a metaphysical assumption in some consistent interpretive framework. The notion of conscious experience is just as metaphysical as that of behavior. Psychologists have to create and objectify conscious experience, just as they do behavior. What is given in consciousness and what is derivative in consciousness are unknown. What constitutes the fundamental elements of consciousness and what constitutes the phenomenal output of these elements are arbitrary. While the experienced content of an essence might be
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automatic, interpretation and externalization of the content of conscious experience via symbolization are not. The content of conscious experience is not reifiable independently of a model of consciousness. Structuralists, functionalists, Gestaltists, Freudian depth psychologists, humanistic or existential psychologists, even Skinnerian descriptive behaviorists have different conceptions of the concept of consciousness and impose differing strictures and categories of self-report. First-person reports of conscious content must be taken at face value in the context of a given technique of externalization and a given model of conscious experience.
What the
observer expresses must be accepted as true for that observer. Since no external reliability or validity check is possible, the content of one person's phenomenalizing cannot be generalized to other organisms. First-person reports of consciousness only permit construction of the psychological world of the observer; they cannot be used to construct a universal psychological reality applying to all organisms. The notion of interorganism objectivity simply does not apply when conscious experience is the psychologist's epiphenomenal focus of interest. But in the limited confines of individualistic consciousness, the experimental datum is just as objective, or subjective, as that associated with the overt behavior of a group of organisms.
Composition Recall that the composition of behavior is no problem, because it primarily is material in nature: behavior is a property of the body in the Cartesian mind-body dichotomy. The composition of conscious experience, i.e., the existential realitylevel of conscious experience, is a problem. Conscious experience is a mental event and a property of the mind in the Cartesian mind-body dichotomy.
Addressing the composition of conscious experience is
equivalent to addressing the existential reality level of a mental event. The nature of a mental event is open-ended: it constitutes a philosophical, especially metaphysical, issue. Four possible approaches to the nature of a mental event are briefly abstracted here: (1) Cartesian substantive, (2) logical, (3) physical/physiological, and (4) functional. Cartesian Substantive Mental events for Ren6 Descartes are a property of a substance called mind, which in turn
should be contrasted with a substance called matter.
Mental events are real, but possess
characteristics that are opposite to those of physical entities: immaterial, noncorporeal, indivisible, invisible, nonspatial, nontemporal, and the like. Without elaborating on all the criticisms that have been leveled at Cartesian dualism, it should be obvious that his description of mental events effectively removes them from that part of the universe amenable to scientific analysis. The Cartesian properties of mental events do indeed make such entities a mysterious commodity to the empiricist. No contemporary psychologist gives substance to mental events or conscious experience in a Cartesian framework. The Cartesian substantive approach only is important because it serves as the canonical view of mentation to which every contemporary approach must react.
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Logical Many contemporary philosophers, such as Carl Hempel and Rudolph Camap, give the notion of a mental event substance by transforming it into some kind of logical construct. This approach is called logical positivism in philosophy and logical behaviorism in psychology. A mental event is assumed to be real if it can be reduced to physical thing language or a set of behavioral correlates. For instance, the experience of red is real as long as a verbal description of the behavioral correlates accompanying the experience of red is available. This approach in large part merely is semantic or linguistic in nature and is not as popular as it once was.
Physical~hysiological This approach to mental events derives from the philosophical position called physical or material monism. Physical monism is both a classic and contemporary approach to mentation in which mind is reduced to matter: mental events are conceived as simply another kind of physical event.
Contemporary physical monistic theorists, such as Lewis, Kim, Place, and
Smart, explicitly equate mental states with physiological states: the so-called central state identity thesis. A mental state is set in one-to-one correspondence with some physiological entity. For instance, pain is C-fiber firing. The reality status of the experience of red in this approach is some physiological correlate in the organism's neural visual information processing system.
Both behavior and conscious experience possess physical and
physiological reality, i.e., the same material composition, for a psychologist who ascribes to the central state identity thesis. Functional
Perhaps the most widely accepted approach to mentation currently is one called functionalism. Note: philosophical functionalism should not be confused with the classical psychological system of the same name (see Chapter 2). This approach is a reaction to both logical positivism and material monism and has achieved its major impetus from its compatibility with the computer simulation and machine representation of conscious intelligence. Functionalists, such as Block and Fodor, reify a mental state in terms of its causal role in the sequence of events intervening between stimulus input and response output. For instance, pain is a mental state because it possesses a causal role between aversive stimulation and withdrawal responses. It is irrelevant for a functionalist whether a mental state, such as pain, possesses any actual physiological representation.
Functionalism does have trouble
specifying the possible causal role of purely sensory qualia, such as red, unless the qualia is conceptualized as a qualitative state of another mental state. The qualitative state of the mental state then can be defined in terms of its causal role.
While it may not be obvious, a
functionalist defines a mental event in the very same fashion that a Skinnerian defines an operant: via causal role. A functionalist approach to specification allows both behavior and conscious experience to have the same composition, not with respect to material content, but with respect to causal, functional role.
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Some Conceptual Extraction It is important to note that three of the four approaches to mentation allow conscious experience and behavior to have the same composition. This composition is implicitly material in logical positivism, explicitly material in central state identity theory, and one of equivalent causal role in functionalism. Only in the context of the Cartesian substantive approach, where conscious experience and behavior possess diametrically opposed properties, i.e., pure immaterial versus pure material, would the respective compositions of experiential output and behavioral output differ. Use
What is the possible use associated with conscious experience as one of the epiphenomenal foci of psychology? The ultimate value of conscious experience derives from its privacy and inaccessibility, especially when viewed from the level of qualia. These highlight the fact that each person is unique and exists in a private psychological world, a state of affairs which the objective approach focusing on behavior by its very nature must repress. Each one of us lives in a psychological environment that cannot be penetrated by another living organism. Humanistic psychology continually reminds us that this fact should not be forgotten. Freudian depth psychology does the same to a lesser degree, although it does presume the existence of a universal deterministic psychodynamic system that must be taken into consideration. The human being is the only creature on earth that we can be reasonably sure possesses self-consciousness. This probably is the ultimate source of our ethical, moral, and religious consciousness, all of which contribute to the necessity of understanding our psychological nature. Our intelligence far exceeds that of any other living organism, and it must be tempered by the reflective rationality that self-consciousness allows. The discipline's initial focus on conscious experience served as an end in itself: the classical systems of structuralism and Gestalt psychology were interested in sensory and perceptual conscious experience solely as an intellectual endeavor. The content of sensory and perceptual consciousness served as the basic object of study in the content of observation in the context of first-person access and as the indirect, inferred object of study in the content of observation in the context of third-person access: consciousness was treated as a passive receptacle, flushable by various introspective techniques. Sensory and perceptual events no longer are regarded as exhausting consciousness, but have devolved to merely one aspect of the psychological universe, as emphasized by contemporary cognitive behaviorism. It now is realized that our mentation constructs many different conscious realities: memorial, epistemological, even motor.
Consciousness in
addition is conceived as a dynamic entity, and its contents are hypothesized via externally imposed cognitive models ~ la third-person access in the quasi-objective orientation. Cognitive conscious experience now occupies the locus of causation slot of the content of observation and can be studied as input as any other hypothetical unobservable is.
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The discipline's current focus on conscious experience serves as a means to another end: contemporary interest in emotional consciousness, as exemplified by humanistic psychology, revolves around the attempt to better understand the individual organism and its coming to terms with the environment. Only the emotional aspects of consciousness now can serve as the basic object of study in the content of observation, specifically in the humanistic therapeutic context that focuses on the individual as an end in itself. First-person access to conscious experience in the subjective orientation now is limited to those aspects of the organism that help characterize its state of adjustment and general level of self-acceptance and happiness.
Relationship to Substrata and Superstrata Recall that we are assuming that the human organism essentially is a biological creature within the skin and a social creature outside the skin. Conscious experience can be either a biological entity or a social entity, or both, contingent on one's metaphysics. The materialist account of mind, subsumed by logical positivism and central state identity theory, would have no trouble treating conscious experience as some kind of physiological event. The possible physiological reality of conscious experience is irrelevant in functionalism. Cartesian dualism denies any ultimate physiological basis to consciousness. The fact that consciousness is affected by all sorts of physiological manipulations, such as drugs, lesions, food or water deprivation, and the like, demonstrates that conscious experience is at least indirectly tied in with an organism's substrata. Consciousness is not a social entity in structuralism or Gestalt psychology.
It is
implicitly social in the functionalist system, cognitive behaviorism, genetic-epistemological psychology, humanism, and depth psychology. The surrogate for consciousness in descriptive behaviorism is explicitly social in nature. Consciousness is an explicit social entity in dialectical psychology, as an offshoot of dialectical materialism, and strictly social in origin. The ambiguous nature of conscious experience makes those content psychologies that focus on the individual organism as the unit of analysis, such as depth psychology and humanism, share overlapping boundaries with philosophy, theology, literature, and other humanities.
EPIPHENOMENA AS EXPLANATORY ENTITIES It is possible for psychology's two traditional epiphenomenal objects of interest to occupy the locus of causation slot of the content of observation.
The discipline's
epiphenomena serve as possible explanatory entities in this role: either conscious experience or behavior can serve as the source of either conscious experience or behavior. Considering the differential metaphysical properties of conscious experience and behavior, conscious experience always must be inferred as the locus of causation, while behavior is directly observable as the locus of causation. Conscious experience is an indirect object of study when it is used as an explanatory entity.
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A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality Conscious experience can be used as an explanatory entity in either a first-person access
or third-person access context. In the former it amounts to a self's subjective psychological world that helps resolve the content of its epiphenomenal self-report. In the latter it amounts to the mentation or cognitive processes of a significant other that usually is employed to help explain the significant other's overt ephiphenomenal behavior. Recall that in contemporary psychology it is not fashionable to infer a significant other's state of consciousness or mental state: this amounts to introspection by analogy. Mentation as a causal variable in the thirdperson access context is a property of some hypothetical, impersonal, externally sourced cognitive model that is applied to the situation. Behavior can be used as an explanatory entity only in a third-person access context. The current behavior of a significant other only can be used to explain its future behavior or the current or future behavior of another significant other. Or alternatively: The past behavior of a significant other only can be used to explain its current behavior or the past or current behavior of another significant other. These temporal relationships are dictated by the constraints of scientific explanation in general and the nature of the causal input-output laws characteristic of descriptive behaviorism in particular. The status of behavior and conscious experience as explanatory entities is vastly different. Status of Behavior as Input Behavior is an external, public, materially composed event. When used explanatorily, it
constitutes a physical input variable, although it is not as easy to control as a prototypical environmental stimulus event unmediated by some organism's responses. Behavior rarely is elevated to the status of a higher-level theoretical construct. When a significant other's current behavior is resolved in terms of its past behavior, as occurs in developmental psychology, the past behavior merely is an indicator variable representing the nature of the significant other's past experience. When a significant other's future behavior is resolved in terms of its current behavior, as occurs in all sorts of practical application contexts, the relationship is strictly predictive: current behavior is operating as a predictor variable. When a significant other's current behavior is resolved in terms of another significant other's current behavior, we have met the minimal requirements for a social interaction situation: the behavior of the other significant other merely is a semantic designation representing the fact that the other significant other is operating as a social stimulus. Status of Conscious Experience as Input Conscious experience is an internal, private event of problematical composition: it is an
inferred, hypothetical mental event.
When some aspect of mentation, such as belief,
disposition, intention, or preference, is used explanatorily, it is strictly a theoretical construct. When a mental event occupies the locus of causation slot, the explanatory relationship merely
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99
allows understanding in a first-person access context or prediction in a third-person access context, never control in either context. The dynamics relating conscious experience to self-report in a first-person access context are implicit and accepted as a matter of course. A humanistic, phenomenological psychologist does not worry about how a person's psychological world actually determines its behavior or other conscious experience. The dynamics relating mentation or cognitive processes to overt behavior in a thirdperson access context are not implicit. They circumscribe the traditional mind-body problem at a philosophical level. The resolution of the dynamics relating mentation to behavior in this context depends on the composition that is assigned to mental events. Four possible approaches to composition already have been discussed in the chapter: (1) Cartesian substantive, (2) logical, (3) physical/physiological, and (4) functional.
Only in
Cartesian dualism are the respective compositions of mental events and behavior incompatible. Both mental events and behavior in the other three conceptions have either implicit or explicit material composition or functionally equivalent status.
There is no metaphysical problem
associated with one physical event causing another physical event or with the interaction of two functionally defined entities. Mentation merely constitutes another physical or functional process in contemporary cognitive psychology: there is no problem with an aspect of consciousness affecting overt behavior. It should be emphasized that the explanatory status that mentation enjoys in contemporary psychology, as opposed to the days when descriptive behaviorism and peripherally oriented logical behaviorism dominated academic psychology, critically depends on the ability to operationally, or methodologically, manipulate surrogate or simulated mental events on a computer.
METAPHYSICAL NEUTRALITY OF THE B E H A V I O R - C O N S C I O U S EXPERIENCE DICHOTOMY Psychologists now realize that where consciousness ends and behavior begins, or vice
versa, strictly is arbitrary. Consciousness does not exist in a vacuum; consciousness exists in a behaving organism. Both the nature and quality of the content of consciousness depend on one's overt behavior, both in a short-term, episodic sense and in a long-term, structural sense. Behavior does not occur in a vacuum either; behavior is the output of a self-aware organism or a neuronal monitoring system in the brain. Meaningful behavior cannot occur without some preliminary mentation, even if it is conceptualized merely as some kind of physiological or brain activity. The metaphysical neutrality, or basic semanticity, of the behavior-conscious experience distinction can be highlighted by (1) reference to the isomorphism of the Skinnerian descriptive and cognitive behaviorist approaches and (2) a comparison between radical behaviorism and humanism.
100 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality 1. The way in which Skinner defines a piece of behavior and the way in which a cognitive theorist, such as Fodor, defines a mental state are exactly the same; namely, in terms of functional, causal role.
All experience is behavior for Skinner: the contents of both
introspective and perceptual awareness constitute reportable discriminable responses. Experience merely is behavior occurring within the skin, analyzable in terms of the same physical categories used to describe overt behavior. Mentation for a cognitive psychologist is assumed analogous to the behavior of some physical system, such as a computer. Organismic mentation only differs from some form of mechanical information processing in terms of the hardware involved.
Everything that occurs subsequent to the presentation
of some stimulus event is output for Skinner.
Everything that happens prior to the
occurrence of a response event is input for a cognitive psychologist. The portion of the output occurring within the skin for Skinner and the portion of the input occurring within the skin for a cognitive behaviorist consist of the same functionally defined material events. 2. Both Skinner and a humanist, such as Maslow, allow third-person access to overt behavior and first-person access to mental events. Skinner and a humanist only differ with respect to the source of the reference point used to interpret the output in each case: they differ merely with respect to the specification of the locus of causation. Skinner interprets output strictly in terms of the immediate environmental situation or the past reinforcement history of the organism. A humanist interprets output strictly in terms of the perceived psychological world of the organism. S O M E C L O S U R E ON THE P R O B L E M OF M E N T A L E V E N T S The conception of mental events as properties of a strange, mysterious, empirically elusive immaterial substance called mind, characteristic of folk psychology (see Chapter 1), is not acceptable in academic, experimental psychology.
Much of traditional ethical theory and
morality presumes this Cartesian approach to mentation. Most disciplinary psychology is willing to admit the existence of mental events and to treat them as internal intermediaries between external stimulus and response events. Mental events in effect function as hypothetical conceptual entities. Two aspects of this approach to mental events are relevant here. 1. Mental events for various reasons must have the same composition, or representational status, as stimulus input and response output events.
This means that a mental event
currently is conceived as simply another kind of physical/material entity or one that is defined and isolated in essentially the same manner that an extemal stimulus or response is. This all means at a higher level of abstraction that contemporary psychology takes a physical or material monistic approach to mentation. 2. The psychologist has a choice with respect to the functional role of mental events in the context of this over-all physicalistic approach to mentation: causative or epiphenomenal. The psychologist in effect can assign mental events input or output status. Cognitive psychologists regard mental events to be part of the input and a possible causal source of
Epiphenomena: Domain of Ethical Phenomena 101 overt behavior. Descriptive behaviorists consider mental events to be part of the output and merely epiphenomenal in nature, i.e., by-products of our physiological, neuronal activity that parallel, but do not cause, overt behavior.
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7
EPISTEMOLOGY" EXISTENTIAL STATUS OF MORAL JUDGMENTS/VALUE QUALITIES
We have been occupied for the past two chapters with (1) deriving the basic epiphenomena of ethical concern from a more elementary set of psychological distinctions and (2) presenting a relatively rudimentary psychological characterization of the real-time, real-space events that comprise the ethical domain. We have been dealing in essence with ethical phenomena merely at a descriptive level. It now is necessary to refocus our energies to be fully prepared for the essential content of this and the ensuing chapter. We are going to deal with ethical phenomena at a philosophical level. Recall from Chapter 1 that the two areas of philosophy of especial concern to ethics are (1) epistemology and (2) metaphysics. 1. The nature and source of ethical knowledge in general is an epistemological matter: the epistemological status of various ethical entities, such as value judgments about good and bad or moral judgments about right and wrong, is a critical issue for the construction of an ethical reality. It should be emphasized that an epistemological ethical issue pertains to the existential status of an ethical event, independent of its specific substantive content: it concerns the abstract nature of an ethical entity. For instance, one of the primary concepts in ethics is the notion of good: a given value judgment could result in a specific entity being labeled as good. The abstract nature of good, or its existential status, not how it could possibly be physically realized, is an epistemological matter. 2. The actual ontological reality level of an ethical entity in general is a metaphysical matter: the metaphysical status of various ethical notions, such as good, right, and their interrelationship, is a critical issue for the construction of an ethical reality. A metaphysical issue concerns the substantive content of an ethical event, independent of its existential status: this kind of issue subsumes the nature of the physical embodiment of an ethical entity. With reference to the concept of good, specific physical realizations of good, the characteristic denotation(s) of good, or what is good or can serve as a good constitute metaphysical matters. We are assuming that a philosophical issue, regardless of whether it is epistemological or metaphysical or both, cannot be resolved empirically or by an appeal to logic. Such an issue cannot be satisfactorily resolved to everyone's satisfaction: it merely can be conceptually
104 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality analyzed and perhaps delimited with respect to a range of possible solutions via philosophical argument.
It is the purpose of this chapter to sketch the general picture of how technical
psychological doctrine can constrain the possible resolutions of epistemological ethical issues; the next chapter will do the same for metaphysical ethical issues. P R E V I E W OF F I V E E P I S T E M O L O G I C A L ISSUES An ethical theorist must make decisions concerning at least five separate, but not necessarily mutually exclusive, epistemological matters: 1. Are ethical entities cognitive or emotive in nature?
Do ethical statements encompass
descriptive, factual knowledge, or do they merely express emotional feeling states? This query introduces the classic epistemological problem of whether an ethical statement basically is a conceptual, intellectual entity or merely possesses some emotional hortatory or regulative value. This matter ultimately relates to how ethical judgments are evaluated and tested, as well as to the kinds of meaning they can express. 2. Are ethical properties empirical or nonempirical? This matter by and large is completely correlative with the traditional naturalism versus nonnaturalism issue.
A naturalist
presumes that ethical properties are empirical in nature, while a nonnaturalist does not do so. Moral reality is indistinguishable from, or at least continuous with, physical reality in the naturalistic approach to ethics. Moral reality possesses a special, unique status that is not presumed to be necessarily or automatically reducible to physical thing language or entities that are empirically driven or variously sensorially or perceptually derived in the nonnaturalistic conception of ethical phenomena. The naturalist assumes that the substantive content of a moral judgment could be replaced by a statement of nonmoral fact without loss of meaning, while the nonnaturalist does not. For instance, the ethical notion of ought would be replaceable by a set of one or more purely descriptive terms in naturalism. 3. What is the source of ethical truth? How are ethical properties apprehended? On what basis are certain events deemed to possess ethical reality? By what means is a particular event assigned a positive or negative ethical value: how is it consigned to a specific normative classificational slot? 4. What kind of meaning do ethical terms possess; or how are ethical terms assigned meaning? This question is not meant to be interpreted on an individual item basis, because this would make it a contentual, ontological issue. The query should be interpreted as focusing on the notion of classificational or typological meaning: what classes of meaning are applicable to ethical terms? 5. What is the nature of ethical argument; what is the nature of the process of coming to some valid ethical conclusion; what are the rules of inference in the realm of moral discourse? What is the logical structure of moral reasoning; is ethical reasoning unique? Is ethical argument in general different from purely logical or rational argument?
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P S Y C H O L O G I C A L INPUT: S O M E R E V I E W AND R E F L E C T I O N
Recall that traditional ethical doctrine originated in an implicit folk psychological context. While this gave some credence to traditional Hebraic-Christian morality and a duty based deontological ethics, it did not allow psychological doctrine to serve as an arbiter of ethical reality. What is meant by psychology today is academic, disciplinary psychology, one of the myriad extant
social
sciences.
Although contemporary disciplinary
psychology
is
heterogeneous, it is largely carried out in the material or physical monistic tradition, such that psychological reality is a component of the natural universe as conceived by physics. Psychological reality in effect must be superimposed on a logically prior physical reality, and a prescriptive ethical reality in turn must be superimposed on a logically prior descriptive psychological reality. The nature of psychological reality is critical for ethical doctrine in at least two different respects: 1. The status of ethics as a conceptual end in itself requires it to be conducted as a naturalistic endeavor, one which is just as naturalistic as any other social science related discipline. 2. The means function of ethics requires the fundamental structure and distinctions of the discipline to correspond to those of psychology. The dependence of ethics on psychology, or the consequences of psychology for ethics, only has been explicitly demonstrated so far at (1) a methodological or orientational level and (2) a descriptive or epiphenomenal level: the various types of ethical judgments have been derived from more basic psychological distinctions, and the domain of ethical phenomena has been abstracted in psychological terms. It is necessary at this juncture to present a rather brief synopsis of the more cogent psychologically based insights already generated by the analysis, so that the five epistemological ethical issues can be considered from a psychological point of view. Possible Ethical Status of a Behavioral Act
It is not the case that a given act produced by a human either is or is not an ethically evaluatable event in an absolute, all-or-none sense.
Any behavioral act rather is uniquely
assignable to one, and only one, of four mutually exclusive classes: 1. The act is an ethical event for both its producer (Dmj) and an observer (Rmj). 2. The act is not an ethical event for its producer (I)mj), but is regarded as such by an observer (Rmj). 3. The act is an ethical event for its producer (Dmj), but is not regarded as such by an observer (~nj). 4. The act is not an ethical event for either its producer (l)mj) or an observer (~nj). It should be obvious that the above four mutually exclusive classes of outcomes merely are canonical categories.
For instance, while the producer of an act usually is a singleton, the
number of observers of an act can vary from one to N, where N could be an indeterminably large number: whether an act is considered to be an Rmj or a Pa~nj could depend on the specific
106 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality observer or subset of observers involved. Analogously, the notion of observer in a given case could strictly be felicitous: whether the act is an Rmj or a t),mj could be a general policy, governmental, or sociological issue. The notion of a singleton also could be felicitous: a given act could be conjointly produced by a group of humans, i.e., the act could not have occurred unless many people simultaneously engaged in some activity. The individual composers of the act could possess differential beliefs regarding its status as a Dmj or l)mj. Psychological Status of a Human Being While it is the case that people produce psychological phenomena, the psychological status of an individual person at any one moment in time is not an absolutistic, monolithic matter. The human organism can be abstracted on numerous dimensions of psychological relevance, not the least of which is mode of contributing to psychological knowledge: the individual is functioning either as a self or as a significant other or as both concurrently at any moment in time. This basic notion also is expressible in terms of the focus of the psychologist's interest in the individual: as an end or as a means or as both concurrently. The different roles that a person can take in serving as a possible source of psychological knowledge ultimately leads to two different perspectives from which psychological reality can be constructed: (1) self and (2) an externally imposed one. This distinction is a very deep one with multifaceted ramifications. For instance, a self-focus requires first-person access to experience, while an externally imposed perspective allows third-person access to behavior. This basic dichotomy stands in a one-to-one isomorphic relationship with the fundamental distinction between moral choice (Dmj) and moral evaluation (Rmj): moral choice requires a self-focus; moral evaluation can be conducted in the context of some externally imposed perspective. Ethical Status of a Human Being Although a human is the source of ethical phenomena, it is not the case that each individual person has equal ethical status.
Western ethics is impersonal: it is applied to everyone.
However, the notion of everyone usually is interpreted to mean rational adult. Rational adults in a folk psychological context are supposed to be morally responsible and in control of their own behavior, i.e., possess free will. There also are all sorts of special populations that are supposed to be beyond the purview of traditional ethical doctrine. Our analysis so far suggests that these special populations are refractory to ethical analysis, not so much because they are neither adults nor rational, but rather because they cannot engage in the language function, or self-report, and thus do not constitute proper objects of study in a moral choice context: if a person is incapable of analysis at a moral choice level, it would not make much sense to perform an analysis at the moral evaluation level. Locus of Causation Instances of behavior do not occur in either a conceptual or existential vacuum. Behavior is caused: it is temporally and spatially sourced. It is irrelevant whether the hypothetical cause
Epistemology: Existential Status of Moral Judgments/Value Qualities is within the skin, i.e., intemal, or outside the skin, i.e., extemal, or both.
107
The subjective
orientation only allows internal causes; the objective orientation only allows external causes; the quasi-objective orientation allows causes of either source.
Recall from Chapter 1 that
radical behaviorism makes exclusive appeal to external causation, while physiological materialism and cognitive psychology focus on internal causation.
Status of Mental Events The existence of mental events cannot be taken for granted once you leave the confines of folk psychology. In order for mental events to exist in disciplinary psychology, they must have the same composition or representation as behavior: they must either possess material composition, as some kind of physical or physiological state, or admit of functional definition, as possessing a causal role between physical stimulus input events and physical response output events. It also is an option in technical psychology for mental events to exist, but not be causative: they merely are epiphenomenal output events that can parallel the occurrence of overt behavior, a position primarily characteristic of Skinnerian behaviorism. The content of consciousness for Skinner is just as much a consequential by-product of an organism's physiological functioning as behavior is: conscious experience merely is internal behavior. Whether mental events are regarded as causative or merely epiphenomenal can have significant consequences for ethical doctrine (see Chapter 9).
Equivalent Composition Recall that conscious experience, or consciousness, and behavior constitute the two fundamental metaphysical objects of interest in academic psychology. Either one of them must occupy the basic object of study or output slot of the content of observation; however, it also is the case that either of them could occupy the locus of causation or input, or indirect or inferred object of study, slot of the content of observation.
Because they constitute basic units of
analysis in psychology, conscious experience and behavior must possess the same or equivalent composition: material or functional. The question of the status of mental events merely is a subset of this more general abstract consideration. The conditions under which the composition of conscious experience and behavior could possibly be the same, or equivalent, are of critical concern for the construction of psychological reality. There are two readily available approaches for guaranteeing equivalence: 1. The first one merely is semantic in nature.
Conscious experience and behavior merely
function as equivalent semantic or linguistic categories.
This state of affairs was
characterized in the prior chapter as the contemporary metaphysical neutrality of the conscious experience-behavior distinction. 2. The second way is to construct psychological reality in the strict physical or material monistic tradition: everything is body, matter, physical in nature. It should be noted that equivalent composition also is effected via a strict mental or idealistic monism; however,
108 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality this option would not fly in current Westem or European Continental psychology, but would be of more ready acceptability in traditional Eastem or Oriental psychology.
Differential Access There is no hard and fast distinction between conscious experience, or consciousness, and behavior in folk psychology and to some degree in depth psychology and humanistic psychology. These two notions interpenetrate each other: they are circularly defined and identified in terms of each other. Such a relationship between conscious experience and behavior is not acceptable in experimental psychology, where they constitute distinct, but not necessarily independent, methodological and conceptual entities. The notion of differential access refers to the methodological aspects of conscious experience and behavior.
Conscious experience only affords direct, first-person access;
behavior is most expeditiously studied via third-person access. Access to conscious experience requires a self, or phenomenological, focus; access to behavior can be effected via an externally imposed significant other focus. This methodological stricture requires disciplinary psychology to treat moral choice and moral evaluation as distinct categories of ethical/moral activity.
Implicit Normative Status of the Psychological Universe While it is the case that one of the primary metaphysical assumptions of our analysis is that an evaluative ethical reality must be superimposed on a logically prior descriptive psychological reality, it also must be realized that the construction of a psychological universe itself is not a strictly neutral, value-free task.
Psychology and ethics really constitute co-
ordinate, interpenetrating, mutually constructed disciplines: formulating a psychological reality is just as much an ethical endeavor as constructing an ethical reality is a psychological task. Not every possible psychological universe would be ethical/moral and accordingly acceptable. This situation has a salient consequence for an individual psychological fact.
Any
statement purporting to have psychological content is not merely an epistemological one, but also is an evaluative one. Only psychological statements with social action consequences can serve as input into ethical doctrine. This fact serves as a relevant contextual condition for our psychological analysis of the five epistemological ethical issues (also see Chapter 9). C O G N I T I V E V E R S U S E M O T I V E ISSUE
Philosophical Background The cognitive approach to ethical judgment and evaluation constitutes the traditional view historically.
An ethical judgment is some kind of factual, descriptive statement that is
supposed to correspond to reality. An ethical statement in effect is a fact continuous with any other kind of fact that is descriptively characteristic of the physical world.
Epistemology: Existential Status of Moral Judgments/Value Qualities 109 This traditional approach to the epistemological status of ethical properties eventually lost favor due to the development of two separate, but interrelated, movements in both ethical and epistemological theorizing: (1) Moore's promulgation of the so-called naturalistic fallacy and the consequent evolution of a nonnaturalistic cognitivism and (2) the Vienna Circle's adoption of the logical positivism doctrine. 1. The naturalistic fallacy can be stated many different ways, so it generates an open-ended set of conceptual implications. Basically Moore made a very cogent argument to the effect that traditional ethical theorists never systematically defined ethical notions (specifically he focused on the concept of good) in terms of abstract constitutive properties, but merely used the typical physical realizations of these notions (e.g., happiness is a good) as the meaning of the terms. An ethical theorist in other words must differentiate between (1) the abstract constitutive properties of an ethical term, such as good, and (2) the set of criteria by which a given empirical entity can be said to be an instance of that ethical term, i.e., good. No set of characteristics by reason of which a thing can be said to be good could constitute the denotative meaning of good. Because Moore ultimately argued that good was a simple entity with no constituent components, the discipline eventually despaired of treating the notion of good in a naturalistic manner: the notion of good could only possess some nonnaturalistic properties that were unique, special, and nonempirical, such that they only could be apprehended intuitively or by appeal to reason. Don't misunderstand the situation here. An ethical property still is an intellectual, cognitive entity; however, it no longer possesses empirical characteristics subject to external validity check. Ethical truth devolves to a matter of intuition or reason.
A naturalistically based cognitivism was
supplanted by a nonnaturalistically based cognitivism. 2. The Vienna Circle's logical positivism doctrine functioned as an epistemological criterion for determining what really exists: it in effect amounted to a verificationist theory of meaning. An abstract concept, even an ethical one, had to possess empirical, factual properties that could be easily demonstrated in sense experience by publicly implementable operations in order to be real. Nonnaturalistically based cognitive ethical concepts could not meet this criterial test.
Any traditional ethical term merely amounted to a
pseudoconcept for a strict logical positivist. The naturalistic fallacy decried naturalistic cognitivism, and logical positivism vitiated nonnaturalistic cognitivism. Ethical theorists, beginning with Ayer and Stevenson, preserved the philosophical integrity of moral doctrine by completely altering the epistemological status of ethical judgments. Instead of ethical statements being conceived as cognitive entities, they now were primarily regarded as vehicles for expressing feelings, emotions, attitudes, and the like. Any descriptive reference that an ethical notion might possess merely was ancillary. An ethical statement no longer had any objective validity and was refractory to empirical assessment. The statement merely functioned as a means of externalizing how some individual or party felt about some entity at an ethical level. Emotions, feelings, attitudes are not true or false: they merely are.
Ethical statements in effect now possess a practical, guiding, or
110 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality persuasive character. Their sole claim to reality derives directly from their potential role as behavioral influence or control entities. Both cognitivism and emotivism must be physicalized at a linguistic level. Description in traditional cognitivism was effected by common, garden-variety declarative sentences. The practical nature of an ethical distinction in emotivism could not be expressed this way. In original versions of emotive doctrine, judgments of value, i.e., good or bad, were assumed to be exclamatory statements, while judgments of obligation, i.e., right or wrong, were regarded as imperative statements. Emotivists seemed to repress the fact that an imperative cannot refer to the past. Later versions of emotivism, such as prescriptivism, pursued more sophisticated analyses such that other linguistic models were found for ethical expressions. The ultimate consequence of this approach was that ethical analysis eventually became an exclusive linguistic affair, finally reaching the point of natural or ordinary language analysis: the reality of an ethical notion solely derived from its functional use in a specific natural language context.
Psychological Considerations Current psychological doctrine is compatible with either of these generic approaches to the epistemological status of ethical entities.
The physical, monistic stance of contemporary
psychology can accommodate either the classic naturalistic cognitive view or the more contemporary emotive, prescriptive approach.
The current nature of the psychological
universe is not a critical arbiter in this context: rather disciplinary psychology suggests that each of these approaches might have differential areas of primary relevance. 1. Any behavioral act whose ethical significance derives from its classification as a Rmj in a moral evaluation context only can be meaningfully assessed as a cognitive event. Any behavioral act whose ethical relevance derives from its classification as a Dmj in a moral choice context only can be pragmatically handled as an emotive activity. Cognitivism and moral evaluation and emotivism and moral choice constitute natural tie-ups.
The basic
reason for this is structural or methodological: Rmjs only are subject to third-person access and impersonal analysis; Dmjs are phenomenological events in progress, only subject to first-person access.
Moral evaluation and moral choice can be two vastly different
enterprises for the psychologist: the process of assessing the moral status of other people and their behavior and the process of coming to some moral decision by a self need not be commensurate psychological activities.
The vast body of impersonal, historical ethical
knowledge is best conceived as an intellectual, cognitive collection. The content of day-today, personal decisions can be treated as dynamic, attitudinal entities. 2. Cognitivism and emotivism bear differing relationships to social action and the implementation of ethical doctrine.
In cognitivism, ethics basically is a conceptual
endeavor, while social action is a matter of practical application.
In emotivism, social
action is a given or the input; and the intellectual status of ethical decisions is either secondary or irrelevant. The implicit normative stance of both psychology and ethics is
Epistemology: Existential Status of Moral Judgments~Value Qualities 111 directly represented in emotivism, but only derivatively represented in cognitivism. The reason for this should be obvious: an utterance with ethical significance in emotivism is regarded as a practical, persuasive, or guiding event, which implicitly functions as a behavioral influence or control device. The sole purpose for making an ethical statement in emotivism is to exert behavioral control over others. Cognitivism in effect is germane to the conduction of pure, academic psychology, focusing on constructing the ultimate nature of the psychological universe, while emotivism is indigenous to the application of abstract psychological doctrine in the context of applied, professional psychology. N A T U R A L I S M V E R S U S N O N N A T U R A L I S M ISSUE
Philosophical Background The basic structure and content of this issue already have been previewed: (1) Both naturalism and nonnaturalism are versions of cognitivism, in which ethical concepts constitute descriptive, intellectual entities; and (2) the basic distinction between them relates to whether or not descriptive ethical entities also are empirical in nature. Ethical notions in naturalism are empirical concepts: they refer to naturally occurring entities in the real-time, real-space universe. An ethical property is a physical feature of the natural world. This view makes an ethical entity amenable to scientific analysis: there is no fundamental difference between an ethical quality and a feature of the material universe studied by both physical and social science. Virtually any ethical term is translatable into one or more physical, i.e., biological, social, or psychological, entity. This state of affairs is one way of stating the essential content of the naturalistic fallacy: ethical theorists who equated ethical notions with specific naturalistic, physicalistic entities historically were indicted for committing the naturalistic fallacy. Ethical notions in nonnaturalism are not empirical concepts: they constitute a special, unique, or emergent class of properties nondecomposable into physicalistic characteristics of the universe. The inner essence of ethical notions comprises a separate, distinct reality unto itself. These descriptive, nonnaturalistic properties of ethical phenomena can only be known by intuition or right reasoning.
Ethical properties are regarded as indefinable in empirical
terms and thus are mysterious entities for naturalistically oriented philosophers. Nonnaturalists historically decry the naturalistic fallacy and use it to guarantee the conceptual integrity and autonomy of ethical doctrine (see Preface).
Psychological Considerations Because the basic conceptual stance of our analysis is the assumption that an ethical reality must be superimposed on a logically prior psychological reality (as originally proffered in the Preface), disciplinary psychology is quite definitive with respect to this issue: if ethical entities are cognitive in nature, they must involve naturalistic properties.
This is the case simply
112 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality because the notion of nonnaturalistic psychological properties would be meaningless in the context of the currently dominant view of the nature of the psychological universe. While the above constraint on the nature of ethical reality should not be surprising, its full emotional impact cannot be felt unless a selected subset of more specific consequences is briefly discussed. 1. While it might be possible to conduct moral choice in a nonnaturalistic context, such would not be the case with respect to moral evaluation. A Dmj is the product of an individual consciousness and an individualistic set of psychological processes. Included in the process of coming to terms with a specific moral choice could be unverbalizable ethical distinctions and realizations that seem intuitively true or merely possess self-evident validity.
An Rmj on the other hand is an objective event in the real-time, real-space
universe. It must consist of components that admit of third-person access and must be amenable to evaluative assessment in the context of some externally imposed criterion. 2. The notion of a locus of causation would be meaningless in the context of a nonnaturalistic cognitive approach to ethical properties. A piece of behavior in contemporary psychology must be caused by some internal or external physical event: e.g., cognitive behaviorism, physiological materialism, or radical behaviorism (see Chapter 1). 3. Virtually any nonnaturalistic ethical property would have the status of a mental event; however, it would be mentation characteristic of Cartesian dualistic philosophy. It would be impossible to give a nonnaturalistic ethical property material composition or functional specification.
A nonnaturalistic ethical property also could never be purely or merely
epiphenomenal in nature (see Chapter 6). 4. It would be impossible for an abstract ethical property and an actual behavioral act, judged to possess ethical significance, to have the same or equivalent composition in the context of nonnaturalistic cognitivism. Any abstract ethical property would be a mysterious intuited event. A piece of ethical behavior is part and parcel of the naturally occurring universe.
A P P R E H E N S I O N , I D E N T I F I C A T I O N OF E T H I C A L P R O P E R T I E S
Philosophical Background The ultimate source of ethical properties is the quintessential epistemological issue: the origin of ethical knowledge is the prototypical epistemological concern. There are four classic approaches to epistemology, although they are not as mutually exclusive as historical discussions would have one believe: (1) empiricism, (2) rationalism, (3) intuitionism, and (4) revelatonism.
Empiricism Sense experience, i.e., what comes in over the various sensory modalities, is regarded as the basis of knowledge in empiricism. It is usually presumed that there is a real-time, realspace universe that serves as the ultimate source of the content of our sensations: there is an
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actual physical world at the other end of our sensations. The existence of a physical universe independent of the content of our consciousness is not an empirically addressable issue: humans are incapable of experience that is not mediated by the functioning of sensory receptors. The conduction of physical science in general serves as the model application of empiricist doctrine, and a very sophisticated experimental methodology has evolved over the years in that context. Empiricism is general and variegated enough to allow countless interpretations of just what sensory data is and the manner in which it is actively obtained. The British school of mental philosophy known as British empiricism served as the original bridge between abstract empiricism per se and the everyday conduction of science.
The philosophy of science
nowadays constitutes an active subarea of epistemology. The doctrine of empiricism in an ethical context would mean that ethical properties have some counterpart in the natural universe, are decodable by our sensory/perceptual receptors, are processable by our various cognitive capacities, and are evaluatable by a set of consensually approved external criteria. Rationalism
The exercise of reason constitutes the source of knowledge in rationalism.
Sometimes
reason is referred to as rational thought. It is assumed that anyone who engages in rational thought about some problem area will eventually realize what is true or correct about that situation. Reason, rationality really is an amorphous notion and means nothing in itself. Cartesian thought certainly constitutes the most influential expression of rationalism in a philosophical context. Ren6 Descartes, a seventeenth century French philosopher, espoused a doctrine of innate ideas, systematic doubt, mathematical reasoning, and voluntary human behavior driven by a mentalistic free will or rational mind. A specific notion ultimately could only be regarded as rationally true by Descartes if it passed a tripartite evaluational hurdle: the idea had to be (1) clear, (2) self-evident, and (3) indubitable. This criterion of course is internal, idiosyncratic, and subjective. The prototypical application of rationalistic thought is mathematics: abstract axiomatic systems, not arithmetic per se. Logic, especially the deductive variety, constitutes the prototypical case of systematic reasoning. The doctrine of rationalism in an ethical context would mean that ethical properties are discoverable by the proper use of reason.
For instance, the characteristics of good, the
structure of moral obligation, and such are discernible via the use of rational thought.
Intuitionism Intuitionism is very difficult to characterize, probably because it is amorphous at best and mysterious at worst. appreciation.
Truth is supposed to be discovered via intellectual sympathy or
Where right reasoning ends and effective intuiting begins is muddled and
unclear. Intuitionism is similar to rationalism except that the intuiter cannot be conscious of
114 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality the mental processes that produce an intuited conclusion.
The intuited conclusion merely
appears in one's consciousness and somehow seems fitting to the occasion. There are many versions of intuitionism, perhaps the historically most well-known one being the approach of Henri Bergson, a nineteenth century French philosopher. Regardless of the intellectual variant of intuitionism used as the basic reference point, there is no doubt that an intuition is a privatistic and idiosyncratic event.
The content of an intuition in some
versions is regarded as ineffable, a state which would effectively remove it from the realm of empirical possibility. The doctrine of intuitionism in an ethical context would mean that ethical properties are known by intellectual appreciation.
For instance, the specific content of good, use of the
principle of utility, instances of prima facie obligations, and such are justified via an appeal to intuition.
Revelationism Some divine entity serves as the ultimate source of truth in revelationism. What is true is revealed to mere mortals by divine intervention or largess.
A revelation is similar to an
intuition, in the sense that it is just as capricious, mysterious, and privatistic, except it is assumed that an extraterrestrial creature is at the other end of the revelation. The primary area of application of revelationism is theological and religious doctrine. The world is beset with competing, conflicting, revelationally based religious dogma. Revelationism extends to morality/ethics when one's normative beliefs are intentionally given a religious/theological foundation: for instance, Hebraic-Christian morality. Note that in the Western Christian tradition a divine being is presumed to be the creator of both the physical universe and the moral universe. This is an arbitrary combination and often a deleterious one: for instance, sometimes individuals claim that God told them to perform some unspeakable evil, such as kill their progeny. There has to be some moral principle or authority higher than God to make the content of this revelation immoral.
Preliminary Pragmatic Constraints It is necessary to present two sets of pragmatic constraints on the possible source of ethical properties before discussing various psychological considerations. 1. The current issue is not independent of the first two: (1) cognitivism versus emotivism and (2) naturalism versus nonnaturalism. The general structure of the resolution of the source issue already has been delineated: 9 A naturalistic cognitive theorist must take the empiricist approach. 9 A nonnaturalistic cognitive theorist must be an intuitionist. 9 Emotive theorists are not wedded to any particular position; however, they would be most comfortable with either empiricism or rationalism. 2. Resolution of the source issue is not necessarily independent of the specific ethical query of concern.
For instance, the question of ultimate ethical goals usually is handled
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rationalistically or intuitionistically, while the assessment of the possible ethical means of achieving the goals usually is done empirically: contrast categorical imperatives with hypothetical imperatives (see Chapter 1). As another example, consider the Ten Commandments, or variants thereof: although surrogates or analogues for the Ten Commandments have been discovered in virtually every society that has been empirically studied (and thus provide fodder for a physicalistic, naturalistic interpretation of them), most people as a matter of course accept them as revealed truth. But the actual application of a commandment, such as "Thou shalt not kill," is riddled with questions about absoluteness and generality, to none of which the revelationistic approach provides a ready or simple answer.
Psychological Considerations It is possible to give a psychological interpretation to each of the classic approaches to epistemology: each epistemological route to knowledge could be regarded as a psychological process or a combination of psychological processes.
This means that each of them, even
revelationism, must be construed as a physicalistic, naturalistic process. The empiricist doctrine is the one most easily converted into specific information processing schemes and in effect has been studied by experimental psychologists for a century: psychologists have focused on the acquisition of knowledge in the lab for generations under the fundamental assumption that such knowledge basically is empirically sourced. It is much more difficult to convert rationalistic and intuitionistic doctrine into workable, testable hypotheses, although these processes have been operationalized and studied in the lab. The reason for this difficulty should be obvious: both rationalism and intuitionism involve internal, privatistic, subjective, perhaps even unverbalizable, criteria of truth. The content of what seems to be rationalistically or intuitionistically self-evident varies from one individual to another. Revelationism by its very nature is not conducive to laboratory investigation unless one assimilates it to other psychological phenomena such as hallucinations, illusions, or delusions, i.e., there is no divine entity at the other end of the content of the sensory experience. Regarded strictly as a mechanistic, psychological process, revelationism can be studied in the everyday world; and this helps explain why the content of a specific revelation tends to change over the years, i.e., it is not the divine entity's word that really changes, but rather the social, economic, and political conditions that change and alter people's beliefs about ethics and acceptable conduct. If the creation of ethical knowledge is regarded strictly as a psychological process, then empiricism would serve as the dominant approach, with rationalism and/or intuitionism providing subsidiary options when relevant, i.e., as subprocesses within empiricism. Revelationism at best merely would be epiphenomenal, a phenomenon to be physicalistically explained, rather than an active causal agent and source of knowledge.
116 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality T H E M E A N I N G OF E T H I C A L T E R M S
Philosophical Background There are at least four classic theories about the nature of meaning that could be applied to the ethical context: (1) referential, (2) verificationist, (3) causal or psychological, and (4) use.
Referential Referential theory presumes that a term refers to an actual existent object, which in tum serves as the meaning for the term. For instance, take the term "fish." It is a meaningful notion because it stands for actual physical fish as a property of the natural universe. A term in a sense merely is a verbal label for some entity. Denotative or descriptive meaning constitutes the prototypical kind in this approach. Denotative meaning expresses what a thing is in itself or what its properties are. This kind of meaning can be easily expressed by synonymic or ostensive definitions. Linguistically it is expressible by descriptive, declarative sentences. In an ethical context, referential theory is germane to the naturalistic cognitive approach, where an ethical notion is defined in terms of a combination of various physicalistic features. Recall that Moore decried this practice as the naturalistic fallacy. Moore denied that an ethical term could be given referential meaning because there were no real-world properties to which the term actually referred.
Verificationist Verificationist theory equates the meaning which a notion could possess with the observational steps or measuring operations that would have to be performed to demonstrate that the entity in fact exists. If a term is incapable of reduction to one or more existenceestablishing steps/operations, it in effect is nonsense, i.e., meaningless.
Recall that this
approach is characteristic of the Vienna Circle logical positivists. When the verificationist criterion is applied to ethics in the context of nonnaturalistic cognitivism, ethical terms become nonsense. It no longer is possible for an ethical term to possess literal, lexical meaning or to denote a so-called descriptive state of affairs.
Causal or Psychological Causal or psychological theory postulates that the meaning associated with a term is its dispositional tendency to cause, or be caused by, certain psychological processes in the hearer or speaker respectively.
The meaning of a term in effect is the psychological reaction
associated with it. If a term does not set up a psychological reaction in a person, it is meaningless. This approach emphasizes so-called connotative or emotional meaning, i.e., the affective state associated with some cognitive notion. In an ethical context, this theory serves as the natural underpinning for the emotivistprescriptive approach, in which ethical terms possess no descriptive, denotative meaning, but have merely emotion eliciting or relieving properties.
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Use
The use approach to meaning is not an abstract, comprehensive theory of meaning per se. It is a means of accommodating a complete fragmentation of the linguistic subarea of semantics in such a way as to retain the everyday interpretation of the notion. The meaning of a term is its use in language: it specifically is its use in a sentence. Because a term can appear in many different sentences, expressing vastly disparate information, it could have many different meanings. contexts.
A term in effect possesses no one meaning: it possesses various use
This approach is synonymous with the ordinary language analysis approach to
conducting philosophy.
Ordinary language philosophers do not replace everyday language
with a clearer or more conceptual one: their goal is to become clearer about our use of ordinary language. Descriptions are made of the use of a term in detail in ordinary language analysis. Applied to ethics, the use approach enhances the uniqueness of the discipline. Ethical words/sentences have a meaning all their own: they have a logic all their own, which even extends to the justification or verification level.
This usually translates into an appeal to
rational considerations and the so-called "good reasons" approach.
Psychological Considerations Each of these conceptual approaches to meaning has a relevant application to ethics. One of these theories, the causal one, makes explicit use of psychological concepts, usually reactions or states, and helps give substance to the belief that ethical notions are emotive, prescriptive entities. But psychological doctrine is not definitive with respect to the possible resolution of the meaning issue: the nature of meaning is just as much an issue in academic, experimental psychology as it is in philosophy. Semantics is both an active theoretical and experimental area in psychology. The best way of getting a handle on the status of meaning in psychological doctrine is to emphasize the fact that it is a mentalistic notion and has the status of a mental state. Meaning must be given a physical composition or functional specification and also could be either causal or epiphenomenal in nature. Meaning usually is given a functional specification and is studied either as a causal entity, i.e., independent, input variable, or as an epiphenomenal entity, i.e., dependent, output variable. This approach to meaning in psychology is congruent with the causal approach in philosophy. T H E N A T U R E OF E T H I C A L R E A S O N I N G Psychological doctrine is not definitive with respect to this issue. This is the case because it could be argued that the act of imposing an ethical reality on a logically prior psychological reality is equivalent to moral reasoning. The attempt to justify a particular ethical reality out of many possible alternatives at least in part involves some moral reasoning.
The nature of
psychological reality does not put any unique or indigenous constraints on the process of ethical reasoning.
118 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality Reasoning or argumentation in an ethical context is continuous with that in a nonnormative context in many respects. Moral reasoning has some unique aspects in other respects. This is best illustrated by analyzing reasoning in moral evaluation and moral choice separately. Moral Evaluation
Moral evaluation in a third-person access Rmj context can involve the two traditional forms of reasoning: (1) deduction and (2) induction.
In deductive reasoning, the major premise
usually is some universally prescriptive moral law. The minor premise may or may not involve a statement that makes reference to ethical reality.
The major problem in this form of
reasoning is justifying the truth or acceptance of the major premise. It cannot be done by a strict appeal to empiricism in general or psychology in particular. In inductive reasoning, a moral judgment could be the result of a systematic sampling of real-world cases. The two major problems in this type of reasoning are (1) the specification of the demarcation of the induction base and (2) the determination of a sufficient sample size. These two problems are not really empirically resolvable.
Even more problematical is the fact that in ethics pure
numbers, frequency counts, or observational quantities are meaningless entities: what is right, good, or one's duty does not depend on descriptive reality or the current state of affairs. Moral Choice Moral choice in a first-person access Dmj context cannot involve deduction or induction if
it is regarded as emotive in nature.
Because of this, ethical theorists have devised
nontraditionally based justification approaches: for instance, a deontic logic to accommodate commands or imperatives and the good reasons approach to justify emotive moral decisions. Existential philosophers go so far as to assume that the act of making a moral choice is selfvalidating: the critical thing is experiencing and suffering the moral dilemma itself. It is as if the suffering justifies the decision, regardless of its specific content. CONCEPTUAL SUMMARY Contemporary psychological doctrine suggests that ethics should not be a source of creative difficulty at the epistemological level.
The epistemological stance of the discipline as a
normative endeavor is continuous with that of various nonnormative endeavors. The substance of a moral judgment or an ethical decision must be a naturalistic, physicalistic event; however, in this context it could be given a largely cognitive or emotive reality level. Ethical qualities are most conveniently regarded as abstract intellectual entities in the context of ethics as an end in itself and as emotive entities in the context of ethics as an instrumental applied endeavor. Moral evaluation and moral choice are best treated as separate, but not necessarily independent, epistemological situations: it is possible for limitations in the analysis of one of these situations to generalize over to the appropriateness of analysis in the other situation. Ethics can basically be conducted as an empirical endeavor with respect to the origin of specific doctrine; however, it cannot be evaluated solely or strictly as a factual, descriptive
Epistemology: Existential Status of Moral Judgments/Value Qualities 119 discipline. There is room for the traditional processes of rational thinking and intuitive insights to play a subsidiary role in the over-all normative, evaluational endeavor. Ethical terms can encompass various types of meaning, contingent on their specific functional roles at any one point in time. Ethical reasoning can be viewed as continuous with nonnormative reasoning, but it must be realized that ethical knowledge is not as cut and dried as strictly scientific formulations or mathematical dicta are.
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METAPHYSICS" CONTENTUAL ETHICAL ISSUES
Three priorly introduced thematic considerations constitute the essential impetus to this chapter: 1. The discipline of ethics primarily is concerned with value and obligation: value judgments about good and bad and moral judgments about ethically correct or incorrect courses of action that are made by people (see Chapter 1). 2. The discipline of ethics encompasses two basic types of philosophical
issues:
epistemological and metaphysical. Epistemological issues relate to the abstract nature of ethical entities; metaphysical issues involve the substantive content of ethical entities (see Chapter 7). 3. A philosophical issue ordinarily cannot be resolved to everyone's satisfaction: it merely can be analyzed and put in perspective by bringing various kinds of nonphilosophical knowledge to bear on the issue. Psychological doctrine constitutes one such source that can serve to constrain the nature of ethical reality at a philosophical level (see Chapter 7). The purpose of this chapter is to perform the counterpart of that of the preceding epistemology chapter in the context of a classic set of metaphysical contentual issues: how does the nature of psychological reality constrain ethical doctrine at the metaphysical level? P R E V I E W OF F O U R M E T A P H Y S I C A L ISSUES An ethical theorist must make decisions concerning at least four distinct, but not necessarily unrelated, classes of metaphysical issues: 1. What is the nature of good, or what is good? What role does the notion of a moral good play in ethical doctrine? 2. What is the nature of duty or obligation, or what is a duty or obligation? What constitutes a morally correct or incorrect course of action? How does one determine what is right or wrong? 3. What is the relationship between value and obligation?
More specifically, what is the
relationship between good and right or between bad or evil and wrong? This query sets up the classic ethical dichotomy between deontology or formalism and consequentialism, teleology, or utilitarianism.
122 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality 4. What is the nature of moral worth or value? What is the nature of virtue and vice? What are the characteristics of a virtuous or nonvirtuous person? NATURE OF G O O D When people address the notion of good at an informal, anecdotal level, they think of something that is both (1) beneficial or worthwhile and (2) desirable or an ought-to-be. It is taken for granted that goods should be created and distributed as widely as possible. One of the purposes of ethics, as an end in itself, is to construct a meaningful, coherent interpretation of the notion of good: what are the characteristics of something that make it good, and what entities can be regarded as being good? Substantial variation exists in technical ethical doctrine because there is disagreement with respect to the number and types of goods, as well as their role in human affairs. The set of possible entities that could be categorized as good is open-ended: application of the label "good" is unrestricted. Both human acts and their consequences could be regarded as good; both animate and inanimate objects are classifiable as good. Good is an evaluative, grading concept that goes beyond the purely descriptive level of analysis. To label something good is to judge it on some dimension of interest to ethics. Saying something is good is to give it a special status: in ethics this is usually referred to as the evaluative or normative level of reality. Good also implicitly functions as a comparative notion: something can be good in itself, better than something else, or the best entity in a population of individual goods. Our analysis of the nature of good will entail (1) two classes of definitional expressions for good, (2) types of good, (3) conceptual or functional status of good, (4) status and role of its counterpart, bad or evil, and (5) three classic doctrines about the possible physical realization of an intrinsic good. Psychological considerations will be introduced where relevant, especially in the contexts of status and classic doctrines. Each classic doctrine in effect functions as a psychological interpretation of good.
Two Classes of Definitional Expression What does it mean to say that something is good; or what does the notion of good mean? There are two classic ways of expressing what good means, derivative of the cognitive versus emotive distinction (see Chapter 7): (1) description and (2) predication. 1. In the description approach, the expression "This is good," means that "This is reasonably desired or is a reasonable object of a favorable attitude." Sidgwick (see Preface) expressed the meaning of good this way. As a cognitive, intellectual event, it also is possible to specify the characteristics that make an entity good: "This is good," means that "This possesses certain characteristics (whatever they are)." 2. In the predication approach, the expression "This is good," means that "The speaker approves of this, and the hearer should do so as well." Good is predicated of the object, whatever it is. The speaker merely is commending the object to the hearer. Emotivists,
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prescriptivists, such as Stevenson and Ayer (see Chapter 7), expressed the meaning of good this way. Because the expression "This is good," is not a cognitive, intellectual event, it is not possible to specify the constitutive elements of good; however, it is possible to give reasons why the speaker commends the object as being good. Note: Description or predication in technical ethical doctrine only taps one of the two features of the general public's conception of the notion of good: the fact that a good entity is beneficial or worthwhile, i.e., an object of a favorable attitude or approval.
There is no
prescription that an object deemed good should also exist or be created. This second aspect of the public's conception of good devolves to the issue of the conceptual or functional status of good at a technical level: whether an approved, esteemed object should exist or not is an independent, metaphysical question. Types Any typology is a classification scheme, and there are as many typologies of good in ethics as there are viable classification schemes for differentiating among various kinds of good, especially in the context of various contentual approaches to the physical representation of good. It is necessary for us to distinguish among six types of good; however, they do not constitute mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories that come from some underlying contentual classification scheme. They merely constitute functional, operative distinctions that aid in structuring the discussion of this subarea of ethics. We shall differentiate among (1) an intrinsic good, (2) an extrinsic or instrumental good, (3) the notion of a summum bonum, (4) a good of its kind, (5) the common good, and (6) the general good. Intrinsic The general public's conception of good as a metaphysical category means intrinsic good
or something that is good in and of itself. It is this type of good that gives substantive meaning to the abstract notion of good and any characteristics that it might possess: to inquire after the abstract properties of good, or to give meaning to the notion of good in general, is to give physical realization to the notion of intrinsic good. It is this type of good that is the object of various theories of good, i.e., the various classic doctrines about the nature of good. If there is any inner essence associated with the notion of good, it must be a feature of intrinsic good. The notion of an ethical or moral good obviously must be a subset of that of intrinsic good. Analogously, if the attainment of some ethical/moral good be regarded as some desirable goal or ideal end state, the good entailed must be intrinsic. Extrinsic or Instrumental
This kind of good merely is pragmatic or functional.
An entity possesses extrinsic or
instrumental good to the extent that its attainment functions as a necessary precursor to the procurement of some intrinsic good. For instance, studying hard is instrumentally good because it eventually leads to the earning of a college degree. An extrinsically good event is
124 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality not good in and of itself, although it is possible for an object to possess both extrinsic and intrinsic goodness simultaneously. In the nondeontological, or teleological, approach to judgments of moral rightness, the functional act that leads to an intrinsically good consequence not only is deemed right but also implicitly operates as an extrinsic good. Extrinsic goods ordinarily do not serve as objects of ethical analysis: they are only incidentally or contingently good. Summum Bonum Summum bonum is the Latin phrase for the notion of ultimate good or highest possible form
of good, regardless of whether it exists at the top of some ordered hierarchy. The good entailed by a summum bonum must be intrinsic. The possible existence of a summum bonum occupied the attention of the ancients more than it does modem philosophers. The value of a summum bonum for ethical doctrine cannot be assessed logically or objectively. It plays a major psychological and/or theological role in many ethical systems. For instance, a life of reason or a focus on exercising the intellect constitutes a summum bonum for Aristotle; God's love functions as a summum bonum in Christianity. It is no accident that most physical realizations of the notion of a summum bonum tend to be intangible, abstract, intellectual, spiritual, nonsensory, even abstruse: a summum bonum must not be limited or diminished by possible physical or economic activity. One is not considered to be a moral being in some contexts unless in pursuit of some summum bonum. Good of its Kind Any entity in existence is an instance of a kind. For example: A specific apple is an instance of a kind; namely, apple. Or, a specific voluntary act performed by a human is an instance of a kind; namely, voluntary action. The specific entity that serves as the best example of a given kind is often said to exhibit good of its kind. Good of its kind is intrinsic: a best example is assumed to possess intrinsic goodness. From a slightly different perspective, the best physical embodiment of some perhaps abstract concept possesses intrinsic goodness as a good of its kind. Many philosophers like to define moral or ethical goodness in terms of this type of good. For instance, Garnett considers a morally good action to be one that is the epitome of a fully rational, unconstrained, voluntary action.
There are two glaring
metaphysical difficulties with the notion of a good of its kind that makes its use delusive in the long run: (1) It is both teleological in the Aristotelian sense and circular, and (2) it requires an elaborate theory of the nature of the specific kind of current interest, i.e., apple, voluntary action. This is especially the case when ethical good is defined in terms of good of its kind. The C o m m o n Good
The notion of the common good comes into play when one attempts to specify the inclusiveness of the set of people that can benefit from the procurement of some intrinsic good. Western ethics is supposed to be impersonal" the usual domain of ethical doctrine is everyone
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(see Chapters 1, 4, 7, and 9 for exceptions). If some entity is good for everyone, it contributes to the common good. The General Good
The notion of the general good for all practical purposes is synonymous with that of the common good: any distinctions between the two would strictly be idiomatic. Nevertheless, it could be argued that the notion of the general good somehow is more abstract or impersonal than that of the common good. Addendum
Both ways of expressing good for everyone should be interpreted as naturalistic, socialscience type constructs. Any entity that enhances the common or the general good in effect is contributing to the general social welfare (see Chapter 1). In no way should common or general good be construed as amorphous, nonphysical entities.
Conceptual, Functional Status of Good The possible functional status of good can be illustrated quite nicely by considering four classes of conceptual questions related to the nature of good: 1. Is good a social construct? 2. Is good directly or derivatively a prescriptive, normative concept? 3. Is good purely or merely a linguistic concept? 4. Is good relational in nature? Good as a Social Construct
Good can be construed as a social construct in two distinct senses: 1. The notion of good is of social origin. Granted that the notion of good is a construction of our conscious intelligence (see Chapter 2), our consciousness in turn is social in origin. The fundamental distinctions that our cognitive capacity makes about reality derive from socially conditioned categories.
This view is a cornerstone of third-person access
Skinnerian radical behaviorism. 2. The content of individual goods, i.e., what can serve as an individual good, also is a product of social conditioning: it is a product of one's specific reinforcement history in the context of Skinnerian psychology (see Chapter 9). Prescriptive, Normative Status o f Good
Good usually is treated as a normative, prescriptive concept: ethics deals with what ought or should be the case. What is at issue here is whether the normative, prescriptive status is directly given or derived.
126 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality The best way to express the normative status of good is by calling it an ought-to-be, just as a specific duty or right course of action is an ought-to-do. Something that is intrinsically good ought to exist. The ethical theorist has a choice between two ways of imparting this ought-to-exist characteristic to the notion of good: directly or derivatively. It is done directly by making the ought-to-be characteristic one of the definitional features of good. Recall that the surrounding culture implicitly does this. It is done derivatively by defining a good entity merely as a worthwhile object of favorable attitude and then appending its ought-to-be status by means of another specificatory step. The basic distinction between given and derived may seem to be pedantic; however, it serves as one way of assigning differential emphasis to good as an ethical concept. For instance, Moore considers the nature of good to be the definitive problem of ethics, and he expressly characterizes good as an ought-to-be, although undefinable in terms of naturalistic properties. Sidgwick on the other hand merely treats good as an object of favorable attitude, and its normative status must be derived using the additional assumption that something which is good is also something that ought to exist. As will become apparent later, how ethical theorists assign normative, prescriptive status to the notion of good can affect their conception of what is right and of the relationship existing between good and right. Good as a Linguistic Concept
The word "good" can be used many different ways grammatically: noun, adjective, adverb, or interjection. What each of these has in common is the fact of qualifying some entity at an evaluative, normative level: the entity in some sense is positive or desirable. It is possible to argue that this linguistic qualification is the only reality level possessed by the concept of good: good merely is a descriptive label. Good is not some entity existing in the physical world per se; nor is it an entity that transcends the material universe. Good merely is a matter of verbalizing about some entity. Ethical theorists who treat the notion of good merely as a linguistic phenomenon make the concepts of fight, duty, obligation, and such the primary conceptual entities in ethics, i.e., these possess more than mere linguistic reality and are part and parcel of physical and social reality. If one assigns the concept of good merely linguistic reality, one would not need an elaborate theory or analytical treatment of the notion.
Psychological analysis could treat good
linguistically, i.e., as simply another kind of verbalism, examples of which will be presented in the next chapter in the context of Skinnerian ethics. Good as a Relational Property
Good ordinarily is regarded as an absolute property of an entity: the goodness of some entity actually exists in it under all circumstances. To deny this is to say that good merely is a relational property of an entity, contingent on the co-occurrence of numerous other things. The
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opposite of absolute usually is taken to be relativistic. But the main point here is the fact that the goodness adhering to a particular entity depends on the kinds of relations that the entity has with respect to other objects or events.
Goodness is not an isolated, sovereign, structural
property of an entity; it is a dynamic, contingent, contextual property. Social science in general and psychology in particular presuppose relational, not absolute, properties.
Third-person access psychology, constructed from an impersonal, extemally
imposed perspective, especially Skinnerian behaviorism, has to formulate psychological reality in terms of contingent relationships and functional roles that include an easily observable behavioral referent. The normative reality of good would have to be set up and identified in the very same manner for a Skinnerian (see Chapters 1 and 9).
Conceptual Summary Although the notion of good serves as the comerstone of much ethical doctrine, its conceptual or functional status is not cut and dried. The ethical theorist has many choices with respect to the construction of a notion of good that hopefully would be beneficial or fruitful. It must be realized that the concept of good is best viewed as social in origin and that specific instances of good derive from psychological processes operating in organized society. The prescriptive nature of good is not necessarily a given: it could be regarded as an add-on. The prescriptive force of good is the only substantive content the notion possesses in the emotive approach to ethics. It also is the case that the concept of good might only possess linguistic reality: it is a convenient verbal description, having no reality above and beyond the act of qualification. The notion of good can be viewed as relational: an ineluctable, but contingent and dynamic, component of a social science reality. Status and Role of Bad or Evil
Traditional ethical doctrine is constructed in terms of the evaluatively positive: the focus is on the nature of good and its creation and maximization. But the evaluatively negative is just as important for many theorists, and the notion of bad or evil also must be made part of the ethical universe. We are going to assume that the labels "bad" and "evil" are synonymous and use them interchangeably, although the term "evil" might be more emotional and fraught with more directive force than the term "bad." The basic purpose of our discussion of evil is to demonstrate that bad need not be the mere complement of good. There are at least five considerations related to this belief. 1. The problem of evil possesses an existential reality level unto itself: it is one that is independent of the existence of good per se or even the discipline of ethics itself. There is no corresponding problem of good in ethics, and conundrums about good seem to elicit much less urgent concern than those about evil do. 2. The absence of good does not mean evil. Badness could never be defined as the absence of goodness. The notion of evil not only must have its own etiological or historical origin, but also must be the resultant product of a set of generative processes that are wholly separate
128 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality from those underlying good. Virtually every conceptual approach to psychology treats good and evil as two separate phenomena. 3. It is very difficult to define evil. It is more than what is rationally not worthwhile or undesirable; it is more than an emotive "I do not approve of this," and "You do likewise." There is a certain heinousness or horror associated with the notion of evil that is only fully tapped by theological interpretations and uses of the term.
This would be beyond
naturalistic analysis, unless one has a naturalistically based theological approach. 4. While good easily can be characterized as an ought-to-be, evil cannot easily be characterized as an ought-not-to-be. The notion of evil cannot be simply conceived as a prescriptive "no-no." Granted evil should not be done, there are many nonevil things that also should not be done. The most logical way out of this muddle would be to assume that there is a class of events that is intrinsically neither good nor bad and has no one-to-one relation to either kind of ought: to-be or not-to-be.
Third-person access psychology
provides for this situation by postulating the existence of so-called neutral stimuli (see Chapter 9). 5. The mere existence of evil leads to intractable problems at nearly every level of reality. For instance: 9 Theologically, a divine being ascribed to be both all-powerful and all-good could never allow evil to occur. 9 Philosophically, why would evil or suffering ever occur: how could it possibly be justified? 9 Naturalistically, is the occurrence of evil due to the lack of sufficient physical resources for human support, or is it due to the freely committed voluntary actions of individual human beings? But why are there insufficient natural resources in the universe to allow a relatively benign existence for each individual? There is no answer to this question independent of human failing.
Or, why does a person commit evil?
The standard
response to the latter query is that people never commit evil intentionally or without ignorance. Chapter 9 will present a naturalistic approach to ethics in which both good and bad lie on the same continuum and have a common mechanism, such that the notion of evil will be devoid of any special conceptual status, especially one related to any possible theological or teleological view of the universe. Three Classic Doctrines About Intrinsic Good So far we have not discussed any specific physical realization of the notion of intrinsic
good and have not assigned any substantive metaphysical content to the term. We have not in essence addressed the issue of what is good or can serve as a good. There are as many individual lists of good as there are serious ethical thinkers.
For
instance, Moore regards the following to be exemplars of good: consciousness of pleasure, aesthetic appreciation of a really beautiful object, personal affection, intellectual knowledge,
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and the moral virtue of conscientiousness. He also enumerates examples of bad: enjoyment of evil, hatred of good, and experience of intense pain. Moore also concedes that in the realm of day-to-day existence most things are a complex mixture of both good and bad. As is the case with many other ethicists, Moore claims that the content of these two lists is intuitive in origin: what constitutes an individual good or bad is known by intuition (see Chapter 7). No conceptual points could be made by presenting more illustrations of personal lists of good and bad, other than the observation that there seem to be great individual differences with respect to the intuitive beliefs of ethicists. What would be relevant at this juncture is an analysis of the major contentual metaphysical approaches to the nature of good. Three classic doctrines about intrinsic good will be discussed: (1) hedonism/eudaemonism; (2) the self-realization approach; and (3) Kant's conception of good will. Note that these three approaches are not mutually exclusive. There is much overlap between the first two approaches in particular, and it could be argued that any distinction between them merely is semantic. Kantian doctrine is sufficiently removed from the other two, so as to constitute a largely separate, independent conceptualization. As will become apparent, each of these doctrines really is psychological in nature and can be evaluated as such: specific contentual metaphysical realizations of good really are psychological entities. They will be addressed in the order as introduced.
Hedonism; Eudaemonism Hedonism and eudaemonism collectively postulate that the one ultimate good is individual happiness. The former equates happiness with personal pleasure; the latter identifies happiness with personal well-being. The notions of personal well-being and self-realization are so similar that the eudaemonistic interpretation of happiness will be discussed in conjunction with selfrealization in the next subsection. We focus exclusively on hedonism here: the hedonistic doctrine will be abstracted in terms of (1) psychological versus philosophical, ethical hedonism, (2) a brief history, (3) some philosophical criticism, and (4) a psychological evaluation. Psychological Versus Philosophical Ethical Hedonism A critical distinction must be made between two kinds of hedonism: (1) psychological and (2) philosophical or ethical. 1. Psychological hedonism is a descriptive proposition concerning human motivation, which basically is empirical in nature. It states that the only thing that people desire and seek is pleasure, or avoidance of pain. The ultimate purpose of any human action is experiencing pleasure. This even is the case when the denotative content of the pleasure is not readily apparent. The principle of psychological hedonism not only categorizes us as pleasure seeking creatures, but also as merely or exclusively pleasure seeking creatures, a situation which befuddles people who profess the belief that humans are not mere animals and have a special conceptual, perhaps even emergent, status in the universe.
130 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality 2. Philosophical or ethical hedonism is a normative, evaluative proposition to the effect that personal happiness or pleasure exhausts the notion of intrinsic good. The exclusive good in the universe is pleasure. The principle of ethical hedonism in effect states that people should seek pleasure as the ultimate goal of their actions, and a given entity should be judged good only in relation to its tendency to produce pleasure. Psychological hedonism, as a descriptive proposition, states what is the case. Philosophical hedonism, as a prescriptive proposition, states what should be the case. It should be emphasized that these two propositions are completely independent of each other: it is possible for an individual to accept or reject both, or accept one and reject the other, thus making four possible belief combinations. Any one of the four combinations could be held by an individual ethical theorist; however, only those ethical theorists who ascribe to philosophical hedonism can claim that the only good in the universe is pleasure. Philosophical hedonism serves as the dominant interpretation of good for those who espouse a utilitarian ethics in the context of the issue of right and its relationship to good: the rightness of a specific course of action is judged in terms of how much pleasure it creates. This is why many of the definitive discussions on the nature of pleasure are conducted in the context of an obligation, not value, focus.
A Brief History Philosophical hedonism is a naturalistic, physicalistic doctrine. It should not be surprising that the doctrine is associated with philosophical approaches that emphasize materialism or mechanism at all levels of reality: physical universe, natural law, human nature, and the like. The doctrine can be traced back at least as far as Greek philosophy, in which context the Epicureans constituted the primary adherents of hedonism. The Epicureans in classroom discussions usually are pitted against the Stoics, who took an essentially eudaemonistic view of happiness, and they come off second best. This is unfortunate because the Epicureans were indistinguishable from the Stoics with respect to over-all moral goals, especially the emphasis on the principle of prudence, which amounted to a conservative and rationalistically based concern for the self. Philosophical hedonism also served as a cornerstone of the school of British mental or epistemological philosophy, known as British empiricism. This is probably most evident in the thought of Thomas Hobbes, although it also is part and parcel of Humean philosophy, especially in the context of moral obligation and duty. Hobbes gives a classic mechanistically based account of good and bad. Objects of desire are called good; objects of aversion are called bad; and pleasure merely is the sensible appearance of an object of desire. As we shall see in Chapter 9, Skinner is a latter-day Hobbesian: he prefers to express good and bad strictly in terms of external entities, specifically positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcers are objects of approach; negative reinforcers are objects of escape or avoidance. Any internal states associated with these external reinforcers, such as pleasure and pain, are
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banished from the Skinnerian psychological universe; but the underlying dynamics are hedonic in nature. British utilitarians, especially Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, gave philosophical hedonism fervent support. Bentham invented a hedonic or felicific calculus for quantifying the degree of pleasure associated with any event. Variables which had to be taken into account included intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, and purity. Note that Bentham postulated no qualitative differences among various sources of pleasure. Different kinds of pleasure did not exist, and the specific entities generating pleasure were irrelevant.
Mill
expanded on Bentham and introduced the notion of qualitative differences in pleasure: certain sources of pleasure were better or more desirable than others.
For instance, intellectual
pleasures were better than sexual pleasures; pleasure associated with virtuous deeds was better than the pleasure of gluttony. Mill did not realize that the notion of qualitative differences among pleasures vitiates the doctrine of philosophical hedonism, because pleasure no longer constitutes the ultimate good. The ultimate good now becomes whatever is encompassed by the set of criteria used to differentiate among specific pleasures.
For instance, intellectual
activity per se is more desirable than sexual expression: the ultimate good here is a certain type of activity, not pleasure per se. Henry Sidgwick (see Preface) also advocated philosophical hedonism: the one true good was happiness, which he primarily identified with the notion of pleasure.
He denied that
qualitative differences among pleasures existed, h la Bentham, and he justified the hedonistic doctrine via an appeal to intuition, h la Moore.
Some Philosophical Criticism Four classes of philosophical criticism of the hedonistic doctrine will be considered. The first two involve psychological hedonism, and the last two address philosophical hedonism. 1. Although the psychological hedonist believes that pleasure is the sole instigator of human action, there are obvious cases where a piece of behavior is intentionally performed by a person even though it does not result in a consequential state of affairs that involves pleasure. Or, at least there is no readily apparent pleasure. The hedonist has a traditional and timeworn rejoinder to this criticism: the principle of the association of ideas, which is indigenous to British empiricism, but actually goes back to Greek philosophy. According to this principle, consequential objects which in and of themselves are not originally sources of pleasure become pleasurable via past association with objects that are indeed pleasureful.
The British empiricist doctrine of associationism amounts to an implicit
cognitive theory. The notion of association of ideas has a direct translation in the context of psychology: classical, respondent, or Pavlovian conditioning. A stimulus object, originally neutral with respect to any hedonic value, can accrue leamed hedonic value via pairing with some stimulus object possessing innate hedonic value. 2. It often is the case that a person will perform an act to obtain a specific object or physical state of affairs and then, if pleasure is experienced, it merely is the incidental by-product of
132 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality achieving that goal. Here pleasure is not the direct, intended, or expected result of the activity, but it occurs anyways. There are a number of ways around this criticism: two will be mentioned here. It initially can be argued that the notion of consequence is ambiguous: where does the notion of object end and that of pleasure begin in any given case? Or, exactly what is the nature of the package in which both the object and pleasure co-occur? It secondly could be argued that a physical object is a perceptual entity and the experience of pleasure is a sensory entity; however, they are both properties of the same consequential state of affairs which can be abstracted arbitrarily either in purely perceptual terms or in purely sensory terms, or even in both.
Another way of giving substance to these two
rejoinders is by noting that pleasure cannot happen in and of itself: it always must have some physicalistic basis which can be described by many different classificational schemata. 3. Ascribing to the belief that qualitatively different pleasures exist, ~ la J. S. Mill, amounts to an axiological pluralism: For instance, there can be sensual pleasure from sexual activity, aesthetic pleasure from viewing a painting, social pleasure from attendance at a wedding or graduation ceremony, or intellectual pleasure from solving some mathematical problem. Even if no attempt is made to rate these different kinds of pleasure in terms of some evaluatively preordained hierarchy, i.e., in terms of differential degree of superiority or inferiority, philosophical hedonism no longer is a monistic doctrine.
It is a pluralistic
doctrine in which different kinds of values are substitutable for each other. There is no one ultimate good: the basic distinction no longer is between pleasure and nonpleasure; rather it is one between pleasures A, B, C, D .......... ad infinitum. There is no ready rejoinder to this criticism, other than a few verbalisms. 4. Philosophical hedonism is an anathema to many theorists who like to relate obligation to value, or more specifically to relate what is right or one's duty to the consequential good involved. The right course of action or one's duty in any given case in effect is the one that leads to the satisfaction of one's pleasure. This amounts to a pig philosophy for many people, such as Kant.
The notion of duty should be independent of pleasure or even
antithetical to one's natural or biologically based desires. The ultimate consequence of this criticism is a full-blown deontology, which is a perfectly acceptable metaphysical approach to right and duty. The utilitarians counter this argument by abstracting the good involved in the consequence in terms of the general or common good, not individual good, even though pleasure or happiness still is involved.
A Psychological Evaluation Conducting a psychological evaluation of the notion of pleasure is equivalent to asking "What is pleasure," or "What is a pleasure?"
This is the case because pleasure is a
psychological entity: the denotative content of pleasure is psychological in nature. Pleasure is an aspect of conscious experience: it is a state of consciousness. It is a kind of feeling state, specifically a positive affective state. For emphasis, pleasure can be contrasted
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with pain, another kind of feeling state, a negative affective one. Goodness in philosophical hedonism amounts to a mental state: the metaphysical status of goodness is that of a mental state. The conceptual status of a mental event in psychology already has been discussed (see Chapter 6). There would be no problems associated with construing pleasure as a mental state in contemporary academic psychology.
The notion of pleasure can either be given a
physiological specification or be assigned a functional, causal role. It also could be treated as causal or merely epiphenomenal in nature. Both a physiological materialist and a cognitive psychologist would tend to construe pleasure causally, the former via biological specification, the latter via functional role.
A hard-core Skinnerian would merely treat pleasure
epiphenomenally. Because radical behaviorists limit the efficacious psychological universe to external stimulus and response events, they cannot advocate philosophical hedonism unless they also advocate psychological hedonism. Recall that Skinnerian psychology does subsume a hedonistic dynamics; however, one that is stated externally in terms of objective, operational events called reinforcers.
Eudaemonism: Self-Realization Recall that eudaemonism identifies happiness with personal well-being. For all practical purposes, personal well-being means psychological well-being, although it must be recognized that a sufficient underlying level of economic, physiological, sociological, perhaps even spiritual well-being also is understood. There is no substantive difference between the notion of self-realization and that of individual well-being. The degree of a person's well-being could be defined in terms of its degree of self-realization, or vice versa.
Other terms for self-
realization, especially in a psychological context, would be self-fulfillment and selfactualization. The primary pragmatic advantage of operationalizing happiness in terms of well-being, instead of pleasure, is the fact that in the former the whole person or the state of the whole person is involved. The notion of personal well-being usually encompasses some reference to the inner integrity or wholesomeness of the person or the state of development of an individual's personality. The eudaemonistic doctrine will be abstracted in terms of (1) some illustrative adherents, (2) some philosophical criticism, and (3) a psychological evaluation. Some Representative Adherents
Eudaemonism was a comerstone of ancient Greek philosophy, except for the Epicureans. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics all advocated self-realization in some form and to some degree. Attainment of self-realization required the exercise of reason and also served as a necessary condition for social welfare or justice for these Greeks. Self-realization ethics also was advocated by nineteenth and twentieth century idealist philosophers, especially F. H. Bradley. The twentieth century American philosopher, John Dewey, also promulgated a self-
134 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality realization ethics, especially at an empirical, pragmatic level.
Self-realization not only
constituted the ultimate good, but also a duty or obligation for many of these philosophers. The notion of self-realization at a conceptual level served either as an end goal in itself or as a criterion for the assessment of whether some other moral goal had been attained.
Some Philosophical Criticism Four classes of philosophical criticism of eudaemonistic doctrine will be considered. 1. The self-realization doctrine ostensibly is simple, clear-cut, and easy-to-apply; however, this really is not the case. The notion of self-realization, as a surrogate for personal or psychological well-being, is amorphous and arbitrary. We can legitimately ask "What is the substantive content of self-realization," and "How do we know when it has been achieved?" There is no one dominant response to these queries. Great variation exists among philosophers with respect to conceptualizing and operationalizing the notion of selfrealization.
Specific conceptualizations and operational approaches even more critically
reflect the individual philosopher's other ethical beliefs and standards, such that these other beliefs and standards implicitly serve as the ultimate ethical entities, i.e., goods or duties, for the philosopher, not the principle of self-realization itself. Physicalization of the notion of self-realization in effect requires other more critical and higher-level ethical beliefs and goals to come into play. Self-realization at best serves as a rather low-level concept or criterion, and it does not constitute a cure-all for the nature of the ultimate good. More specific comments about physicalization will appear in the psychological evaluation section. 2. Self-realization does not occur in a vacuum. A person exists in a certain physical and social environment. Some environments allow self-realization to occur; others do not. To be technically precise, it is not self-realization alone that constitutes the ultimate good, but rather the combination of self-realization and a supportive environment. One could even make the case that the enabling environment constitutes the ultimate good. The interplay between self-realization and an enabling environment also will pervade the psychological evaluation section. 3. Self-realization good is a good of its kind. People who self-realize successfully constitute exemplars of what people should be. People who self-actualize are the best of their kind, i.e., human organisms. As mentioned priorly in the chapter, this reeks of teleology and circularity. This criticism also will extend to the psychological level. 4. Eudaemonistic doctrine is easily exploited.
Various social, political, and religious
groups/movements can define the content of self-realization any way they want to achieve their own ends. For instance, compare the ideal Christian to the ideal Nazi storm trooper; or compare the ideal Buddhist monk to the ideal lineman in the National Football League; or compare the ideal wife in a marginal, economically poor, rural environment to the ideal wife in a sophisticated, prosperous, urban center.
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A Psychological Evaluation The notion of self-realization is not germane to academic, experimental psychology, primarily because it does not necessarily or exclusively focus on the human being or the intact human being. The individual person is not the unit of analysis in academic psychology. Selfrealization or well-being is a focus of concern in applied psychology, especially clinical, counseling, or therapeutic psychology. It also is a topic of interest in those conceptual approaches that do use the individual organism as the unit of analysis: for instance, latter-day depth psychology and understanding,
i.e., humanistic,
phenomenological,
existential,
psychology (see Chapters 2 and 5). Further comments will revolve around the humanistic approach, not depth psychology.
Self-Realization in Humanism. Self-realization of an individual organism serves as the basic raison d'etre for humanistic psychology. The only justification for psychological intervention is to help a person achieve self-actualization. The assumption of an end goal of self-realization has virtual axiomatic status in humanistic psychology, and the notion of self-realization serves as a convenient construct for physicalizing a humanist's emphasis on striving, creative activity, potentiating, and constructive growth. Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers constitute the two most influential humanists; however, they handled the concept of self-realization in different ways. 1. Maslow's most significant content contribution to humanistic psychology was his conceptual approach to motivation. He devised a five-component need hierarchy, in which striving for self-actualization is represented structurally as the highest order need. A person could not self-actualize until the four lower-order need types already had been satisfied. Maslow operationalized the notion of a self-actualized individual in terms of a set of characteristics consisting of certain traits and values. This set was quite personalistic and idiosyncratic and did not possess much research validation. Maslow also de-emphasized, even neglected, the surrounding environment in which the process of self-fulfillment occurred. The good of its kind in Maslow's thought is a direct reflection of his value system: he even went so far as to exclude nonnormal functioning human adults, which he called "sickies," from the psychological universe. 2. Rogers devised a fairly comprehensive, phenomenologically based, self-theory approach to personality, motivation, therapy, and social processes. The notion of a self for him strictly was epiphenomenal in nature. It amounted to a way of verbalizing the nature of one's conscious experience; the self was not a causal agent, merely a linguistic repository. Rogers postulated the existence of a drive for self-actualization; however, it was of social or phenomenological origin. The Rogerian analogue for a self-actualized individual was the notion of a fully functioning person, who was operationalized in terms of a set of five specific personality traits. Rogers never assumed that a fully functioning person was an actual achievable end state, but merely and continually an entity in process.
Rogers
referenced the environment, but only in a negative way: it could prevent, but never
136 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality facilitate, self-actualization. The good of its kind is less visible and doctrinaire in Rogerian thought than in Maslow's: it appears more at the level of how people should be treated as psychological creatures, rather than at the human nature level.
Conceptual Status of Self-Realization. Just what is the conceptual status of self-realization in psychology? It is not a stimulus input event; it is not an isolated piece of behavior per se; it is not an intervening mental event. It is an inference from overt behavior, not from one instance, but from a series of interrelated acts extending over long time periods. conceptual response or output construct.
It amounts to a
These kinds of entities are characteristic of the
psychology of personality and any other area of the discipline, such as psychometrics, that attempts a descriptive analysis of the salient features of the intact, whole organism. Conceptual response constructs have a major methodological or functional limitation: they can never by used as control devices or manipulated as causative entities. They at best can be used as predictors in the guise of uncertainty reducers; however, the usual over-all goal with respect to the technical use of a response construct is some form and degree of internal consistency, or coherence, among a set of usually related psychological indicators.
If you
know a lot about the nature and degree of a person's self-actualization, it presumably tells you a lot about other aspects of that individual, and it must be congruent with these other aspects. Kantian Good Will The phrase "good will" can have two entirely different meanings in ethics. Initially, if the
phrase is qualified with the term "impartial," then the notion of impartial good will arises, which is largely synonymous with the Christian concept of agape (see Chapter 1). Secondly, if the phrase is nominalized as Kantian, then Immanuel Kant's conception of good will is the reference point. It is the latter that serves as the focus of this section. The only entity for Kant that is good-in-itself, always and without qualification, is a person's rational, moral will, which he terms "good will." Before this notion can be properly unpacked and expanded, it is necessary to present some background information on Kant's psychology and approach to the nature of the human organism.
Kantian Psychodynamics Kant does assume that people are physicalistic creatures, i.e., part and parcel of the naturally occurring universe, whose behavior is subject to natural law. Human behavior is determined in the behaviorist sense of the term.
Kant also accepts the doctrine of
psychological hedonism: people do seek happiness, i.e., pleasure or self-realization; people do attempt to satisfy their desires. Kant also believes that people follow their inclinations and are egoistically motivated. But Kant considers these aspects of a human being to be nonmoral in nature: they are irrelevant for a human's place or role in the moral universe. The basic reason why Kant does not superimpose ethical distinctions on this set of psychodynamics is the fact that all these events are quite chancy, contingent, relative: they are all subject to the whims and
Metaphysics: Contentual Ethical Issues fancies
of an
imperfect empirical
world.
Kant
wants
absoluteness,
137
universality,
noncontingency, and transcendence as ingrained features of the moral domain. This is where the concept of good will enters the picture.
Rational Will and Duty Kant also presumes that people possess a will, fueled by rationality or practical reason. This will also has moral implications. It can be referred to as a rational will or a moral will. Our will, as an expression of practical reason, allows us to transcend natural law. This will is what allows us to perform our duties, as opposed to merely following our desires or interests and seeking pleasure. An entity for Kant is not a duty unless it is in opposition to a desire or interest. We in effect are not being moral unless we act against our primitive, biologically driven inclinations. The basic motivation for performing our moral duties is respect for the moral law. The ultimate good in a way is respect for and subordination to the moral law. Kant assumes that when persons do their duty, as instigated by the moral good will, they are free: they have surmounted their purely mechanistic status. The notion of good will plays the same role for Kant that the concept of mind does for Descartes: a causative, efficacious entity determining overt behavior (see Chapters 1 and 6). It should be emphasized that obligation and value are intimately related for Kant. Even though Kant is the prototypical deontologist, whereby a course of action is morally correct because of its form, the entity in his metaphysics that expresses the best realization of the notion of good is also that which allows (1) duty to be performed and (2) the moral law to be respected: good will. Kantian Psychodynamics and the Imperatives Recall from Chapter 1 that Kant distinguished between two kinds of imperatives: (1) hypothetical and (2) categorical. Hypothetical imperatives involve pragmatic "if, then" statements, while the categorical imperative subsumes absolute moral law. Hypothetical imperatives are related to the nonmoral aspects of Kantian psychodynamics: determinism and psychological hedonism. The categorical imperative is related to the moral aspects of Kantian psychodynamics: a person's good will and respect for the moral law. A Psychological Evaluation The status of will, regardless of whether it is denominated as rational, moral, or good, critically depends on the kind of psychology that is used as the evaluative reference point. We shall use (1) folk psychology, (2) academic, experimental psychology, and (3) nonacademic, applied psychology. Folk Psychology. Recall from Chapter 1 that this kind of psychology functions as the implicit psychodynamics for the surrounding culture and is basically mentalistic in nature. There is a
138 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality place for a rational will in this kind of psychology if desired. The will simply would constitute another possible mentalistic antecedent of overt behavior.
Academic, Experimental Psychology. The notion of will would be logically incompatible with any mechanistically based account of human behavior: for instance, physiological materialism, cognitive psychology, or radical behaviorism (see Chapter 1). There is no room for a Kantian good will in any scientifically based psychodynamics of behavior.
Nonacademic, Applied Psychology. This kind of psychology basically subsumes latter-day depth psychology and the Verstehen, understanding approach, primarily humanistic psychology (see Chapters 2 and 5). Recall that these kinds of psychology take the individual organism as the unit of analysis and usually focus on that organism in an applied, therapeutic setting: think of Freudian psychoanalysis or Rogerian client-centered therapy. The status of rational will in this context is amorphous. While depth psychologists and humanists do not ordinarily put much emphasis on the notion of a rational will, its inclusion would not be automatically or logically precluded.
Conceptual Note: Determinism Versus Responsibility. Once we go beyond the strictly metaphysical level, at which Kant postulated the existence of two opposed psychodynamic mechanisms, i.e., hedonistic determinism versus rational will, we have the problem of explaining how these two dynamic systems or processes actually do interact. This problem is analogous to the classic Cartesian quandary with respect to how an immaterial mind interacts with a material body. This problem is enhanced in the Kantian context because the two separate psychodynamic systems have differential ethical significance: hedonistic determinism is nonmoral in nature; good will dynamics is moral in nature. Kant's problem, again as a variant of Descartes' quandary, is related to a larger, more comprehensive issue: how does one resolve the determinism versus responsibility issue in contemporary philosophy and psychology? This relationship becomes obvious once it is realized that psychological hedonism represents determinism and good will represents responsibility. Chapter 9 must address this issue. NATURE OF DUTY, OBLIGATION; R I G H T , W R O N G Our prior discussion of the nature of good could not be conducted without reference to the notions of rightness and duty. For instance: (1) Philosophical hedonism is part and parcel of consequentialism or teleological ethics; (2) self-realization not only can constitute the ultimate good, but also can serve as a moral duty or obligation; and (3) Kant's good will is the primary progenitor of one's duty. It analogously is very artificial to discuss duty, what is right, and the nature of ought independent of value considerations; however, it is necessary to attempt this prior to a formal consideration of the relationship between value and obligation in the next section.
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The notions of (1) duty or obligation, (2) right and wrong, and (3) ought or ought not are all interrelated. All three involve the normative "what should be or should be done." The concept of duty or obligation is a property of the person: each human being has various duties or obligations. The notion of rightness or wrongness is a property of an act: each piece of human behavior can be judged in terms of its moral/ethical correctness. It quite often is our duty to perform the right act in a given situation, or the right act is an obligation for us. The terms "ought" and "ought not" serve as linguistic vehicles for expressing normative status. Both duties and right actions ought to be done or ought to occur. It is essential to consider each of these normative entities individually. We shall start with the abstract notion of (1) ought or ought not, then proceed to (2) the act level, i.e., rightness and wrongness, and finally go to (3) the person level, i.e., obligation or duty.
Ought; Ought Not The notions of ought and ought not already have been implicitly covered in the analysis (see Chapters 1 and 4). The notion of ought is used to characterize the situation of going from a descriptive what is to a normative or prescriptive what should be the case. The discipline of ethics in a sense could be defined as that endeavor which attempts to achieve an understanding of the meaning of ought: ethics attempts to give some substantive reality and intellectual coherency to the prescriptive notion of ought. The inner essence of ought seems to involve three separate things: (1) a detailed description of exactly what should be the case, i.e., a statement of the content of the ideal state of affairs; (2) a feeling of urgency about the necessity of actually attaining the ideal state of affairs, i.e., an experienced directive force; and (3) some specification of the dynamics underlying the implementation of the ideal, i.e., delimitation of the locus of prescriptiveness. Recall that a representative sampling of possible loci was presented in Chapter 4. Only the second and third aspects of the notion of ought could be construed as psychological in nature or amenable to a psychological analysis. The notion of ought also implies the existence of a set of criteria, according to which the specific content of the should or ought is as it is: an envisioned ethical ideal must meet certain standards. This feature of ought probably also can be equivalently expressed as follows: Why do people possess ethical rights, and why must they respect the ethical rights of others?
Some Preliminary Psychological Evaluation The directive force and prescriptiveness aspects of ought are melded here for ease of exposition. 1. Only two possible sources of prescriptiveness and directive force listed in Chapter 4 are absolutely eliminated by our psychological analysis so far: will or command of God and Kant's notion of respect for the moral law, as derivative of good will. Neither of these interpretive approaches to the moral ought is naturalistically or physicalistically based:
140 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality there are no contemporarily acceptable psychological dynamics involved in a divine origin or good will. 2. The phenomenal world location and/or intuitively given status of prescriptiveness would be very germane to a moral choice (Dmj) context, but of much less relevance to a moral evaluation (Rmj) context. 3. The existential approach would require a moral agency or free will view of human behavior. Existentialism also would tap the inner dynamics involved with a Dmj better than that of a Rmj. 4. Psychological doctrine really is nondefinitive with respect to the hypothetical imperative approach to prescriptiveness, although a case could be made for the view that any formally constructed, purely cognitive approach to ethics could easily absorb this position. 5. The learned, habitual status of prescriptiveness would be highly germane to a Rmj situation, especially one interpreted in the framework of Skinnerian radical behaviorism. 6. Giving
a purely
prescriptiveness
linguistic,
from
purely
or emotive, reality to prescriptiveness rational
considerations
would
be
or deriving
compatible
with
contemporary psychological doctrine; however, the discipline at this juncture would not be able to provide a detailed account of the dynamics involved. The question of why we have ethical rights and why we have to honor the ethical rights of others is probably the central metaphysical issue facing the discipline.
We are asking in
essence why ethical reality exists or why the human being possesses an ethical status. There are no easy philosophical or psychological answers to this question; however, the tenor and tone of our psychological exposition so far eliminates two traditional resolutions of this issue: (1) We are not ethical beings because we are creatures of God or have some special relationship with a divine being; and (2) we do not possess an ethical status because of human nature. The first resolution is not naturalistic; the second one is circular. An acceptable resolution of this issue would require an analysis of just what it means to be human or of what is unique or special about being human, using categorical dimensions of analysis that would be acceptable in contemporary social science.
From a strictly
psychological standpoint, the fact that we possess both (1) self-consciousness and (2) the language function or speech would have to be exploited in any incisive analysis of why we are ethical creatures (see Chapter 9). Related to this issue would be the task of finding an acceptable justification of why we are all equal in a social justice sense. The problem of the existence of special populations that are not accorded full ethical status in a way would constitute a mirror-image metaphysical quandary for us here: why are members of special populations denied ethical equality; or what aspect of ethical reality eliminates their inclusion in the ethical universe. There will be more on this in Chapter 9.
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Right; Wrong Recall that we are limiting the denotation of right to acts. An act can be right or wrong. We are concerned with morally right or wrong acts or ethically correct or incorrect acts. A morally right act is an ought-to-do: a morally right act is an ideal state of affairs. Going from a state of doing nothing to the performance of an ethically correct act is to go from the descriptive what is to the prescriptive ought-to-do. Our discussion of the nature of right and wrong will entail (1) what constitutes a right act, (2) whether wrong is the mere opposite of right, (3) whether valid universal standards of moral conduct exist, and (4) the distinction between a good act and a right act. What Constitutes a Right Act
The properties of a right act is a metaphysical issue. Two classic approaches exist with respect to the nature of an ethically correct act, and they pertain to the possible sources of the defining properties: (1) An act can be right because of the intrinsic properties it possesses; or (2) an act can be right because of extrinsic properties with which it is associated.
This
distinction is reminiscent of that between an intrinsic and instrumental good. In order for an act to be morally correct in either sense, it must meet a set of criteria that are imposed on the act. The criteria are either intrinsic or extrinsic to the denotative content of the act itself. When the rightness of an act is determined by an appeal to its intrinsic properties, i.e., using a set of intrinsic criteria, it is a case of formalism or deontology. When the rightness of an act is determined by considering extrinsic properties, i.e., using a set of extrinsic criteria, it amounts to some form of consequentialism, teleology, or utilitarianism.
The deontology-
consequentialism dichotomy will only be briefly abstracted here because it constitutes the inner essence of the issue of the relationship existing between obligation and value, or right and good.
Deontology The intrinsic properties that determine whether an act is right or not traditionally are categorized as (1) material or (2) formal. A material property is a real-time, real-space aspect of the act that can be given some disciplinary denotation, i.e. it is psychological, sociological, biological, historical, economic, and the like. Possible theological aspects of the act also have been regarded as material in nature. For instance, an act can be ethically correct because it allows psychological self-realization or is in accord with the will of God. A formal property is some logical or relational one that involves some rule or principle. For instance, an act can be ethically correct because it survives the Kantian principle of universalization test (treated in detail later). Most, if not all, of traditional moral doctrine (see Chapter 1) is deontologically based. Any theologically based morality is deontological. Rightness is treated as an absolute property of an act, and deontologically based moralities tend to be absolute. Certain acts are always right and never wrong, or certain acts are always wrong and never right.
142 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality It is part of the common lore about ethics that people make moral choices deontologically, i.e., a Dmj is based on some intrinsic property of the proposed course of action.
Most
utilitarians even concede that day-to-day moral choices are made in a deontological manner. It is easier to conceptualize a Dmj in the deontological framework than it is in a teleological one. A Dmj is only subject to first-person access (see Chapter 5), so it is difficult to apply an extrinsically based analysis. It typically is argued in a deontological context that the ethical correctness of a course of action is known intuitively. Lists of right and wrong acts are constructed intuitively, just as lists of good and bad entities are devised intuitively.
Teleology The extrinsic approach to determining the ethical correctness of an act usually is operationalized in terms of evaluating the nature of the consequences that the act generates. The following decision rule is the only arbiter in this framework: an act is ethically correct to the extent that its consequences are good or have positive value. Note two things about this criterion of right: 1. It can be vicious, merciless.
No traditional moral considerations apply whatsoever.
Notions such as loyalty, beneficence, agape, respect, authority, or promissory obligation are absolutely irrelevant in determining the ethical correctness of an act. 2. The decisional rule is easier to state than to apply. As shall be detailed later, all sorts of decisions must be made to effect this criterion in any given case. For instance: 9 What is meant by good? 9 Whose good is at issue? 9 How is good to be distributed? 9 Exactly what is an act? 9 Exactly what is a consequence? 9 How far does the notion of a consequence extend? 9 How can the total future consequences be known now? Rightness in teleology merely is a relative property of an act, and specific acts only are contingently right or wrong.
This can be an advantage or disadvantage depending on the
situation. It already has been intimated that teleology is not used to make day-to-day ethical decisions, especially in a moral choice situation.
Its natural arena of application is moral
evaluation, especially where Rmjs are made about the ethical correctness of another's act. The ethical evaluator only has third-person access to the other person's action. The act must be judged impersonally in terms of its effect on the physical and social environment. The value of the teleological approach to ethics basically is conceptual, historical, or evolutionary. It is more of an ideal or social policy. It is more of an impetus or tool for social change. It serves as a counterweight to the view that any absolute morality is an inviolate, dogmatic entity, impervious to criticism or modification. It brings ethical doctrine closer to social science precepts and distinctions: it makes the individual human being a member of a
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society as opposed to a component of some divine holy order; it takes cognizance of the individual human being as a psychological creature. It also brings abstract ethical doctrine into closer connection with problems of social justice, principles of a just or representative government, and the codes of state sanctioned morality, i.e., the law. Status of a Wrong Act A piece of behavior either does or does not possess ethical significance. possess ethical significance, it is neither right nor wrong. significance, it is either right or wrong. wrong act is ethically incorrect.
If it does not
If it does possess ethical
A morally right act is ethically correct; a morally
The notion of ethically incorrect seems to be the mere
opposite case of ethically correct: a wrong act merely is the opposite case of a right act. Only one criterion or decisional rule in effect is used, or the same criterion or decisional rule is used, and it deposits the act into either the right or wrong category. Recall that this mirror-image complementarity was not the case with respect to the relationship of good and evil, the other critical evaluative notion. There an entity judged not to be good was not necessarily bad.
Good and bad constituted two separate categories of
independent etiology. Assuming the above conclusion about the relationship between right and wrong to be valid, there still is a basic asymmetry between a right and a wrong act; however, it has nothing to do with the classification determination process. Use of slightly different terminology would be helpful here. A right act is permissible; a wrong act is impermissible. A right act can be done anytime; a wrong act can never be done. If a wrong act is committed, it is immoral; however, if a right act is not committed in some context or for some reason, it is not immoral. This distinction is reminiscent of Kant's dichotomy between duties of perfect obligation and duties of imperfect obligation (see Chapter 1). The former are prohibitions and never can be done; the latter are permissibles which may or may not be done, contingent on other factors. Categorizing a piece of behavior as morally right or morally wrong in effect does not sufficiently determine its ethical status. Some additional ethical notion, such as that of duty for example, must be brought into the picture to completely specify the moral worth of the behavior, especially when it is a permissible. Recall that duties are a property of people, not acts per se. Universal Standards o f Moral Conduct The issue of whether valid universal standards of moral conduct exist in an obligation or duty context is analogous to the issue of whether the notion of a summum bonum is meaningful in a value context.
This issue is equivalent to asking whether or not certain behaviors are
universally regarded as right or wrong. The same query could be framed at the duty level, or even at the moral principle level. No valid universal standards of moral conduct exist at a strictly descriptive, empirical level of analysis. Moral relativity is rampant, regardless of the level of concern: individual acts,
144 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality envisioned duties, or moral principles. Philosophers who like to argue in favor of universal standards of conduct must do so at the metaphysical level. Two possible approaches will be illustrated here. 1. It is possible to argue that the central core and purpose of morality are the same universally, although the overt empirical indices of underlying morality always appear to be in a constant state of flux. Some uniformity at a relatively high, abstract level of analysis could be postulated. For instance, the uniformity of morality might exist at the function level: it is one function of morality to preserve a society or even an individual's self-respect. It is just that different societies, at various times or spatial localities, encourage and reinforce different acts, duties, and/or precepts to accomplish this function. 2. Recall from Chapter 1 that the basic content of ethics is reactional, rather than anticipatory: morality does not change society, rather social conditions change morality. The specific content of morality will evolve as a naturalistic process, just as other components of social science reality do. The place to search for constancy with respect to moral phenomena would not be the overt behavioral output level, but rather at the underlying process level: variations in standards of moral conduct are expectable because they are the product of underlying lawful deterministic mechanisms. The issue of valid universal standards of moral conduct could also be interpreted normatively or prescriptively. The creation of such standards could be regarded as a worthy goal of ethics, and the discipline should work toward its attainment. Such a view is implicit in Chapter 1.
Good Acts and Right Acts Some ethicists, especially the emotivists, do not distinguish between good and right. They are linguistic equivalents: any distinction with respect to their respective uses merely is idiomatic in nature. But both deontology and consequentialism require nonoverlapping denotations for these two terms, especially at the behavioral level. 1. A right act is one that accords with some moral rule or criterion. 2. A good act is one that exhibits certain favorable or desirable characteristics. Usually the latter are specified in terms of being derivative of a good motive or intention on the part of the doer and being believed to be the right course of action by the doer. The value and obligation aspects of an act are independently addressable, making four viable combinations: (1) good and right; (2) bad and wrong; (3) good and wrong; and (4) bad and right. The last two combinations might seem anti-intuitive; yet there is nothing precluding their realization in the external world. An act with highly desirable, favored characteristics might simply be morally wrong; or an act with heinous characteristics might be morally right or even a duty.
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Duties; Obligations Recall that duties, obligations are properties of the individual, not of an overt act per se. This is the case, although a duty usually involves a right course of action or a morally correct act often is a duty. The inner essence here is the fact that the notion of a duty or obligation is not a behavioral one: it is a higher-order construct which only ultimately is expressed in terms of overt behavior. A duty is like a right course of action: it ought to be done. But a duty also is more: it must be done. This is true, although in contemporary society there are no realistic penalties for failing to do one's duty. Duties, obligations are a way of codifying the essential content of a given morality: they are a way of expressing the standard set of behaviors that are expected from each contributing member of some societal group. Recall from Chapter 1 that duties basically are social in origin. We shall consider later whether duties to the self exist. Our discussion of duties and obligations will center around (1) using Kant's basic duty dichotomy to relate obligations to right and wrong actions, (2) evaluating Kant's duties in terms of his principle of universalization, (3) analyzing the notion of prima facie obligations, (4) distinguishing between converging and conflicting duties, and (5) addressing the issue of duties to the self.
Kant's Duties in Relation to Right and Wrong Acts Recall from Chapter 1 that Kant distinguished between (1) duties of perfect obligation and (2) duties of imperfect obligation. 1. Duties of perfect obligation are prohibitions: they involve acts which never can be performed. Prohibitory actions in effect are wrong. Committing one of them would be immoral. 2. Duties of imperfect obligation are not prohibitions: they involve acts which could be performed.
These acts in effect are right.
Committing one of them would be moral;
however, no one is under an absolute obligation to perform this kind of duty. Nonperformance would not be immoral. A duty of perfect obligation takes precedence over a duty of imperfect obligation for Kant. The latter could not be performed if it would involve violating a duty of perfect obligation. Doing right for some individual or party would be impermissible if it entailed doing wrong for some other individual or party.
Kant's Principle of Universalization The ultimate criterion in Kantian philosophy for determining whether a specific act is morally right, and by extension whether a specific act is a duty, is whether or not the maxim underlying the act would be generalizable, i.e., acceptable, to everyone.
If the underlying
maxim were universalized and not result in a self-contradiction or an unreasonable outcome, the act would be ethically correct. The maxim in effect would be universalizable if people adopted it and did not mind it being applied to them by others. For instance, to lie is wrong because you would not want it done to yourself.
146 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality As is the case with the concept of self-realization or utility, the principle of universalization is much easier to state than to actually apply in given instances, as shall be demonstrated later. Our only concern at this juncture is to relate this principle to the two kinds of duties. Duties of perfect obligation would easily fail the test of universalization: no one would want one of these acts to be directed to the self. These acts are wrong. That is why they are usually expressed as specific prohibitory negatives. Duties of imperfect obligation ordinarily would survive the test of universalization: people would accept these acts if done to them. These acts are right. They are usually expressed as nonspecific, open-ended positive commands.
Prima Facie Obligations A prima facie obligation is one's ostensible duty; however, it need not be one's actual duty in a given situation. The notion of a primafacie obligation might seem to be self-contradictory characterized in this fashion. If a specific duty functions as one's prima facie obligation in a given case according to some acceptable externally imposed criterion, why would later appeal be made to some other criterion that nullifies the content of the initial decision? The queasiness associated with the notion of a prima facie obligation disappears when it is realized that it is used in those situations where more than one right and duty related act faces moral agents and they must in effect choose which specific right and duty related alternative to perform. Another way to make the same point is to state that the notion of a prima facie obligation is indigenous to those situations which involve a hierarchy of different duties, such that some rational scheme must be used to determine which specific duty must be honored in the current instance. The distinction between a prima facie obligation and an actual obligation ultimately leads to the topic of moral conflict, as aspect of which appears in the next subsection.
Converging Duties Versus Conflicting Duties Duties are said to converge if they all point to and result in the occurrence of a particular act that fulfills each of the duties concurrently. For instance, voting in a certain election might fulfill the duty to be patriotic, a promise that you made to a candidate, and the obligation to be a good role model for your child. Duties are said to conflict when they all must be done concurrently, yet the fulfilling of any one of them precludes the accomplishment of the others. For instance, a teacher might have promised to meet a student at 2:00 P.M. on a certain day for consultation; however, the teacher misses the appointment because he/she provides some first aid to a bicycle accident victim while on the way to the office. Either the teacher must break a social promise or refrain from helping someone injured in an accident. The resolution of this moral conflict is quite easy: it is universally held that helping an injured person or saving a person's life is infinitely more stringent than fulfilling a social promise that can easily be accomplished later.
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Conflict resolution is much more difficult when the set of incompatible acts is quite similar in kind and of the same essential degree of stringency. For instance, a teacher gets invited to three or four competing graduation parties to be held immediately after the conclusion of the ceremony. Duties to the Self
On the assumption that duties are social in origin and perform the function of allowing people to live together more co-operatively, on what basis can the existence of duties to the self be justified? For instance, given the assumption that the performance of a duty must involve another person as a recipient or as an intermediary, why would suicide, self-mutilation, smoking, overeating to the point of obesity, pure laziness, not developing a specific talent, and such be considered immoral?
Suicide incidentally is a crime; however, it only can be
prosecuted if a failure. This situation gainsays the fact that a suicide attempt can be a very complex and multifaceted course of action. Most presumed duties to the self are prohibitory in nature: they are things that one cannot do to the self, even though their commission would have no effect, deleterious or otherwise, on other people. There obviously would be no problem with banning any of the above activities on a theological basis; and in fact many churches specifically ban suicide, smoking, consuming alcohol, and such. Duties to the self interface quite nicely with self-realization ethics at a psychological level: self-realization is the ultimate goal, and one has a duty to self-realize. Failure to honor any one of these duties to the self can interfere with the goal of self-fulfillment. Kantian metaphysics postulates duties to the self as a viable category, but cannot justify their inclusion in the moral law.
Neither psychological nor philosophical hedonism bears any simple one-to-one
relationship to duties to the self. Some duties involve the experience of pleasure, but probably not directly, only ancillarily; other duties involve the experience of pain, even if only indirectly.
RELATIONSHIP B E T W E E N V A L U E AND O B L I G A T I O N : D E O N T O L O G Y VERSUS CONSEQUENTIALISM The relationship between value and obligation reduces to the relationship between right and good or between wrong and bad. Four possible ways of relating these two notions will be presented: (1) semantics, (2) ought constructs, (3) substantive independence, and (4) substantive dependence. Aspects of all four approaches already have been alluded to in the analysis.
The first two are relatively minor and emphasize semantic, definitional
considerations.
The two substantive approaches set up the basic analytical theme of the
section: the classic ethical distinction between deontology and teleology. Most of the section ultimately will focus on teleological, consequential, utilitarian ethics.
148 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality
Semantics There is no substantive distinction between right and good or between value and obligation for many ethicists, especially emotivists.
The terms are used interchangeably, and any
preferential use of one term over the other merely is idiomatic. It should not be surprising that emotivists equate right and good because any ethical notion for them merely is a matter of feeling (see Chapter 7). Deontological intuitionists, such as Mandelbaum, who focus on duty and obligation, seem to equate obligation and value, in the sense that rightness possesses value: there is no real difference between right and good, or anything that is right also is good.
Ought Constructs Under the assumption that both good and right are evaluative, normative notions, they can be expressed as ought constructs. Good is an ought-to-be. Right is an ought-to-do. Something that is good is something that ought to exist. Something that is right is something that ought to be performed. Once an ought-to-be performed is actually enacted, it exists. The differential ought construct wording by and large is merely either semantic or temporal: an ought-to-do creates an ought-to-be over time.
Substantive Independence: Deontology, Formalism It is assumed that right and good are independent of each other in this approach to the relationship between value and obligation: neither concept can be reduced to the other. Because right is not defined in terms of good, it amounts to a primacy of the right with good serving as a derivative notion.
The technical name for this approach is deontology or
formalism, which functions as a theory of obligation, duty, and the right.
Deontology or
fomalism is not an approach to value or the nature of the good. Recall that the hallmark of the deontological approach is the determination of the rightness or wrongness of an act via an appeal to the intrinsic characteristics of the act itself and/or a set of criteria that can be applied to the intrinsic characteristics of the act. The substance of any particular deontological approach derives from the particular denotative content that is assigned to the intrinsic characteristics that are considered to be important in delimiting the nature of the act: there are virtually infinite degrees of freedom with respect to how the relevant intrinsic properties of the act can be conceptualized.
Psychological Considerations Social science in general and psychology in particular can come into play when (1) substance is given to a material property that is used to characterize an act or (2) implementation of a formal principle, such as Kant's universalization test, actually is carried out. 1. Recall from Chapter 1 that there are various conceptual choices with respect to characterizing an act: for instance, folk psychology, physiological materialism, cognitive materialism, and radical behaviorism. There are choices with respect to mentation and its
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relationship to overt response occurrence (see Chapters 1 and 6): causative or merely epiphenomenal.
There are choices with respect to the specification of the primary
beneficiary of a morally correct act, and these must be stated in psychological terminology: self, immediate social or kinship group, or the generalized other. Often these beneficiary choices are termed principles in ethics and are nominalized as prudence, loyalty, and agape or culture, altruism, and benevolence (see Chapter 1). 2. Kantian ethics functions as the quintessential deontological approach, and his formal principle of universalization serves as the sine qua non example of a logical test for the rightness or wrongness of an act; however, this principle cannot be applied in a given case without a whole host of linguistic and psychological decisions.
The primary linguistic
decision relates to the exact wording of the maxim underlying the act being tested. This amounts in effect to a finalization of the exact descriptive specification of the act. The primary psychological decisions relate to a specification of the people and circumstances over which the maxim is supposed to be universalized. This usually operationally reduces to a decision regarding similarity. The test of universalization usually turns on the phrase "for all similar people in similar circumstances."
Similar is a notion that must be
psychologically specified or adjudicated. This problem in a sense is the opposite of that of special populations (see Chapters 1 and 4). Using a logical test, such as Kant's, as a criterion for moral correctness in general is vacuous, for at least three reasons. In the first place, it has absolutely no substantive content. It makes vague reference at best to a set of people who would not mind being treated the same way (see Chapter 1). Secondly, decisions about contradictions or unreasonable outcomes are highly subjective and arbitrary. Thirdly, the universalization test at best is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for moral correctness: it can identify and discard wrong acts; however, an act surviving the test is not necessarily right.
Substantive Dependence: Consequentialism, Teleology, Utilitarianism It is assumed that right and good are not independent of each other in this approach to the relationship between value and obligation: right is defined in terms of good and in a sense is reduced to good. An act is right because it creates value or leads to a good outcome. The created value or goo.d outcome is an event separate from the morally correct act: the rightness criterion is extrinsic to the act being evaluated. The most general term for this approach would be consequentialism or teleology. A third label would be utilitarianism, which actually constitutes a subtype of the first two terms. Utilitarianism in turn is a generic notion, or umbrella term, covering many different subvariants: e.g., act, rule, ideal, theological, hedonistic, and such. We shall more or less use the three terms equivalently; however, the basic discussion is pointed toward the classic utilitarian approach. Although teleology functions as a theory of the right, it also implicitly has a value component because the consequential good created by the act must be physically interpreted.
150 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality Recall that most utilitarians give a hedonistic interpretation to the consequential good. Moore, an ideal utilitarian, on the other hand, merely states that the right act in a given case is the one associated with the most good, generically conceived. We are going to use act and rule utilitarianism as reference points and only touch bases with the other variants of utilitarianism in an ancillary manner.
Act Utilitarianism The essence of this form of utilitarianism can be represented in terms of a so-called action equation: ACT --~ CONSEQUENCES. If the consequences of an act are good, then the act is right; if the consequences are bad, then the act is wrong. Or, an act is ethically correct because it is good; an act is ethically incorrect because it is bad. As inferred priorly, this decisional principle is much more easily stated than implemented, and seven aspects of this difficulty will be illustrated presently.
It is necessary at this juncture to discuss a basic conceptual
misapplication of the action equation that usually is used to criticize utilitarian doctrine.
A Basic Conceptual Misapplication Remember that in act utilitarianism the ethical status of an act is a local or situational property of the act as contingent on the specific set of consequences occasioned by it. Because of this, the ethical status of the act and the normative value of its consequence must be the same: either positive or negative.
The status/value of the act/consequence combination
specifically can only be (1) right/good or (2) wrong/bad. It is impossible for one of these events to be positive and the other negative because the status/value of one of them is determined by the evaluation assigned to the other. But act utilitarianism is forced to swallow mixed value pairings that seem to be valid to a society that uses an implicit deontological reference to both frame and evaluate various ethical queries: there seem to be (1) acts that are wrong but lead to good consequences and (2) acts that are right but lead to bad consequences in the larger surrounding society. 1. The case of wrong acts associated with good consequences is usually addressed in the context of the perennial issue of whether good ends justify evil means. If one takes an affirmative stance with respect to this issue, i.e., good ends do justify evil means, this usually is used as negative evidence against the acceptability of utilitarian doctrine: utilitarians really are immoral because they can justify all sorts of heinous acts via reference to the good outcomes caused by them. But act utilitarians do not and cannot use the action equation this way. Only deontologists do: this issue only is meaningful in a deontological context. In the first place, on what basis is the means judged to be evil? After all, the attendant ends are good, so some nonutilitarian, deontological criterion must be implicitly used to deem the specific means evil, independent of the ends involved. Secondly, how do we know that the ends are good? If the ends are not judged via reference to some implicit, unstated set of consequences, then their ethical status also is being deontologically determined. The only reason the issue of whether good ends justify evil
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means makes any sense is because it usually is being interpreted in a deontological manner; however, this violates the very principle that the action equation subsumes: the ethical status of an event is not an intrinsic property of it, but rather is contingent on the specific nature of its instrumentality. 2. The case of right acts leading to bad consequences is usually addressed in the context of the query of how evil ends could be associated with good means. As is true with the prior situation, this query only makes sense if accorded a deontological context and interpretation.
Seven Implementation Decisions Associated with the Action Equation The seven implementation queries listed in a prior section will be considered in the same order as originally enumerated. 1. What is meant by good? Because utilitarians must evaluate the ethical status of an act in terms of the goodness of its consequences, they are faced with the task of physically realizing the notion of good. Most utilitarians consider happiness to be the ultimate good: classical utilitarians took a strictly hedonistic approach to happiness and equated it with pleasure; more contemporary utilitarian doctrine is eudaemonistically oriented and treats personal well-being or self-realization as the ultimate good. The critical conceptual point here is the fact that a utilitarian cannot advocate a duty based ethics or one based on some abstract, nonpsychologically derived notion of good. The utilitarian physical realization of good must refer to human beings, their desires, wishes, needs, and such, i.e., creatures populating a social science space. 2. Whose good is at issue? The utilitarian physical realization of good must include reference to a locus, or demonstrative set of people, whose good is supposed to be created or maximized. A convenient psychologically based dichotomy here is that between (1) the self and (2) others. 9 If the self serves as the reference point, the good to be realized is that of the individual agent or performer of the act. This approach is egoistic in nature and historically is down played by most utilitarians. 9 If significant others serve as the reference point, the good to be realized is a general or common good. This approach is altruistic in nature. Utilitarians have a choice between (1) a particularist or elitist and (2) a universalist interpretation of the general or common good.
Some restricted subset of society constitutes the domain of people
whose good is at issue in the first interpretation. Everyone or the impersonal other is the denotation of the locus of good in the second interpretation. The latter historically serves as the usual focus of the utilitarian good: the good of society as a whole constitutes the basic reference point of the action equation. 3. How is good to be distributed? Assuming a universalist interpretation of the general or common good, the utilitarian must choose among various methods of distributing the good. This decision basically is philosophical, i.e., both metaphysical and normative in nature,
152 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality although its implementation can be highly technical and mathematical.
The utilitarian
basically can take either a good aggregative or a locus aggregative approach. The greatest amount of total good is realized in the former; good is distributed over the greatest number of people in the latter. Bentham and Mill's principle of the greatest good for the greatest number is a subset of the locus aggregative approach. 4. Exactly what is an act? The notion of act is synonymous with that of behavior or conduct: an act is a piece of behavior or an instance of conduct. The nature and conceptual status of an act already have been discussed in Chapters 1 and 6. Recall that the psychologist has numerous degrees of freedom with respect to how behavior is conceptualized as well as related to both internal mentation and external physical stimulus events.
What is of
concern here is whether or not any contemporary technical specification of behavior by the experimental psychology establishment is congruent with the act utilitarian approach to ethics. The over-all stance of third-person access experimental psychology in general and the tenets of radical behaviorism in particular are quite congenial to utilitarianism.
The
action equation could easily be expressed in terms of a Skinnerian reinforcement or punishment contingency. So-called utility theory, in which decision making/choice among a series of response alternatives is based on the utility values of the alternatives, is an active programmatic research area in the context of psychology. There would be no difficulty cross-mapping contemporary academic psychology and utilitarianism. 5. Exactly what is a consequence? The notion of a consequence, or behavioral outcome, has indigenous psychological reality in the context of academic, experimental psychology (see Chapters 1 and 2). A behavioral outcome is part and parcel of the psychological dynamics involved in any action, dialectical, or epistemological (broadly conceived) system (see Chapters 2 and 5). A consequence can be specified either in stimulus language, as an environmental event, or in response language, as an opportunity to perform a certain piece of behavior.
The level or degree of descriptive specification of the consequence more
importantly can be tailored to fit the conceptual needs of the situation. What is of more salient concern in the context of utilitarian ethics is the compositional nature of the consequences, an issue not necessarily strictly psychological in nature. For instance: What is the significance of the distinction between intended and unintended, accidental aspects of the consequences?
Are they both ethically relevant and critical for calculating the
goodness value of the outcome? Is the stimulus situation in which the consequence occurs relevant for determining the evaluative nature of the consequence? The thrust of the prior comments suggests that the notion of a consequence is not a simple one. It merely is one aspect of a vast interrelated network of events, one which must be given a descriptive social science specification. 6. How far does the notion of a consequence extend? This concern is an extension, perhaps even merely a semantic extension, of the prior one of composition. Although we usually conceive of a consequence as an extended event in time, phenomenologically the time span of a consequence usually is delimited by what is perceived to be the direct causative result
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of the act in question. For instance, if I fed three indigents a free dinner, the resulting hunger and distress reduction would be the caused consequence, not any future activity that a full stomach might allow, such as a restful sleep or entertaining card game.
It is
important to note that any act will have both immediate and long-range consequences. The immediate and long-range consequences need not have the same value.
One could be
positive; the other could be negative. For instance, smoking can yield immediate pleasure, but the long-term health risks are devastating. Or, wearing a hard hat at a construction site has no immediate benefits, but could prevent a serious head injury in event of an accident. Concerns such as this must factor into the calculation of the goodness value of the over-all consequence associated with a given act. 7. How can the total future consequences be known now? This question merely is rhetorical in many ways. The total future consequences of an action are incalculable in an absolute sense. This is the case because the consequences associated with a given act in part will depend on both how others respond to the act in question and the existence of certain contextual, boundary conditions which are random or at least beyond the immediate control of the performer of the act. This query merely should be viewed as a cautious reminder. The calculation of the normative value of a set of consequences merely is an approximation. The calculated value in a given case is going to depend on numerous social science assumptions: economic, sociological, psychological, and such. It is quite common in fact, especially in economic and political/governmental contexts, for the estimated value of the consequences associated with a given course of action to vary all over the place depending on what social scientist or interested party is doing the calculation.
Act
utilitarian doctrine is not free of contamination from various social philosophies or policies: economic, political, organizational, governmental, and such. Rule Utilitarianism
The test of utility value is applied at a higher, more abstract level of reality in this version of utilitarianism. The evaluative test is not applied to the individual act per se; rather it is applied to the particular moral rule underlying the act. It is moral principles that are subject to the consequential evaluative test. A particular moral rule would be ethically correct if it had appreciable positively valued consequences associated with its adherence. An individual act itself is right or wrong according to whether it conforms to some moral principle or not. For instance, the act of lying would be morally wrong because it violates the almost universally accepted moral principle regarding truth telling. The moral rightness or wrongness of an individual act in this approach ostensibly is being determined deontologically, while the ethical acceptability of its associated moral principle is determined teleologically. It looks like a case of being able to have your cake and eating it too. The acceptability of an act is based on intrinsic considerations, while the relevance of the underlying moral code is handled teleologically. What could be fairer or more rational than having an absolute set of criteria for evaluating the rightness or wrongness of an act that in turn
154 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality is evaluated teleologically or even empirically, i.e., not by fiat, authority, intuition, revelation, or such? The basic problem associated with rule utilitarianism is the fact that the underlying moral principle is not really being evaluated teleologically, i.e., the so-called utilitarian test is vacuous.
A principle is not a piece of behavior.
underlying overt behavior.
It is a higher-order theoretical construct
Theoretical constructs can only be evaluated indirectly, never
directly or directly empirically. The so-called teleological evaluation of a moral principle in terms of its expected behavioral consequences is no different from applying Kant's universalization criterion to the moral principle. A set of presumed behavioral outcomes is being judged in terms of its acceptability to the observer or potential user of the principle in either case. The evaluation of the moral principle in effect is done deontologically, regardless of whether utilitarian or universalization descriptive terminology is used: the ultimate criterion involves rationality or logical consistency. N A T U R E OF M O R A L W O R T H OR V A L U E Recall from Chapter 5 that an observer can make a judgment with respect to the moral worth or value of another individual: is the individual morally good or bad?
This type of
judgment was specifically derived as an instance of moral evaluation involving inferable objects of existence: it is a removed moral judgment regarding the ethical status of a person as a whole. What does it mean to say that another person possesses moral worth or value? On what basis is an individual judged to be morally good or bad? Associated with the phenomenon of moral worth is the notion of virtue and/or vice. A person can possess certain virtues and/or vices. Whether a person does so is a matter of moral evaluation involving removed moral judgments of inferable objects of existence. Exactly what is a virtue or a vice? Associated with the phenomenon of virtue and vice is the issue of the characteristics of a virtuous or vicious person. Exactly what are the characteristics of a virtuous or vicious person? Are the notions of virtuous person and morally good person, or vicious person and morally bad person, synonymous? This section will briefly analyze these three metaphysical ethical issues and defer to the psychological level when relevant.
Note that it will be both didactically convenient and
conceptually propitious to address them largely in reverse order. Characteristics of a Virtuous Person
There are at least three distinct conceptual approaches to the nature of a virtuous person. 1. Persons who are conscientious or who are motivated by conscientiousness are considered to be virtuous by Kant. Persons are considered to be conscientious in turn if they invariably perform their perceived duties. Remember that in Kantian philosophy a duty is not valid unless it is in opposition to one's immediate interests or desires. Note that in this approach the decision with respect to who is a virtuous person is modeled after a Dmj.
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2. Persons whose actions appear to us to be morally correct are regarded as virtuous. People who customarily can be relied on to commit ethically correct acts are treated as virtuous. Note that in this conception the decision with respect to who is a virtuous person is modeled after a Rmj. 3. Persons who possess many specific virtues or a few outstanding or engulfing ones are reacted to as virtuous. The concept of a virtuous individual in this approach is an additive one, requiring a sum total of positive regard coming from possessing many distinct virtues. Here the decision with respect to who is a virtuous person is modeled after a judgment of moral worth or value, which has not explicitly been analyzed yet in the discussion. Under the assumption that conscientiousness is a virtue, the first and third approaches operationally define the virtuous individual in terms of the possession of one or more specific virtues. The second approach characterizes the virtuous person directly in terms of the kinds of behaviors that are exhibited. It is the self s or the agent' s conception of duty as specific objects of conscientiousness that serves as the reference point in the first approach. It is the significant other's or observer's conception of virtue or ethical correctness that functions as the reference point in the second and third approaches. W h a t is a V i r t u e o r V i c e
The notion of a virtue or vice possesses an ethical reality; however, it is one imposed on an entity possessing a logically prior psychological reality: a virtue or vice is a kind of psychological construct that in addition possesses special ethical significance. A virtue can be defined as a positively valued, acquired character trait; and a vice can be defined as a negatively valued, acquired character trait. Examples of virtue would include courage, loyalty, generosity, gratitude, prudence, temperance, forgiveness, modesty, forbearance, compassion, and conscientiousness. Examples of vice would include cruelty, vindictiveness, laziness, self-centeredness, and insensitivity. Note that the illustrative list of vices is shorter than that of virtues, reflecting the fact that it always is easier to compile a list of positive things, i.e., positive reinforcers, than a list of negative things, i.e., aversive stimuli (see Chapter 9). The notions of acquired and trait are psychological.
The notions of positively and
negatively valued are ethical. The concept of character is both psychological and ethical. A trait in psychology is an absolute, structural property of an individual and usually is interpreted as a personality construct. The notion of personality will be left undefined at this juncture. Acquired means learned or based on past experience. Positively and negatively valued are the generic evaluative, normative uses of the term.
Character is an ambiguous notion in
psychology, but is distinct from personality, and refers to one's moral predilection in an ethical context: an individual could possess either good or bad moral character. Whether a given acquired character trait has positive or negative ethical value, i.e., is a virtue or a vice, usually is determined instrumentally. One that is both personally and socially beneficial constitutes a virtue; one that is both personally and socially harmful is a vice. The
156 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality notion of a virtue or vice basically is a social one.
It is not deontologically determined
according to some absolutistic, structural duty based system. There are great individual differences among people with respect to the number and degree of specific virtues and vices that are possessed. The specific composition of a person's set of virtues and vices can change randomly or systematically over time frames of differential length. Moral W o r t h or Value
The concept of virtuous person and the notions of virtue and vice only are ethically meaningful because they are aspects of moral worth or value, specifically that possessed by some individual person. A person either does or does not possess moral worth: a person either is or is not a morally good creature. But the notion of moral worth is ambiguous in and of itself, and its manner of determination is equally arbitrary. Because of this, it is best to treat morally good person and virtuous person, or morally bad person and vicious person, as synonymous constructs.
This means that a person with moral worth, or a morally good
individual, can be defined as a virtuous creature. Recall that there are three choices with respect to conceptualizing a virtuous person: (1) Kant's conscientiousness approach, (2) habitual exhibitor of ethically correct acts approach, and (3) possessor of sufficient number or types of virtues approach. Which one of these would be most beneficial for characterizing the morally worthwhile person? There is no absolute resolution of this question: 1. The Kantian view would make moral worth a deontologically driven concept. 2. The second and third approaches would make moral worth an instrumentally, utilitarian driven concept. The second one has the advantage of being stated directly in terms of overt behavioral acts; the third one is set up in terms of entities, i.e., virtues and vices, that are higher-order inferables from overt behavioral occurrence. The basic reason the notion of moral worth is so ambiguous conceptually is that it straddles the basic distinction between value and obligation. Moral worth is a kind of value or goodness; but it is one that basically is derivative of obligation constructs, such as performance of ethically correct acts or duties. It is a kind of value that is characteristic of an individual as a whole that derives from being virtuous or doing good/right deeds in an obligation context.
CONCEPTUAL SUMMARY The notion of ought taps the inner essence of normative, evaluative ethical reality: good constitutes an ought-to-be; right constitutes an ought-to-do. An ought-to-be conceptually can be created by performing an ought-to-do; or an ought-to-do can be transformed into an oughtto-be. The only reason the notion of ought exists either way is the fact that humans possess self-consciousness; and the only reason that the concept of ought is justifiable is the fact that people must respect each other, at least as a programmatic goal.
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The ethically good is some desirable state of affairs, or commendable situation, which truly is psychological in nature: viz., happiness, pleasure, well-being, self-realization, good will, and such. The notion of bad or evil is both an etiologically and morally distinct entity. Actions that are deemed ethically correct or right either possess certain intrinsic properties that make them have ethical significance or are instrumental in the creation of some productive good. Some ethically correct acts also constitute duties. Ethically incorrect or wrong acts seem to be mere mirror-image entities with respect to etiology, but are always impermissible and immoral. Some people can be regarded as possessing moral worth or as truly virtuous individuals, displaying particular virtues and vices in some minimally acceptable proportion. Moral choice basically is a deontological situation, while moral evaluation is a teleological one. Moral choice essentially is an emotional endeavor with duty and obligation overtones. Moral evaluation can be more judgmentally neutral; however, it can have a more salient value component. It is possible for a given act or event to have diametrically opposed Dmj and Rmj assessments.
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9
APPLICATION" CONSTRUCTION OF AN ETHICAL REALITY
The purpose of this chapter is to conclude our psychological analysis of ethical reality by (1) detailing some of the more significant consequences of taking a purely naturalistic, descriptive approach to ethical reality, (2) applying some of the critical psychological distinctions introduced so far to the task of actually constructing an ethical reality, and (3) resolving some of the queries previewed in Chapter 4 relative to why a psychological analysis of ethical reality is necessary. Our discussion will revolve around the following specific topics: 1. What is the best way of effecting combined epistemological-social action statements, so that they can serve as the basis of ethical reality? 2. How is ethical reality actually imposed on a logically prior psychological reality, and what would be the most reasonable or advantageous resolution of the locus of prescriptiveness issue? 3. How encompassing are the two basic kinds of psychological universes and the two basic types of moral traditions that are contingent on them: What is the nature of the human being and the nature of the relationship between determinism and responsibility? 4. How can a purely mental event possess ethical reality? 5. How meaningful is the naturalistically and psychologically based approach to ethical reality devised by B.F. Skinner? 6. What is the relationship between ethics and the language function: how is ethical reality constrained by the various psychological interpretations of the nature of language? 7. How does psychology contribute to the possible resolution of various kinds of moral controversies: disagreements, disparities, and divergences? 8. What are some of the implications of the self-significant other distinction for the construction of ethical reality? 9. What is the metaphysical nature and status of the notion of special population, and what are the ethical consequences of such a notion?
160 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality COMBINED EPISTEMOLOGICAL-SOCIAL ACTION STATEMENTS Recall from Chapter 4 that the ideal psychological universe would be a combined epistemological-social action one. Any statement purporting to express something about psychological reality should have an explicit intellectual component as well as a practical application capability. While all psychological statements have an epistemological status, only those with social action potential can serve as the source of ethical doctrine: in order for psychological doctrine to have consequences for ethical reality, its tenets must be extendable to the so-called real world. There are three nonmutually exclusive ways in which a given content psychology presumably could effect this: (1) by focusing on the self, (2) by constructing psychological reality directly in terms of real-world events, and (3) by modeling the psychological universe after the generic laboratory situation. The purpose of this section is to assess the viability of each of these approaches to effecting social action. Self-Focus
A self-focus is explicit in understanding, i.e., humanistic, phenomenological, existential, psychology and implicit in depth psychology, i.e., Freudian psychoanalysis, and dialectical psychology. We are only going to concentrate on the explicit concern here: the understanding approach. Understanding psychology focuses on the self via first-person access in a moral agency context. Each person is regarded as a self-reifying, self-determined, emergent creature that transcends its material composition. Each person is assumed to possess free will and is morally responsible for its actions. Each individual is assumed to exist in its own private world: the limits of psychological reality are circumscribed by the nature and quality of its self-awareness. A person's goals, moral or otherwise, are presumed to be self-originated; and self-realization, a possible intrinsic good (see Chapter 8), is considered to be an ideal moral and psychological goal. Phenomenologically derived knowledge can have personalistic, pragmatic value; but it has no objective epistemological status and does not afford prediction and control. But prediction and control are an anathema to a humanistic psychologist anyways: the only valid psychological endeavor is the intuitive understanding or appreciation of the nature and quality of a person's consciousness. The normative change imperative is logically prior to specific descriptive change techniques in this approach (see Chapter 3). Understanding psychology in fact amounts to a virtual reification of the normative change imperative; however, it must be mute with respect to specific mechanistic, descriptive change techniques. The obvious application of the self-focus approach is a Dmj, not a Rmj: moral choice, not moral evaluation, would be the appropriate application of psychological statements constructed in the context of understanding psychology. Even more significantly, the content of the
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psychological statement must be the product of a moral agent engaging in self-report with respect to its own moral decisions. Real-World Events
Constructing psychological reality directly in terms of real-world events is explicit in Freudian depth psychology and dialectical psychology and implicit in folk psychology. We shall only focus on psychoanalysis and folk psychology here. Recall that both psychoanalysis and folk psychology resolve overt behavior in terms of a psychological universe located strictly under the skin. Freud postulated an elaborate internal psychodynamic system; folk psychology evolved in such a way as to focus on the myriad number and types of mental events that occupied people's minds. (See Chapters 1 and 2.) Although behavior ordinarily is an external, objectively resolvable event (and neither psychoanalysis nor folk psychology has a formal concept of behavior per se), internal psychological universes are not part and parcel of the naturally occurring universe: they are not empirical events, subject to an objective validity assessment. The real-world event mapping of these two approaches to psychology merely is illusory. Freudian psychoanalysis merely is an ideology and a literary psychology. Folk psychology is not associated with a coherent conception of psychological reality and, as its name implies, merely is folklore. The universe envisioned by these two psychologies is not the world of the physicist or contemporary mechanist, but merely a fanciful conjuring of fantasy, illusion, and amorphous Cartesian entities. Neither psychoanalysis nor folk psychology affords prediction and control. They at best allow after-the-fact explanation and rationalization; or they can on occasion be construed as supplying some emotional closure. The normative change imperative is implicit in psychoanalysis; however, the descriptive change imperative is incapable of physical realization. Folk psychology is incapable of any normative change principles independent of the surrounding culture and political establishment; and it provides no descriptive change mechanisms, merely semantic verbalisms. Neither folk psychology nor psychoanalysis serves as a realistic source of social action: they have evolved as applied psychologies; however, paradoxically they do not have any practical application value. This is the case because the epistemological aspects of these approaches, i.e., the intellectual, conceptual tenets built into them, do not serve as the source of any realistic descriptive mechanisms/techniques by which behavior can be meaningfully changed.
Any social action in this context must be based on preaching, persuasion,
exhortation, dictatorial edicts, and the like. Folk psychology historically blends in with the Hebraic-Christian tradition, its emphasis on free will and moral responsibility, and the deontological approach in general. Psychoanalysis on the other hand makes the human being much less of a rational, moral creature in control of its actions and more of an irrational, immoral creature controlled by animalistic impulses and
162 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality unbridled passion, such that evil, violence, and aggression become the dominant ethical concerns.
Generic Laboratory Situation Modeling the dynamics of the natural environment after the events that are presumed to exist in the delimited confines of the generic laboratory situation is explicitly characteristic of action and epistemological, cognitive psychology. Recall that this is the approach used by academic, experimental psychology, which seeks to make psychological doctrine continuous with physical science. The human organism in this approach usually is conceptualized as a significant other, subject to the same naturalistic forces that control the workings of every other kind of realspace, real-time event in the universe. The critical feature of action psychology in general and behaviorism in particular, and to a lesser extent of cognitive psychology, is the explicit attempt to construct a psychological reality that can be empirically assessed in terms of its degree of correspondence with events in the physical world. Implicit in this approach is the creation of specific descriptive techniques/mechanisms by which the events in the natural universe can be predicted and/or controlled. This approach in general and Skinnerian psychology in particular serve as an ideal way of physically realizing the abstract descriptive change imperative. The psychological doctrine encompassed by behaviorism is constructed in terms of operations that are generalizable to the natural environment. Action and epistemological psychology on the other hand are mute with respect to the normative change imperative. This approach is in no ready position to devise various goals or justify various end states. It just so happens that most behaviorists function within the general utilitarian, instrumentalist philosophical tradition and subscribe to standardized American social values. The purest example of this approach is Skinnerian radical behaviorism which limits the content of psychological reality to stimulus input events and response output events, primarily externally resolvable ones. The individual organism merely is a nexus of interacting variables or an energy transduction device. The events occurring within the confines of the generic Skinner box serve as analogues for what is happening in the natural environment. Skinner more technically regards the contingencies inherent in operant conditioning as the model for how the real world actually works. The obvious way to create good or to get people to behave ethically for Skinner is by instilling the surrounding social environment with reward contingencies that reinforce such activity. The obvious application of this approach is a Rmj, not a Dmj: the moral evaluation of a significant other's actions or worth in a third-person access context. Even more critically, this approach would require a teleological, utilitarian conception of moral activity and worth: thirdperson access only exists for a significant other's behavior, the contextual environmental milieu in which it is emitted, and any consequential event(s) occasioned by it. The performer's
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intentions, motivation, sense of duty, and even interpretive view of its act are not subject to third-person access.
Evaluation: What is the Optimal Approach to Social Action There is no absolute answer to this query for two basic reasons: (1) No approach physically realizes both the normative and descriptive change imperatives; and (2) a Dmj and a Rmj are not commensurate entities. 1. A self-focus, characteristic of understanding psychology, provides ends, but not means: it embodies the normative change imperative, but has no realistic way of physicalizing the descriptive change imperative. The generic laboratory situation approach, characteristic of action and cognitive psychology, provides means, but not ends: it physically realizes the descriptive change imperative, but has no conceptual way of justifying any particular interpretation of the normative change imperative. 2. A self is the source of both the performed behavior and the moral considerations that go into determining what specific act is performed in a Dmj. A significant other is the source of the performed behavior in a Rmj; and any moral considerations are provided by a separate, independent observer. The only way to influence the content of a specific Dmj is to get into the consciousness of the person committing the act. The most effective way to influence behavior, on which a removed moral judgment is imposed, is by controlling the environmental contingencies, or cognitive variables, of which the behavior is a function. IMPOSITION OF ETHICAL REALITY ON PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITY: LOCUS OF P R E S C R I P T I V E N E S S The purpose of this section is to consider three interrelated matters, which collectively constitute the basic theme of the over-all analysis: (1) the imposition of an ethical reality on a logically prior psychological reality, (2) a reasonable or advantageous locus of prescriptiveness, and (3) the difference between a psychological event with ethical significance and one without such significance.
Imposition The issue of how ethical reality is superimposed on a logically prior psychological reality could be addressed from many different perspectives. Perhaps the most worthwhile approach would be to inquire just what alters in making the transformation from a strictly psychological reality to a more restricted ethical reality: what is the nature of the change involved in going from a strictly psychological statement to an ethical one? The way in which both psychological and ethical reality are usually expressed suggests that the notion of meaning can serve as the critical analytical tool. It also is possible to discuss the imposition from both the cognitive and emotive view of ethics.
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Psychological Reality Psychological reality deals with existence per se, independent of value or normative stance. Recall from prior discussion that this assumption is quite simplistic and merely serves as a convenient starting point. Psychological statements encompass a strictly descriptive reality, i.e., the same kind of reality that is characteristic of physics, chemistry, and the other natural sciences. A psychological fact in and of itself possesses no moral connotation whatsoever: it simply is a description of what is the case. An individual piece of psychological reality has descriptive meaning. The model for this kind of meaning is a declarative sentence which makes an assertion or denial claim. It asserts or denies a predicate of a subject with some degree of certainty. The subject term usually is a component of a partitive analysis and exhibits indication; the predicate term usually is a dimension of an abstractive analysis and expresses quasi-comparison or classification. As an example, consider the simple declarative statement: The leg of this chair is brownish.
A
descriptive statement locates some object or phenomenon as a point in some N-dimensional space. As a psychological example, consider the statement: A positive reinforcer is an event that increases the frequency of occurrence of a response class to which it is applied.
Ethical Reality: Cognitive View Recall from Chapter 8 that there are two basic denotative types of ethical judgments: (1) value (good or bad) and (2) obligation (right or wrong).
Each one must be addressed
independently.
Value A psychological statement, possessing descriptive meaning, is transformed into an ethical one when the subject term is assessed, or classified, along some evaluative dimension, usually one of generic goodness or badness. For instance: A positive reinforcer is good or bad. This piece of ethical reality possesses so-called evaluative meaning. The evaluative statement still makes an assertion or denial claim. The subject term still indicates, and the predicate term still quasi-compares or classifies.
The basic difference between an evaluative statement and a
purely descriptive one is the restriction of the dimension of abstractive analysis applied to the predicate term to that of normative value. The central feature of evaluation is the expression of partiality: a pro or con attitude is expressed. To evaluate anything normatively is to place it on a scale ranging from bad (-) through indifference (0) to good (+).
Indifference of course
expresses a neutral attitude. To emphasize the fact that a statement such as "A positive reinforcer is good or bad," possesses both a descriptive and an evaluative meaning, consider the situation where two people disagree on their assessment of a positive reinforcer. One person considers a positive reinforcer to be good, while another individual regards a positive reinforcer to be bad. We do not know whether the disagreement stems from a difference in the descriptive use of the words or from a difference in pro or con attitude, i.e., value.
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Obligation A psychological statement, possessing descriptive meaning, is transformed into an ethical one when the subject term is assessed, or classified, along some critical dimension, usually one of rationality or reasonableness. For instance: Using a positive reinforcer quite often is the morally correct thing to do. This piece of ethical reality possesses so-called critical meaning. The critical statement still makes an assertion or denial claim. The subject term still indicates and the predicate term still quasi-compares or classifies. The basic difference between a critical statement and a purely descriptive one is the restriction of the dimension of abstractive analysis applied to the predicate term to that of rational or reasonable evaluation. The central feature of a statement possessing critical meaning is a claim to being rationally justified. To emphasize the fact that a statement such as "Using a positive reinforcer quite often is the morally correct thing to do," possesses both a descriptive and a critical meaning, consider the situation where two people disagree on their assessment of delivering a positive reinforcer. One person considers delivering a positive reinforcer to be morally correct, while another person regards delivering a positive reinforcer to be morally incorrect. We do not know whether the disagreement stems from a difference in the descriptive use of the words or from a difference in conception of what is rational or reasonable, i.e., critical evaluation. Conceptual Transition Because the immediately preceding account of superimposing ethical reality on a logically prior psychological reality presupposes a cognitive approach to ethical reality, both evaluative and critical statements make assertion-denial claims just as descriptive ones do and presumably possess objective validity status (see Chapter 7). It also is possible to describe how ethical reality is superimposed on psychological reality using strictly emotive language in both a value and obligation context. This approach has the advantage of pointing out how ethical statements can also possess applied behavioral control significance. Ethical Reality: Emotive View The value and obligation accounts should be addressed separately.
Value A psychological statement, possessing descriptive meaning, is transformed into an ethical one when the subject term partakes of an exclamatory statement by which the speaker expresses some positive or negative emotional state. A positive emotional state would connote good, while a negative emotional state would connote bad. For instance: A positive reinforcer! Wow! This approach is practical in the sense that the exclamatory statement helps the speaker organize, display, or relieve its feelings. Although an emotive statement does not assert or deny a claim, it can involve indication if there is a person to whom the expressed emotion is directed; and it also can express partiality, i.e., pro or con sentiment.
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Obligation A psychological statement, possessing descriptive meaning, is transformed into an ethical one when the subject term partakes of an imperative statement or any other statement form that directs action.
For instance: Use a positive reinforcer. An imperative statement expresses
directive meaning. A sentence with directive meaning possesses indication, i.e., the individual directed to perform the act. Such a statement also entails quasi-comparison, i.e., the content of the requested act.
Note that sometimes no action is specified: Be good, or don't be wrong.
Directive statements do not express assertion or denial claims: they involve prescription or prohibition. To prescribe an action is to try to get it to occur verbally; to prohibit an action is to try to get it not to occur verbally. There are various operational forms of prescribing and proscribing: command, order, suggestion, exhortation, instruction, request, advice, and the like. This feature of a directive statement amounts to attempts at behavioral control. Note that an unsuccessful prescription or prohibition could be the result of either a cognitive misunderstanding or an act of disobeyance.
Two Cautions Recall from Chapter 8 that many emotive theorists do not distinguish between value and obligation, or between good and right. This means that the critical change involved in the transformation of psychological reality into ethical reality merely is some generic kind of emotive experience. It is difficult to distinguish a heightened emotional state having ethical relevance from an enhanced emotional state that basically is nonethical in nature. Situational factors or contextual events must be referenced to help identify the possible ethical connotations of the emotional experience.
Deontology Versus Consequentialism Each of these conceptual approaches to the relationship between value and obligation has implications for the imposition of an ethical reality on a psychological reality. 1. Value judgments in deontology are independent of judgments of obligation. This means that the order of imposing ethical reality on psychological reality via the use of evaluative or critical meaning, or via exclamatory or imperative statements, is irrelevant. Also neither type of meaning, or statement, is dependent on the other. 2. A judgment of obligation in consequentialism is contingent on a prior value judgment. This means that the order of imposing ethical reality on psychological reality is restricted: evaluative meaning must be used before critical meaning; or exclamatory statements must be used before imperative statements. Also evaluative meaning has priority over critical meaning, or exclamations have priority over imperatives.
Ultimate Source of Ethical Reality The same entity that constructs psychological reality also constructs ethical reality: conscious intelligence (see Chapter 2). Such a statement at this level of analysis amounts to a
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redundancy because every aspect of reality is an inventive human construction: there is no reality independent of our conscious intelligence. To illustrate the full brunt of this statement, consider the proposition that the so-called physical universe itself did not exist until conscious intelligence evolved, labelized its experience, and made certain critical distinctions concerning the nature of external reality: what we call the physical or natural universe merely is the intellectual construction of our cognitive capacity and ability. The critical issue is what aspect of our conscious intelligence is responsible for both psychological and ethical reality. This is equivalent to asking what is unique about human mentation: what is special about human cognitive processes that allow both psychological and ethical distinctions to emerge at our level of evolutionary development? The human possesses two characteristics that collectively are unique to our form of life: (1) self-consciousness and (2) the language function or capacity to speechify. These two entities actually are interrelated and mutually reify each other. You cannot really have one without the other: witness the so-called special populations. It is not germane at this point whether some nonhumans are capable of some rather primitive forms of self-awareness or whether some nonhumans are capable of some rudimentary nonauditory communication. Self-awareness in the technical phenomenological sense and speech in the technical linguistic sense only are joint properties of homo sapiens. 1. Self-consciousness is a combined biological-social product and is only expressible via the language function. It must be the source, or at least the repository, of the self, or "I," regardless of whether the latter is conceptualized causally or epiphenomenally. It also must be the genesis of any sensitivities or" special proclivities that are necessary to make us ethical creatures: the only reason we regard and treat people in an ethical manner is the fact that we are conscious of both ourself and others. 2. The language function is both the source and repository of our symbolic existence. Language is both the physical embodiment and transmitter of all the critical distinctions and realizations that make us social and cultural creatures who command our immediate physical surrounds. Ethics is a component of our symbolic life and almost exclusively a linguistic phenomenon. The relationship between ethics and the language function is so critical that a later section will focus on how the four different orientations introduced in Chapter 4 conceptualize speech and constrain ethical reality.
Locus of Prescriptiveness The imposition of an ethical reality on a logically prior psychological reality must result in either the experience or the acknowledgment of a prescriptive ought, whether an ought-to-be or an ought-to-do. Prescriptiveness is the critical defining feature of ethical reality (see Chapters 1, 4, and 8). It is relevant to consider just where it could be located or just how it could be physically realized in the ethical universe. 1. In the context of a Dmj, in which a person is in the process of making some kind of moral decision, it would be convenient to locate prescriptiveness in the phenomenal field or to
168 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality make its experience coincidental with the existential act of choosing itself. A perceptual field location would make prescriptiveness basically a perceptual phenomenon, while the existential interpretation would make prescriptiveness an emotional phenomenon. The only problem with these two assignations is that they do not say too much about an actual underlying mechanism responsible for prescriptiveness. Prescriptiveness in effect is a given: it simply is there when a Dmj occurs. 2. In the context of an Rmj, in which the behavior or moral worth of another person is being evaluated, it would be convenient to assign prescriptiveness habitual status. Prescriptiveness would be part and parcel of the response the observer makes to a stimulus situation with ethical elements. Prescriptiveness in effect would be a learned or conditioned phenomenon based on the past experience of the observer. Differential past reinforcement history would help explain why there are individual differences among observers in their degree of experienced prescriptiveness in the face of the same essential objective situation. 3. The three possible resolutions of prescriptiveness proffered so far make it successively a perceptual, emotional, or learned phenomenon. Is there any way of melding these three into a common interpretation? Assigning prescriptiveness a purely linguistic reality would do the trick. There is much to recommend this strategy: 9 This could easily be done in the context of the cognitive view of ethics, where different types of meanings are transformed and related to each other. 9 It is about the only reality, besides emotional, that prescriptiveness could have in the emotive approach. 9 The relevancy of the language function for ethics provides credence for the linguistic status of prescriptiveness. 9 Prescriptiveness would be an aspect of behavioral control in the context of contemporary, third-person access, objective psychology, i.e., Skinnerian radical behaviorism; and such control for the rational adult human, the prototypical reference individual for traditional ethical doctrine, basically is verbal in nature. 9
First-person access, humanistic, existential, phenomenological psychology, which emphasizes self-report in the vernacular, also would have no problem conceptualizing
prescriptiveness as linguistic in nature. 4. Such traditional sources of prescriptiveness as the will or command of a divine being and the moral law or respect for the moral law simply are too nonnaturalistic and beyond the essential confines of the social science tradition.
Academic, experimental psychology
would have difficulty absorbing these notions even if they were nonethical in nature. 5. Locating prescriptiveness in a hypothetical imperative could be liberally interpreted as a linguistic device and thus a variant of the resolution of merely assigning prescriptiveness linguistic reality.
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6. Regarding prescriptiveness to be the automatic product of the use of right reason or an epiphenomenal attribute of rationality would require much more unpacking at a cognitive, psychological level in order to serve as a viable resolution of the issue. Prescriptiveness in sum can be treated as a linguistic event that could be given further psychological realization as a perceptual, emotional, or learned phenomenon contingent on the specific ethical circumstances currently in effect.
Psychological Events with and without Ethical Significance Although ethical reality is superimposed on a logically prior psychological reality and in part at least is a proper subset of the psychological universe, not every psychological event has ethical significance: only some psychological events are relevant for ethics (see Preface). It would be worthwhile to attempt to distinguish between psychological events that do and do not partake of ethical reality. It is taken for granted by way of input assumptions that (1) ethics recognizes our humanity, i.e., our consciousness and status in the naturally occurring universe, and (2) each of us possesses certain ethical rights or the right to be regarded and treated ethically. We are in effect emphasizing the means function of ethics at this point (see Preface and Chapter 1). Separate comments should be made for (1) third-person access psychology and (2) firstperson access psychology.
Third-Person Access Psychology People essentially exist in an environment composed of both physical and social stimuli and exhibit behaviors that can have various kinds of consequences, some of which are mediated by the behavioral activities of other people, in the context of third-person access psychology. To be more technical, particularly in the context of Skinnerian behaviorism, a person is under both situational stimulus control and control by various consequential environmental contingencies, such as reinforcement and punishment (see Chapter 1). There is in fact no substantive difference between the Skinnerian three-term contingency, i.e., environmental s t i m u l u s - overt r e s p o n s e - consequential event, and the action equation characteristic of ethical consequentialism, i.e., ACT --, CONSEQUENCES, introduced in Chapter 8. Any psychological event directly or indirectly involved in behavioral control, either of the stimulus or consequential variety, possesses indigenous ethical significance. Those psychological events not involved in behavioral control are not part of ethical reality. A somewhat stricter view would limit psychological events with ethical significance to only those stimulus events and consequences that are mediated by the activity of others. This additional stipulation seems to more realistically tap the inner essence of morality; however, there would be no ultimate differential conceptual or pragmatic ramifications associated with either view because of the ambiguity entailed by the notion of directly or indirectly involved.
170 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality A synoptic description of the kind of ethics that could result from using this approach to conceptualizing psychological events with ethical relevance is presented later in the chapter in the context of analyzing Skinnerian ethical doctrine. Only two things need be mentioned here for local emphasis. 1. The notion of behavioral control does not automatically suggest autocratic control: the most effective behavioral control situations are those in which all parties involved have some control. For instance, in a two-party setup, one entity has some control and the other has some countercontrol. Ethical behavior tends to break down in situations where one entity possesses all the control and there is no meaningful countercontrol. 2. It could be argued that the equitable distribution of behavioral control capacity among a group of interrelated entities constitutes the behavioral analogue for the Golden Rule (see Chapter 1): Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.
First-Person Access Psychology First-person access psychology focuses on an individual's state of consciousness, degree of self-awareness, quality of emotional life, level of personal well-being, degree of selfrealization, and the like. It focuses in effect on the self and its over-all degree of adaptation to the surrounding physical and social environment. Recall from Chapter 8 that self-realization constitutes one of the classic approaches to the notion of an intrinsic good. Also recall that the concept of self-realization is quite amorphous and arbitrary and opens up numerous higherlevel ethical conundrums. Regardless of how the notion of self-realization is ultimately resolved and operationally specified, it serves as a convenient criterion in the first-person access context: any psychological event that is directly or indirectly related to self-realization possesses ethical significance; any psychological event that is not related does not possess ethical significance. This criterion might seem too general and vague; however, it is a way of incorporating many traditional psychological concepts into the ethical domain: motives, intentions, beliefs, desires, and mental events in general. Although phenomenological reality is full of possible conceptual quagmires, it does focus on the uniqueness of each individual organism and makes each person a possible ethical reality unto itself.
Some Perspective The notion of behavioral control in a third-person access context obviously is germane to removed moral judgments, while the notion of self-fulfillment in a first-person access context is relevant for direct moral judgments. The behavioral control criterion at a deeper level of analysis seems to underlie judgments of obligation and matters of right and wrong, while the self-realization criterion is more intimately related to value judgments and matters of good and bad.
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NATURE OF THE H U M A N BEING: M O R A L AGENCY VERSUS M E C H A N I S M Prior discussion in Chapter 4 has established the fact that it is not human nature that serves as a critical entity for ethical doctrine, but rather the nature of the human being. The concept of human nature is circular, if not fictitious, in an explanatory context. The multifaceted nature of the human on the other hand serves as critical input for the construction of an ethical reality: biological, psychological, sociological, and the like. The notion of a human being is just as constructional as any other component of the psychological universe. It can be addressed either (1) methodologically or (2) metaphysically.
Methodological Chapter 5 derived two different perspectives from which humans can be studied: (1) self and (2) externally imposed. The self-focus is indigenous to the subjective orientation and firstperson access to conscious experience; an externally imposed one is associated with the objective approach and third-person access to overt behavior. The best contemporary example of the former would be humanistic, phenomenological, existential psychology; the best current exemplar of the latter would be Skinnerian radical behaviorism. These two distinct methodological approaches to studying psychological phenomena are such virtual mirror images of each other that they, in effect, establish two vastly different psychological universes: (1) a subjective psychological world characteristic of each individual self and (2) an objective psychological reality encompassing any number of significant others. The first kind of psychological universe underlies the practice of much of applied psychology, especially therapy; the second one underlies the conduction of academic, experimental psychology. The basic implications of these two kinds of methodologically derived psychological universes for the ethical analysis so far relate to the operational distinction between a Dmj and a Rmj (see Chapter 5).
Metaphysical Chapter 1 implicitly introduced two distinct metaphysical conceptions of the human being: (1) moral agency and (2) mechanism. The former was done in the context of folk psychology, while the latter was done in the context of Skinnerian radical behaviorism. The purpose of this section is to (1) describe each of these approaches in greater depth and (2) develop and resolve their differential ethical implications.
Moral Agency The moral agency approach is implicit in our over-all culture, folk psychology, the legal system, and the Christian or Western religious tradition. It considers each individual to be an autonomous creature, capable of self-generated thought and activity, and in control of its own destiny. Human beings possess free will and are morally responsible for their actions. The defining attribute of humanity is the possession of consciousness, or more technically self-
172 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality consciousness. We are unique in the sense that we constitute more than a mere animal presence: we are emergent creatures, rising above our biological substrata and material composition. Mind, mentalism, or mental life is an efficacious property of our nature. Mind has the same status and role in moral agency as it has in Cartesian dualism (see Chapter 6), although a contemporary philosopher espousing this view of homo sapiens typically does not accept the Cartesian duality of substance: mentation does not involve a strange, mysterious noncorporeal entity diffused throughout the body. A belief in moral agency merely connotes that mental events, as materially or functionally defined (see Chapter 6), can control physical events: aspects of consciousness do regulate overt behavior. Moral agency provides the metaphysical underpinnings for Ferstehen, understanding psychology in general and humanistic, phenomenological, existential psychology in particular. Mechanism
The mechanistic view is indigenous to science and the naturalistic conception of the universe. Because homo sapiens can be described materialistically at a physical, chemical, and physiological level, it is assumed that homo sapiens also can be described materialistically at a psychological level. No aspect of humanity is impervious to scientific analysis. The notion of a human being is foursquare denotable by its material composition: it does not transcend its physiological substrata and evolutionary input.
The human being is a
component of an over-all mechanistic system such that its thought and activity are circumscribed by natural law. Human behavior is determined or at least occurs in a deterministic system. It usually is assumed that the individual person cannot be held morally responsible for its own actions. Responsibility at best is a socially defined notion or a property of the over-all system. For instance, while it is possible to punish some criminal offender with incarceration, it would make more sense to change the environmental milieu in which the offense occurred. The human being in the mechanistic approach is not necessarily a unique form of life.
Homo sapiens merely is the highest form of animal. We are regarded as such because we possess self-consciousness, an active symbolic life, the speech function, and superior intelligence.
The insect is the highest form of life on the basis of other criteria: lack of
pollution, sheer adaptability to the environment, efficiency of morphologic design, and enormous physical strength to weight ratio. Our continuity with the animal often is extended to the machine. We simply are another kind of machine. What is meant by machine in this context is the properties encompassed by a machine at a conceptual level, not the actual physical embodiment of one.
A machine in
mechanism often is used as a model for the human. The notion of mind is tricky business in mechanism. The Cartesian view of mind is not allowed: mechanism, as a form of monism, in a sense is the opposite of dualism. Mentation must be resolved physicalistically and can be interpreted as (1) active or (2) passive in nature (see Chapter 6).
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Active mentation, i.e., mental events affecting physical events, such as behavior, is allowed if (1) it is construed in a material monistic orientation or (2) it is assumed merely to have functional reality (see Chapter 6). Cognitive processes in contemporary epistemological psychology are physical events: they are products of an information processing system, erstwhile called mind. Passive mentation, i.e., mental events simply are the epiphenomenal physical/physiological activity, is allowed: consciousness is never efficacious, incidental by-product of neural activity (see Chapter 6). Mental events in behaviorism, when construed as conscious experience, are the automatic output
effects of merely the Skinnerian of physical
stimulation and merely constitute intemal behavior to which the organism has introspective access under the control of verbal reinforcement contingencies (see Chapter 1). Mechanism provides the metaphysical underpinning for much of epistemological psychology and all of action, depth, and dialectical psychology. An Initial Conceptual Observation It should be apparent that the two kinds of methodologically derived psychological
universes and the two metaphysical conceptions of homo sapiens overlap quite highly, if not ultimately converge. Private, subjective psychological worlds are properties of people who are moral agents; an objective psychological reality is associated with people who are components of a mechanistic, naturalistic system. Moral agency involves individualistic, privatistic consciousness; mechanism presumes an objective, universalistic psychological reality, even if it is merely a construction of our conscious intelligence. Ethical Implications: Two Types of Moral Universes Each type of psychological universe and/or metaphysical conception of humanity gives rise
to its own distinctive moral reality, which for want of better terminology can be nominalized as (1) moral agency and (2) mechanism. Not only do moral agency and mechanism function as metaphysical categories regarding the nature of homo sapiens, they also constitute distinct moral universes. Moral agency is associated with the Hebraic-Christian moral tradition, Kantian deontological ethics, and folk psychology; mechanism is characteristic of psychological and philosophical hedonism, and ethical instrumentalism in general. The ostensive features of these two moral traditions appear to contradict each other. Moral agency preaches free will and personal responsibility; mechanism claims behavior is determined and the notion of personal responsibility is vacuous. What seems to make matters even worse for a technical psychological basis for ethical reality is the fact that moral agency is characteristic of commonsense, predisciplinary, folk psychology and serves as the natural model for moral expectations and responsibility, while mechanism serves as the conceptual underpinning for academic, experimental psychology and deprives the organism of any real moral choice and responsibility. However, the situation is not as starkly clear-cut or as simple as just described. It is possible to reconceptualize the basic tenets of either moral agency or
174 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality mechanism so that either approach can achieve a rapprochement with the other. This is the case because the notions of both free will and determinism are not absolutistic ones, but are merely constructional in nature.
We shall perform this reconceptualization for each view,
starting with moral agency.
Moral Agency The general public typically regards free will to mean that people are absolutely unencumbered when it comes to producing pieces of behavior: people can will any behavior they desire or want.
But this does not mean that behavior is uncaused or unpredictable:
behavior does not occur in a vacuum. Behavior is caused, but by the will or any surrogate thereof, such as an efficacious self. Behavior in a moral agency context is self-caused. A very scientifically respectable description can be given to free will: a person takes all factors into account and makes a rational decision as to which course of action would be the most appropriate. The problem with the notion of free will, even when it is interpreted as a selfdetermination, is that it generally is not inclusive enough. It cannot account for the behavior typically exhibited by members of a so-called special population, i.e., psychotic, mentally impaired, brain damaged, and the like, nor can it account for low-level strictly physiologically or emotionally determined behavior, such as tics, coughs, eye movements, defensive reactions, fear responses, and the like. The notion of determinism is a continuum, and the free will doctrine only admits of one source of causation: the self. This conundrum with free will can be stated a slightly different way. It is impossible to conceptualize the individual organism as being capable of exhibiting both freely determined voluntary behavior and reflexively determined involuntary behavior because the mere act of switching from one kind of behavior to the other vitiates the validity of the type of behavior that is discontinued. involuntary.
All behavior must be either exclusively voluntary or exclusively
The notion of free will only admits the existence of one kind of voluntary
behavior: high-level, rationalistic, self-determined responses. The advantage of the free will doctrine is that it indigenously represents and accounts for the notion of responsibility. If every piece of behavior were truly self-originated, then the self would be the only source of the behavior and in effect would be exclusively responsible for its occurrence. Note again the status of special populations: they usually are not regarded as responsible for their behavior in a moral agency context.
Mechanism Our culture interprets mechanism, or determinism, to mean that the human being is a mere automaton: the individual person literally is a prisoner of its environment. Such a view, and an extreme one at that, is only one variant of determinism. appropriate for a physical machine.
It is a view that would be more
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Mechanism essentially means that the human being is a physicochemical entity, just as any other component of the natural universe is. Our behavior is determined by natural forces: it is involuntary in the sense that it is relatable to various antecedent conditions. There are many types and degrees of determinism. What they all have in common is the assumption that no piece of behavior occurs in a vacuum: every piece of behavior, as output, is a function of input. The self or internal physiological and cognitive events could be part of the causal input chain. The behavior of a member of a special population is caused just as much as that of a so-called rational human adult is. The basic advantage of mechanism/determinism is that it affords prediction and control; however, these are not absolutistic entities.
Prediction and control merely amount to
programmatic operating assumptions in the mechanistic approach.
The degree to which
individual behavioral occurrences can be predicted or controlled varies as a function of numerous factors.
Some behaviors are so unpredictable that they appear random; other
behaviors can be exquisitely controlled, but still occur with much variability. The degree to which a given piece of behavior is predictable or controllable to a large extent is under the decisional control of a human agent or behavioral change specialist. The notion of responsibility is vacuous if limited to the level of the individual organism in mechanism. Responsibility is a property of the over-all system to which the organism belongs. Behaviors that would be considered to be moral or immoral in a moral agency context, and duly praised or condemned, can be encouraged or discouraged by use of appropriate behavioral control measures in the mechanistic approach.
Moral behaviors in a sense constitute
programmable outcomes, or goals, that can be produced by controlling the environmental contingencies involved; likewise immoral behaviors can be either reduced or completely eliminated by imposing relevant contingencies.
Reward and punishment do not constitute
morally earned events in mechanism, but rather are neutral behavioral control consequences that can be used to produce or eliminate normatively evaluated behaviors.
Comparative Summary This is best constructed in terms of six conceptual conclusions. 1. Moral agency does not deny causation: it merely limits it to one type of source, the self. Mechanism does not preclude strictly self-generated behaviors or behaviors under selfcontrol. 2. Moral agency can only handle behavioral variability by assuming that both voluntary and involuntary behaviors exist.
Mechanism does not admit the existence of voluntary
behaviors; however, behavioral variability is a perfectly predictable aspect of involuntary action. 3. In moral agency, morality and immorality are viewed as free choices on the part of the organism, subject only to exhortatory or condemning preaching. In mechanism, behaviors that are deemed moral or immoral are ineluctable components of a physical system that controls their occurrence.
176 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality 4. In moral agency, morality or immorality constitutes a desired or nondesired conceptual end goal; in mechanism, morality and immorality are products of appropriate environmental planning. 5. In moral agency, there is no assignation of moral or indictment of immoral without personal responsibility. In mechanism, moral and immoral are programmable features of a physicalistic system. 6. In moral agency, the notions of moral and immoral are used in the attempt to tap the inner essence of abstract, conceptual ethical doctrine; in mechanism, moral and immoral really are matters of applied ethics or behavioral control. How
C A N A P U R E L Y M E N T A L EVENT POSSESS E T H I C A L R E A L I T Y
We are going to focus on third-person access psychology conducted in the context of (1) the over-all objective orientation and (2) the mechanistic approach. The organism is assumed to be an energy transduction device in this kind of psychology: it transforms stimulus input energy into response output energy.
Stimulus input and response output constitute the
discipline's two basic units of analysis and exhaust psychological reality for a descriptive behaviorist (see Chapters 1, 2, and 4). The location of the transformation is inside the organism's body. We could mean many different things by body: to simplify, we presume the organism's nervous system, especially its brain component. What occurs in the brain during the energy transduction is a third unit of analysis. It is the interpretive content of this third unit of analysis that serves as the key to resolving the possible ethical status of mental states. There are two critical questions to be considered with respect to the nature of this internal brain activity: (1) Does it constitute a mental event; and (2) is it part of the input, i.e., causative, or a part of the output, i.e., epiphenomenal? The three conceptual approaches to psychology that were derived in Chapter 1 in the context of analyzing the notion of conduct will be used and highlighted here: (1) physiological materialism, (2) cognitive psychology, and (3) radical behaviorism.
Physiological Materialism The internal events are treated as physiological activity, which is regarded as causative in nature and constitutes input. Overt responses are caused by both external physical stimulus events and internal physiological activity. The option is open to conceptualize part or all of this physiological activity as mental activity if the central state identity thesis is adopted (see Chapter 6).
Cognitive Psychology The internal events are interpreted as cognitive activity, which is regarded as causative in nature and constitutes input. Overt responses are caused by both external physical stimulus
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events and internal cognitive activity. Cognitive events are almost universally considered to be mental events, usually in the context of the functional role interpretation (see Chapter 6). Radical Behaviorism The internal events are regarded merely as internal responses: they are merely epiphenomenal and constitute output. The external physical stimuli are the sources of both the overt responses and internal responses. These internal responses parallel external responses, are externalizable via the language function, and usually are conceptualized as components of the content of conscious experience, which makes them a kind of mental event. Conceptual Reminder Input, output, and internal physiological or cognitive events must have the same composition in academic, experimental psychology.
This restriction carries over to the
situation where internal intermediary activities are conceptualized as mental events. A mental event only has meaning or validity if it is given a material monistic interpretation in disciplinary psychology. Using mental event descriptive terminology in a sense is a matter of semantic/linguistic convenience: it is shorthand language for the complex physical and/or physiological events that are occurring. Ethical Status of Mental Events Once a mental event is given physicalistic representation and becomes part of the chain of events that is used to characterize an occurrence that is psychological in nature, then it merely is a procedural matter to also ascribe ethical reality to the mental event.
If the over-all
psychological sequence meets the criteria for possessing ethical reality, then any one of its components does also. What constitutes a more compelling issue in this context is the nature of the role the mental event plays in ethics: how is it possible for a thought, intention, desire, and the like to be subject to an ethical analysis and be characterized as good or evil? A critical factor in this more restrictive context is whether a Dmj or Rmj is involved.
Removed Moral Judgment Any active or causal mentation involved on the part of an observer making a Rmj about a significant other is not ethical in nature: it is purely physiological or cognitive activity. Any passive or epiphenomenal mentation experienced by an observer making a Rmj about a significant other is not ethical in nature either: it merely is an aspect of current conscious experience. The nature of the Rmj, i.e., the output of the judgment itself, also is a factor. An Rmj about the rightness or wrongness of a significant other's overt behavior need not be construed as a mental event because it involves an observable. An Rmj about a significant other's character or moral worth is a mental event because its content is an inferable. Such a mental event is
178 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality ethical in nature in the sense that it describes an aspect of ethical reality or gives substance to an ethical distinction; however, the mental event has no evaluative status in and of itself: right, wrong, or good, bad.
Direct Moral Judgment Whether any mentation involved in the process of a person making a moral choice possesses ethical reality depends on whether it is construed as causative input or epiphenomenal output. Only when the mental events involved are construed as causative could they be regarded as possessing ethical reality, especially if the ultimate content of the moral choice is normatively evaluated as bad or wrong. If the mental events involved merely are epiphenomenal in nature, they have nothing to do with the content of the final decision and would not be ethical in nature.
Conceptual Summary There are only two ways in which a mental event can possess ethical reality in a monistic, mechanistic psychology: (1) It is the content of a Rmj about moral worth or character in general; and (2) it is part of the active, causative mentation that leads to a Dmj on the part of a self. The mental events involved in a Rmj only partake of an ethical reality to the extent that they give substance to ethical distinctions that in themselves are unobservable inferables. Only in the case of a Dmj could the content of the mental event itself, i.e., thought, intention, desire, or the like, be considered ethically good or bad, or right or wrong: Only the causative mental dynamics involved in a Dmj are subject to ethical, normative evaluation.
SKINNERIAN ETHICS: REVIEW AND P E R S P E C T I V E Skinner became a virtual social philosopher in his later years.
This is not unique to
Skinner. Both Carl Rogers and Sigmund Freud (see Chapter 2) also made the transition during the latter stages of their professional careers. Piaget somehow resisted the impulse to trace the ethical consequences of his genetic-epistemological system (see Chapter 2). Skinner was a mechanist who pushed third-person access psychology to its logical extreme: stimuli and responses exhausted psychological reality, and they could be studied by scientific methodology as any other real-space, real-time events could be.
There is a certain charm
associated with a scheme in which it is assumed that the development of the universe is circumscribed by the evolutionary progression of the following entities: molecule, cell, organ, organism, human, culture, science, and psychology. Ethics is not an explicit component of this sequence; however, it would have to accompany any one of the final three elements: culture, science, or psychology. It is worthwhile to analyze Skinner's ethics, not so much because it is a self-conscious attempt to show that traditional descriptive behaviorism can be extended to the normative realm, but rather because it is characterized by the following four features:
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1. It is an excellent example of a combined epistemological-social action endeavor: it will be germane to handle the epistemological and social action aspects of Skinner's psychology separately to demonstrate how the latter developed from the former. 2. It is unique in the sense that Skinner bases his primary ethical concepts on his approach to verbal behavior, or theory of language and meaning. For instance, the meaning of the notion of good is circumscribed by the kinds of external conditions, i.e., stimulus factors, that prompt the use of the word.
It just so happens that the occurrence of positive
reinforcers elicit the use of the term "good." Positive reinforcers more technically are the controlling stimuli for use of the term "good." 3. It is an approach in which value and value judgments, i.e., the different kinds of good, are developed first and then aspects of moral obligation and questions of right and wrong are derived from the dynamics of the relationships that exist among the different kinds of good. It is a system in which judgments of obligation are contingent on prior value judgments. 4. It treats good and bad/evil as commensurate entities on the same underlying behavioral or evaluative continuum: the only functional difference between good and bad is the kind of stimulus that prompts their use, i.e., the kind of reinforcer involved. Recall that the effect of a reinforcer, regardless of its type, is always to condition, increase, or consolidate behavior: the behavioral effect of a stimulus labeled good or bad is always the same as long as the stimulus is used in the appropriate reinforcement contingency. Our discussion will involve (1) preliminary evaluation, (2) epistemology, (3) ethical mapping, (4) illustrative social action descriptions/consequences, (5) conflicting value judgments, and (6) conceptual summary and perspective.
Preliminary Evaluation Skinner postulates no new normative, ethical principles: he merely relabels the fundamental epistemological entities of his system in the framework of the over-all utilitarian, instrumentalist philosophical tradition. This is demonstrated by the fact that he cannot present any metaphysical reason why the survival of humankind and its attendant culture constitutes the ultimate good: he takes this proposition to be self-obvious. It is not surprising that Skinner gives special status to cultural survival as a good because of his emphasis on evolutionary progression. The reason Skinner cannot justify our survival as the ultimate good is that a good or the good is a property of a reinforcing event or contingency, and he is intelligent enough to realize that it is impossible for a good such as cultural survival to have any immediate or current reinforcing effects. The novel aspects of Skinner's ethical prescriptions derive from his rejection of the individual organism as an efficacious moral agent (autonomous "man" in his terminology) and construal of social action as a property of the holistic, naturalistic system to which the human organism belongs.
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Skinnerian Epistemology This will be abstracted in terms of (1) reinforcement and punishment and (2) types of stimuli and consequences.
Reinforcement and Punishment The epistemological foundation of Skinnerian psychology is the fact that behavior has consequences and is under the control of its consequences. Reinforcing consequences make behavior more probable; punishing consequences suppress behavior. It is artificial to conceive of an instance of behavior and the nature of a consequence as two separate events because the nature of a consequence only can be identified in terms of its effect on behavior. The notion of reinforcement or punishment is best interpreted as a contingency between a piece of behavior and its consequence. Behavior in Skinnerian psychology is exhaustively, albeit descriptively, explained once its controlling contingency has been identified. The real world amounts to a matrix of controlling contingencies of differential degrees of complexity. Reinforcing and punishing contingencies derive from either of two sources: (1) evolution of the species, i.e., they are part of the genetic endowment of an organism; and (2) individual organismic life history, i.e., they are products of learning.
The reinforcing or punishing
property of the first kind of contingency is innate; the reinforcing or punishing property of the second kind of contingency is acquired. Contingencies not only control overt behavior; they also give rise to epiphenomenal feelings, i.e., conscious experience conceptualized as behavior occurring within the skin. Remember that it is Skinner's willingness to consider such events that makes his behaviorism radical. It is these socially sourced epiphenomenal feelings that provide Skinner with a bridge to the evaluative, ethical level.
Types of Stimuli and Consequences There are three kinds of stimulus events with respect to possible behavioral effects in thirdperson access psychology: (1) appetitive, (2) aversive, and (3) neutral. Appetitive stimuli elicit approach or investigatory responses. Aversive stimuli elicit withdrawal or escape responses and are avoided if possible. Neutral stimuli basically are purely sensory stimuli that give information about the nature of the environment but do not elicit approach or escape. In the laboratory the prototypical example of an appetitive stimulus would be food; the best example of an aversive stimulus would be electric shock; and the usual physical realization of a neutral stimulus is white light. Any one of these types of stimuli can serve as a consequence for the occurrence of a prior operant response and partake of a so-called R ~ S contingency in Skinnerian psychology. There are three basic kinds of consequences or contingencies: 1. The onset of an appetitive stimulus constitutes a positive reinforcer, while the termination of an aversive stimulus serves as a negative reinforcer. Either kind of reinforcer conditions or strengthens the operant to which it is applied.
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2. The onset of an aversive stimulus constitutes a positive punisher, while the withdrawal of an appetitive stimulus serves as a negative punisher. Either kind of punisher suppresses or weakens the operant to which it is applied. 3. Using the onset or termination of a neutral stimulus as a consequence has no strengthening or weakening effect on behavior.
Ethical Mapping Skinner transforms
his epistemological principles
into a science
conceptualizing the contingency-derived feeling states as normative entities. feelings associated with positive reinforcing contingencies as good.
of values by People label
Those associated with
punishing contingencies and negative reinforcing contingencies are labeled bad. In general, the onset of an appetitive event is a controlling stimulus for good, while the onset of an aversive event is the controlling stimulus for bad. Note that the notions of good and bad are descriptive labels, or naturalistic entities, ultimately derivable from the biological/genetic base of the organism. Using less technical language, positive reinforcing agents are good and implicitly valued, while punishing agents are bad and implicitly devalued. Both epistemological and normative events occur concurrently in the real world: they are the same set of events, mappable by two separate kinds of categories. Skinner distinguishes among three kinds of good in this context: (1) those entities that are personally good, (2) those entities that are good for others or the society at large, and (3) the survival of a culture. 1. The notion of a personal good is focused around those myriad biological and cultural entities that people find positively reinforcing: food, water, sex, entertainment, relaxation, children, and the like. This category of good merely serves to highlight the fact that the act of making a value judgment about something amounts to classifying it in terms of its reinforcing effects.
This sense of good de-emphasizes the behavioral term of a
reinforcement contingency. The procurement of an entity that operates as a personal good typically is not contingent on the performance of an activity that itself is labeled good. 2. The concept of what is good for others allows Skinner to translate the traditional ethical notions of should or ought into radical behaviorist terminology. Should and ought entail normative, ethical injunctions: either prescriptions or proscriptions.
Skinner does not
account for their normative status per se, i.e., the content of specific prescriptions or proscriptions; he merely gives a psychological interpretation of certain universally regarded moralistic behaviors. Skinner translates any moral precept involving a should or ought into a contingency under which a person is induced to behave for the good of others.
For
instance: The moral dictum that one ought to tell the truth amounts to the contingency that one is reinforced by the approval of one's peers if one does not lie. Analogously, the commandment, "Thou shalt not steal," reduces to the fact that such behavior universally has punishing consequences. In this context, a person who lacks values is one for whom
182 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality structural, societal reinforcers are not operative: such a person cannot be induced to behave for the good of others. 3. The ultimate good for Skinner is survival of humankind as a cultural entity. He cannot derive this good as a moral precept because the appropriate consequential term cannot partake of any immediate effective contingency. He merely uses this good as justification for his program of redesigning culture according to radical behaviorist principles. In this context, he advocates the dismantling of all aversive and ptmishing contingencies and the strict use of positive reinforcing contingencies for behavioral control.
This program is
antithetical to the folk psychology focus on moral agency, in which reinforcing control techniques are decried. The ultimate irony of folk psychology in Skinner's opinion derives from the fact that it must use punitive contingencies to solidify its precept that the human being is responsible for its behavior.
Some Illustrative Skinnerian Social Action Descriptions/Consequences Five of these will be presented. 1. The issue of fairness or justice often can be reduced to a matter of good husbandry: the wise use of reinforcers. 2. The perennial conflict between individual fights and societal rights highlights the need for a balance between personal reinforcers and societal reinforcers. 3. The notions of good and bad are given alternative labels in different institutional contexts with attendant changes in specification of the contingencies: law--legal and illegal; religionmpious and sinful; education--correct and incorrect; therapy--normal and abnormal; family lifemsupportive and disruptive. 4. The ultimate benefit from a radical behaviorist analysis of social control derives from its explicit recognition of the significance of remote consequences. Immediate reinforcing consequences quite often are followed by delayed punitive ones, and immediate punishing effects lead to ultimate reinforcing consequences. An example of the former is gambling behavior; an example of the latter is wearing an uncomfortable protective hard hat. Gambling must be declared illegal to make it immediately punitive; hard hat protection must be a mandated job requirement to accommodate the time interval before an accident happens. 5. Skinner is aware of the fact that reinforcing contingencies can be exploited to subvert some personal or societal good. For instance, the use of occasional reinforcing contingencies can keep a person around in a context diffused with blatant punitive contingencies, as is the case with a citizen of a totalitarian regime; some symbolic reinforcers are issued without any intention of allowing them to be cashed in for any ultimate physical benefit, as occurs in flattery; some reinforcing contingencies are inherently exploitative, e.g., very high fixed ratio piece work payment schedules.
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Conflicting Value Judgments Skinner concedes that people can disagree with respect to what is personally good or bad; however, in his approach this simply means that some object is a positive reinforcer, i.e., appetitive event, for some people and a punisher, i.e., aversive event, for others. Conflicting value judgments can arise because people (1) can have differential past reinforcement histories with respect to the same object, (2) can confuse the immediate and delayed consequences of an event, (3) can misuse a term, or (4) can fail to make an incisive enough analysis of a situation. Skinner suggests that a higher-order evaluative criterion is available to arbitrate intractable value conflicts: survival of culture as the ultimate good. A value judgment that contributes to the betterment of society/culture is to be preferred over one that does not contribute to such betterment. But recall that Skinner cannot metaphysically justify this criterion, nor does he have a formalized set of characteristics descriptive of a good culture.
Conceptual Summary and Perspective Skinner's epistemology limits the psychological universe to stimulus input and response output events.
Included in the latter is consciousness, conceptualized as socially labeled
internal behavior. He maps traditional ethically relevant concepts/distinctions onto the feeling states associated with reinforcing and punitive contingencies.
By extension, positive
consequences come to be regarded as "goods;" and negative consequences come to be regarded as "bads." Normative precepts involving should or ought are conceived as contingencies that induce organisms to act for the good of society as a whole. A person devoid of values simply is one who cannot be induced to act for the benefit of society. Skinner postulates the survival of society/culture as the ultimate good in this context and believes that only the active implementation of radical behaviorist control principles can accomplish this goal. It can be argued that Skinnerian descriptive principles entail a naturalistic ethics and social action program; however, the normative change imperative (see Chapter 3) is not an indigenous component of the Skinnerian psychological universe. Low level goods are given, contingent on the evolutionary inputs into homo sapiens and the individual organism's idiosyncratic cultural history.
Relational or societal goods derive from pragmatic social
contingencies. The ultimate good of societal preservation, the closest Skinner can get to an ethical absolute, strictly is an extrasystemic postulation because it defies physical realization as an operable contingency. E T H I C S AND THE L A N G U A G E F U N C T I O N Recall that ethical reality is imposed on a logically prior psychological reality, which in turn is made possible, at least in part, by the existence of the language function: the ability of the human organism to make critical symbolic distinctions and communicate them by the use of speech. Because the language function helps constrain the nature of psychological reality, it also constrains the nature of ethical reality.
184 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality The nature of language is just as constructional as the other aspects of reality: each of the four orientations that can be used to construct psychological reality, as detailed in Chapter 5, has its own separate interpretation of the nature of language. We are going to describe each of these interpretations in terms of the dominant contemporary psychological approach associated with each orientation: (1) objectivemradical behaviorism; (2) subjectivemhumanism, phenomenology; (3) quasi-objective---cognitive behaviorism; and (4) combined---dialectical psychology. After performing a conceptual comparison of the four views of language, their differential implications for ethical reality will be presented.
Objective: Radical Behaviorism Skinner focuses on verbal behavior, not language in the linguistic sense of the term. He submits verbal behavior to the same kind of analysis that is used for strictly physical, motor operants. A given utterance is assigned to a specific class of verbal activity and is related to its controlling stimulus condition or reinforcement contingency. For instance, Skinner makes a basic distinction between a mand and a tact. A mand essentially is a request. A tact is some kind of descriptive remark. A mand is open-ended with respect to source, but only can be reinforced by procurement of the content of the mand: for instance, "Please give me a glass of milk." The content of a tact is tied to specific physical conditions, but is unrestricted with respect to reinforcement: for instance, "It sure is a nice day." The tact is Skinner's link to the description of the content of one's perceptual or introspective consciousness, and the expression of self-awareness involves tacting responses about tacting responses.
Subjective: Humanism; Phenomenology Phenomenologically based psychology does not analyze verbal behavior or language in the sense of specifying relevant mechanisms. Humanistic psychology is mute with respect to mechanisms in general. Language is the primary mode of expression of the content of one's consciousness for the humanist. Humanistic psychology primarily deals with response or response-inferred constructs, and the vast majority of these involve language responses. The most elaborately constructed psychology based almost exclusively on language responses was structuralism, which eventually was discarded because the content of consciousness cannot be meaningfully resolved strictly in terms of itself (see Chapter 2).
Quasi-Objective: Cognitive Behaviorism Most cognitive behaviorists focus on language as a component of mentation. Language is treated as a linguistic entity and consists of various subsystems, such as phonemics, morphemics, the lexicon, syntax, and grammar. The ability to decode and encode language is assumed to represent some underlying linguistic competence. Although not a behaviorist, Chomsky is credited with making contemporary cognitive research on language possible by distinguishing between linguistic performance and competence. Chomsky explicitly assumes that the human being, and only the human being, is biologically predisposed to learn the
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different aspects of language by induction from samples of speech in the surrounding verbal community. Chomsky's original stress on syntax and grammar has given way to a current focus on semantics. The psychology of language currently entails a technical cognitive subspecialty called psycholinguistics.
Combined: Dialectical Psychology Language is a crucial component of dialectical psychology: (1) It is the usual medium of exchange involved in any short-term dialogue; and (2) it is the primary link between the individual organism and its surrounding culture with respect to long-term, developmental changes. Riegel (see Chapter 5) postulates three different types of language systems: protolanguage, token language, and transaction language.
The last of these is assumed to be
dialectically determined. Language, as is the case with consciousness, is both a social and socially sourced phenomenon in dialectical psychology. Riegel uses the monetary system as an analogue for language. Speech is treated as an economic good or commodity produced by labor. These goods, i.e., sentences, can operate as capital and serve as the basis of further production.
Conceptual Comparison Each of the four orientations taps a different aspect of the language function: 1. The objective orientation treats language as a real-time, real-space output system controlled by physical variables. 2. The subjective orientation formalizes the general public's view of language as a method of expression. 3. The quasi-objective orientation relates language to cognitive functioning in general and the notion of linguistic competence in particular. 4. The combined orientation views language as a component of the over-all dialectical process and gives it essentially a social interpretation. Note that these different interpretations of the language function do not contradict each other, but perform a complementary function.
Ethical Implications The complementary function of the different views of language in the context of disciplinary psychology carries over to ethics. The different interpretations of language do not significantly constrain the nature of over-all ethical reality as much as they serve to reinforce and justify certain subaspects of ethical reality. 1. The Skinnerian objective approach makes ethical expressions verbal operants that both control and are controlled by the behavior of other people: ethical descriptions and commands are components of the behavioral control function. Ethical terms such as good, bad, right, and wrong function in countless mands and tacts: more as reinforcers or punishers in the former and more as expressions of individual ethical belief in the latter.
186 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality Skinner's approach to language in effect could serve as either a conceptual or a pragmatic foundation for the emotive approach to ethics in general. Ethics indeed would be practical if accorded exclusive realization as an applied radical behaviorism. 2. The humanistic, phenomenological subjective approach is coincidental with the ordinary language approach to ethics, in which individual sentences can constitute singular ethical universes of their own and in which the explicit attempt is made to clarify the interpretive use of the vernacular. This approach also could provide a psychological description of what happens during a typical Dmj: verbal self-report has hallowed status (see Chapter 5) and serves as a special epistemological route to an individual's private ethical reality in humanistic, phenomenological psychology. 3. The cognitive behaviorist quasi-objective approach gives psychological underpinning to the cognitive, naturalistic view of ethics: ethical concepts are intellectual entities that have correspondents in the real world (see Chapter 7). The human brain, as a cognitive system, constructs ethical reality just as it constructs any other kind of reality. This approach to the language function also would be of especial relevance to the over-all Rmj situation, i.e., moral evaluation. It also constitutes the most convenient context in which to conduct empirical research with respect to moral development. 4. The dialectical combined approach serves as a good model for the contextual milieu in which ethics exists. Ethics is implicitly social and interactional in nature. Ethics could be construed as an exchange system in which rights and duties are transferred from one party to another in a rational, consensual way. This approach makes ethics all-pervasive: it is an ineluctable component of human social existence. M O R A L CONTROVERSIES A psychological analysis of ethical reality should be able to account for the lack of moral agreement. Moral disagreement probably is more pervasive and ubiquitous than moral agreement. Moral disagreement by definition will occur whenever the process(es) responsible for making a moral judgment break(s) down.
Because of this, the phenomenon of moral
disagreement serves as a test situation for assessing the validity of a given contentual approach to ethics. Mandelbaum makes a distinction between three kinds of moral controversies: disagreements, disparities, and divergences. Thus, a disagreement is only one subtype of moral contention. Recall that the notion of a moral divergence was derived in Chapter 5. We shall begin this section by defining each type of moral controversy and delimiting its domain. The definitions are Mandelbaum's; the domains are derivative of the basic tenets of our current analysis.
Moral Disagreements This kind of moral controversy occurs when two people or parties profess opposite or contradictory moral judgments about the same situation because of lack of agreement with
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respect to the moral aspects, but not the factual aspects, of the case. The two entities in effect exhibit differing moral assessments of the situation. The domain of moral disagreements includes both judgments of right and wrong acts and judgments of moral worth. The judgment of right and wrong acts can involve two subtypes: (1) The moral choice of a self (Dmj) and the moral evaluation of it by an observer (Rmj) disagree or contradict each other; and (2) the moral evaluation of an act by two different observers (a Rmjl and a Rmj2) disagree or contradict each other. The judgment of moral worth must involve the moral evaluation of the over-all moral value of an individual by two different observers (Rmjl and Rmj2) who disagree on their assessments. Note that this kind of moral disagreement cannot involve a Dmj component because a person is not allowed to make selfjudgments about its over-all moral worth.
Moral Disparities This kind of moral controversy occurs when two people or parties profess opposite or contradictory moral judgments about the same situation because of lack of agreement with respect to the factual, descriptive, nonmoral aspects of the case. The two entities in effect exhibit differing moral assessments of the situation because of disagreement with respect to the nature or meaning of the facts involved. The domain of moral disparities corresponds exactly to the domain of moral disagreements.
Moral Divergences This kind of moral controversy occurs when one person or party regards a situation to be moral in nature but another individual or party does not. The domain of moral divergences is realistically limited to assessments of overt responses, i.e., judgments of right and wrong acts. Using symbolization and abbreviations from Chapter 5, there are three subtypes of moral divergence: (1) (Dmj, Rmj); (2) (Dmj, ~nj); and (3) (Rmj, ~"nj), the first two of which were derived in the context of Figure 5-2. The reason that moral divergence is not meaningful in a moral worth context is that such a judgment is an inference from overt behavior which has been priorly judged to be nonmoral or moral in nature.
Conceptual Note: Changes in Moral Assessments Over Time It is possible for an individual to change its moral assessment of some situation over time. We in effect have moral controversy, and the same three types apply if we assume that between person contention serves as a model for within individual contention. Conflicting judgments exhibited by the same person at two distinct points in time is like conflicting judgments exhibited by two parties at the same point in time. The rationale for this assumption is related to the practice of conceptualizing a person who changes its mind as an entity who later impersonally evaluates its first ethical decision as if it were made by another individual (see Chapters 4 and 5).
188 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality Differences in Degree Moral divergences always are all-or-none, digital judgments: a situation interpreted as having some degree of moral relevance is pitted against the same situation interpreted as having no moral relevance. Moral disagreements and moral disparities are not necessarily allor-none, digital judgments, but can exist in degrees. The two parties are not contesting whether an act is right or wrong or whether an individual exhibits moral worth, but rather are contesting the degree of rightness or wrongness associated with an act or the degree of moral worth possessed by a person. Resolution of the Controversies The ensuing comments are based on the following two assumptions: 1. A moral divergence ultimately is reducible to either a moral disagreement or a moral disparity. 2. A moral disagreement is resolved once the concerned parties come to a consensus relative to the moral aspects of the situation; a moral disparity is resolved once the concerned parties come to a common understanding ofjust what the facts are in the case. Because these two assumptions are true by definition, or structurally, the conceptually relevant aspects of moral controversy resolution are the dynamics underlying the process. This is where the creative aspects of ethical reality construction come into play. Two additional assumptions are germane to our analysis: 1. Controversies involving the inconsistency of an individual's moral judgments over time and those merely involving matters of degree are subsets of the more general cases. 2. The dynamics of the situation underlying both moral disagreement resolution and moral disparity resolution are the same, except the former involves normative, moral constructions and the latter involves factual statements.
Judgments of Right and Wrong Acts Any act that is being normatively evaluated with respect to its ethical correctness is a component of a longer chain of events.
The initial element of the chain is the stimulus
situation; the second one is the act in question; and the third component is the consequences of the act. This descriptive sequence is, in effect, the action equation used in Chapter 8 in the context of act utilitarianism or the Skinnerian S-R-S contingency mentioned previously in this chapter. The elements of this three-term sequence are the only entities available to an external observer making a moral evaluation of the act in a third-person access framework. The same three elements carry over to a direct moral judgment on the part of a self, i.e., moral choice, if verbal report on the part of the self is used. These three elements are the only entities that could be common to both a Rmj and Dmj situation. If a person's intentions, goals, motivation, or state of mind were elicited via verbal self-report in a Dmj situation, that kind of knowledge would not be available to an external observer conducting a Rmj of the same act. Therefore,
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the most conservative strategy to follow would be to limit the dynamics involved in the resolution of disputed judgments of fight and wrong acts to just these three elements.
Moral Disparity To resolve a moral disparity, it would be necessary to ascertain in great detail the two disputants' conceptions of the descriptive, factual aspects of the three elements of the chain: 1. Do they in fact construe the stimulus situation similarly? 2. Do they in fact assign the same basic interpretive meaning to the act? 3. Do they in fact have commensurate views of the consequences?
Moral Disagreement To resolve a moral disagreement, a two-step procedure would be necessary: (1) Ascertain in detail any differential moral properties that each disputant assigns to any one of the three elements, especially with respect to how each one should be structured or interpreted at an ethical level; and (2) ascertain whether each disputant is taking an essentially deontological or consequentialist approach to structuring the moral issue.
Judgments of Moral Worth Recall that this kind of judgment can only involve a Rmj of the over-all ethical value or goodness of another person by an external observer in a third-person access context; however, the notion of moral worth is ambiguous in terms of its etiology or composition (see Chapter 8). The most conservative strategy to follow would be to conceptualize a judgment of moral worth as an extension of a judgment of right and wrong: moral worth is an inferable based on prior assessment of the habitual status or past history of an individual with respect to its performance of morally correct acts. Persons are regarded as possessing moral worth if they can be relied on to do the morally correct thing in most cases. If the dynamics underlying moral worth assessment are conceptualized this way, then a moral dispute between two observers with respect to the ethical worthiness of a significant other reduces to a case of either a moral disparity or a moral disagreement regarding the historical record of morally correct acts performed by the individual. The logic underlying the resolution of a disparity or a disagreement in this context is exactly the same; however, it involves a two-step process: 1. The first step requires an assessment or reassessment of all the individual judgments of right and wrong performed by the two observers with respect to the individual's past behavior. This process would be indistinguishable from the procedure used in the prior ease of right, wrong determination. 2. The second step requires an assessment or reassessment of how each disputant put together the information gleaned from each past individual act evaluation, especially if both disputants exhibited very similar input information relative to the past moral behavior of
190 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality the person, i.e., the critical issue could be the exact criterion used during the inference process. Given this analysis, it perhaps can be appreciated that a dispute with respect to moral worth in most cases would not be a pure case of a disparity or a disagreement: the disputed subacts that input into the over-all decision could be either a disparity or disagreement in some random or systematic proportion; and the over-all assessment criterion of the second step probably has more of a moral than a factual basis, even if all the disputed input behaviors exclusively were disparities.
SOME IMPLICATIONS OF THE S E L F - S I G N I F I C A N T O T H E R DISTINCTION FOR E T H I C S If there is a basic dichotomy that keeps running through our analysis and has deep implications for the construction of ethical reality, it is that between a self and a significant other. The distinction originally arouse in the context of analyzing the methodological roles that the human being can play in the creation of psychological reality and served as the source of two different perspectives from which the human can be studied. The dichotomy ultimately converged with the two primary historical metaphysical approaches to the nature of the human being: moral agency and mechanism. The individual human being is treated as an efficacious self in moral agency. The nature of a human being is imposed from the outside in mechanism, and in effect a human being usually functions as a significant other in that context.
Psychological Status of the Distinction The self-significant other distinction is anomalous in many respects: 1. Although the distinction is arbitrary, it is logically prior to many other aspects of psychological reality. 2. Although the distinction basically is classificatory in nature and an individual could function as both concurrently, it has become reified to the extent that the notions of self and significant other serve as the differential source of various psychological processes and mechanisms. 3. The notions of a self and a significant other to a large extent carry appreciable excess baggage because they are used to symbolize other conceptual distinctions that are associated with them: for instance, free will versus determinism, first-person versus thirdperson access, consciousness versus action, subjective versus objective orientation, phenomenological versus reductive truth, and the like. 4. The methodological and metaphysical aspects of the distinction in psychology are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate them. 5. It also is impossible to tell where the psychological aspects of the distinction end and the ethical aspects of the dichotomy begin: psychological reality and ethical reality are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate them. For instance, on the metaphysical level
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alone, the psychological and ethical aspects of the notions of a standard human being and of a special population are impossible to separate (see the next section). Ethical Consequences of the Distinction
The self-significant other distinction implicitly constrains the nature of ethical reality and helps to set up a series of mixed methodological-metaphysical ethical dichotomies just as it does in the context of psychology. Three such dichotomies will be reviewed here.
Moral Choice Versus Moral Evaluation The self-significant other distinction establishes the two basic kinds of moral judgments that can be done in an ethical context: (1) a direct moral judgment and (2) a removed moral judgment. Only a self can make a direct moral judgment: only a self is subject to a moral choice whereby it has to select among a series of competing courses of action. Only the already performed behavior of a significant other is subject to a removed moral judgment by an external observer: only the behavior of a significant other is subject to moral evaluation. Judgments of moral worth and culpability are removed moral judgments that involve inferences from overt behavior and can only be performed on significant others. Also, perhaps anti-intuitively, when a self later changes its mind and decides that a priorly made moral choice on its part was wrong, the situation is modeled as an instance of moral evaluation: the self is reevaluating its past behavior as if it were performed by a separate significant other. Moral choice in effect only applies to current behavior, while moral evaluation can apply to present or past behavior. The original methodological distinction between moral choice and moral evaluation gets reified because of the existence of other dichotomous sets with which it is differentially associated. Moral choice is subject to first-person access and a self-focus, and generally is interpreted in a moral agency context. Moral evaluation only is subject to third-person access and an externally imposed perspective, and usually is interpreted in a mechanistic context. Also moral choice usually is regarded as a deontological matter, while moral evaluation is more easily treated teleologically.
Social Action: Self-Focus Versus Descriptive Mechanism Focus The initial section of this chapter introduced two competing approaches to social action of provisionally acceptable viability: (1) a self-focus and (2) a laboratory based, descriptive mechanism focus.
These two approaches derive directly from the self-significant other
dichotomy. The self-focus is of indigenously relevant concern in a Dmj context, while the use of environmentally constituted behavioral control techniques is germane to a Rmj context. A self is the locus of all relevant moral considerations in a Dmj context. A significant other is a recipient of both moral judgment and behavioral change inducement operations in a Rmj context.
192 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality Two Moral Traditions: Moral Agency Versus Mechanism
A prior section of this chapter derived two competing views of the nature of homo sapiens, which function as joint metaphysical and ethical categories: (1) moral agency and (2) mechanism. One of the etiological sources of this dichotomy is the self-significant other distinction, which underlies the self versus externally imposed methodological perspectives dichotomy originally derived in Chapter 5. Recall that the self-focus of moral agency emphasizes Hebraic-Christian morality, Kant's duty driven ethics, and deontology, while the significant other related mechanistic tradition stresses hedonism, system based responsibility, and instrumentalism. There is no more incisive, cogent, or pervasive dichotomy in the discipline of ethics than this dual moral universe one. SPECIAL POPULATIONS Recall from Chapter 3 that the notion of a special population arises in psychology in the same context that generates the concept of a significant other: an organism that differs from some standard significant other on at least one classificatory dimension of interest to the discipline is a member of a special population. A special population merely is a methodological or classificatory notion etiologically; however, it has become reified by numerous metaphysical extensions, such that a member of a special population tends to be regarded as inferior. The basic problem is that the notion of a significant other is capricious, a mere statistical abstraction or convenient fiction; the concept of a standard significant other likewise is merely felicitous. Recall from Chapter 1 that Western ethics is supposed to be impersonal: it applies to everyone. The problem is that everyone is a combined psychological-sociological-ideological, evaluatively driven concept that usually is interpreted to mean rational adult. The notion of a special population arises in ethics when an organism does not conveniently fit into the category of rational adult. A member of a special population in ethics is not expected to be able to make a moral decision and is not considered to be morally responsible for its behavior in the moral agency sense of the term. It should not be surprising that the list of special populations in both psychology and ethics is virtually the same: animals, children, the "insane," developmentally disadvantaged folks, neurotics, psychotics, schizophrenics, and the like. It also should not be surprising that the content of both of these lists is constructed without any real regard for the nature of humanity or the human organism as a possessor of certain ethical rights: the content of these lists shows no respect for humanity or any special defining feature of humanity. The notion of a special population takes no cognizance of what it is that makes us human beings: the notion of a special population basically is unethical in both psychology and ethics. Some Reevaluation: Moral Agency Versus Mechanism Certainly the special populations are refractory to understanding psychology with its
emphasis on individual, enlightened consciousness and phenomenological self-report: some
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humanists even exclude them from the psychological universe. They also are impervious to analysis using folk psychological concepts. The surrounding culture in general regards members of the special populations to be something less than human. Special populations likewise are not germane to the moral agency tradition with its emphasis on free will, responsibility, rationality, moral choice, first-person access, a self-focus, and the like. To be technically neutral and nonevaluative, what basically differentiates between members of special populations and so-called rational adults is the language function. One of the defining characteristics of a rational adult is verbal fluency.
Animals essentially are
nonverbals; children are preverbals; the developmentally disadvantaged, psychotics, and schizophrenics can be verbal, but not necessarily or always coherently. Contemporary academic, experimental psychology, as exemplified by descriptive behaviorism, physiological psychology, and cognitive psychology, has no problems with members of special populations at a metaphysical, conceptual level. They can be dealt with quite readily in a third-person access framework in which overt behavior is systematically related to physicalistic external and internal causation. The care and feeding of members of special populations, even animals, has become a virtual cottage industry in the context of Skinnerian psychology. The mechanistic moral tradition has no trouble absorbing nonverbals, preverbals, or less than coherent verbals. Lack of the complete speech function is treated merely as natural variation, not as some moral deficit or defect.
Members of special
populations, again even animals, have ethical rights denied them by the moral agency approach. Responsibility is a function of the over-all system, not of individual members with less than ideal verbal or cognitive skills.
SOME FINAL CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVE: TWO ETHICAL W O R L D S Anyone who strives to construct a psychologically based, or social science sourced, ethical reality really must choose between two kinds of ethical worlds: (1) a self engaged in making a Dmj or (2) an observer performing a Rmj on the behavior, moral worth, or culpability of a significant other. The first kind of ethical reality is derivative of the subjective, privatistic, perhaps even unique, psychological world in which each person exists; the second ethical world is related to a common, objective, psychological reality that by and large is constructed by the academic, experimental psychological establishment.
Moral Choice In the world of moral choice, a person must select a course of action that presumably is morally correct. The individual probably feels that it is in control of the situation and either experiences moral responsibility or concedes that it has moral responsibility. It is a situation in which obligations usually are believed to be duty driven and interpreted in a deontological context. The only way for an outsider to influence the content of the moral choice would be by persuasion or argument, gainsaying the existence of threat or force. Social action in a moral choice context could embody the normative change imperative, but not the descriptive change
194 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality imperative.
Prescriptiveness could be symbolically linguistic in nature or substantively
perceptual or existential in nature. Moral choice is a situation in which causative mental events could have ethical reality and be normatively evaluated as good, bad, or right, wrong. Moral Evaluation
In a moral evaluation framework, the behavior or stance of a person is judged with respect to its moral appropriateness by a separate, independent third party. The latter is the exclusive source of any relevant ethical considerations. Because an objective psychological reality can only be created in a third-person access context, the ethical reality associated with moral evaluation need not have any of the trappings of moral agency. Moral responsibility can be viewed as a property of the entire system or maintained by the use of appropriate behavioral contingencies. Values tend to be instrumental in nature. Teleology is much easier to apply than deontology is. Social action in a moral evaluation context could embody the descriptive change imperative, but not the normative change imperative.
Prescriptiveness could be
symbolically linguistic in nature or substantively habitual in nature. situation in which mental events can have no substantive ethical reality.
Moral evaluation is a
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NAME 1
EX
Angell, J.R., 25, 27 Aristotle, 124, 133 Atkinson, R.C., 70 Ayer, A.J., 109, 123
Husserl, E., 26
Bentham, J., 5, 8, 131,152 Bergson, H., 114 Berkeley, G., 25 Bernheim, H., 50 Bleuler, E., 50 Block, N., 95 Bower, G.H., 70 Bradley, F.H., 133 Brentano, F., 68 Breuer, J., 51 Bush, R.R., 70
Kant, I., 4, 11, 13, 14, 15, 25, 59, 129, 132, 136, 137, 138, 143, 145, 148, 149, 154, 156, 192 Keen, E., 28 Kim, J., 95 Koffka, K., 27, 68 K6hler, W., 27, 68 Kraeplin, E., 50 Kiilpe, O., 68
Carnap, R., 95 Carr, H.A., 25, 27 Charcot, J.M., 24, 50 Chomsky, N., 184, 185 Churchland, P.M., 33 Descartes, R., 25, 85, 91, 92, 94, 113, 137, 138 Dewey, J., 133 Dilthey, W., 26 Donagan, A., 13 Estes, W.K., 70, 85 Fodor, J.A., 95, 100 Freud, S., 28, 29, 30, 41, 50, 51, 65, 74, 92, 161,178
Janet, P., 24, 50 Jensen, A.R., 47
Lewis, D., 95 Li6beault, A.A., 50 Locke, J., 25 Mandelbaum, M., 11, 76, 77, 80, 148, 186 Maslow, A.H., 26, 28, 39, 64, 68, 100, 135 Mill, J.S., 131,132, 152 Moore, G.E., 109, 116, 126, 128, 129, 131,150 Morgan, C.D., 47, 73 Mosteller, F., 70 Murray, H.A., 47, 73 Nietzsche, F., 5 Piaget, J., 28, 178 Place, U.T., 95 Plato, 133
Garnett, A.C., 124 Giorgi, A., 26, 28 Griesinger, W., 50 Guthrie, E.R., 25, 28, 70, 85
Restle, F., 70, 85 Riegel, K.F., 26, 29, 71, 87, 185 Rogers, C.R., 26, 28, 64, 135, 178 Rorschach, H., 47, 73 Rubinstein (Rubinshteyn), S.L., 71
Hegel, G.W.F., 5 Hempel, C.G., 95 Hillner, K.P., 32, 64 Hobbes, T., 52, 130 Hull, C.L., 25, 28, 39, 43, 70, 85, 86 Hume, D., 3, 4, 25
Shockley, W., 47 Sidgwick, H., 122, 126, 131 Skinner, B.F., 21, 25, 28, 29, 31, 33, 64, 67, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 92, 100, 107, 130, 159, 162, 178, 179, 180, 181,182, 183, 184, 186 Smart, J.J.C., 95
206 Name Index Socrates, 133 Stevenson, C.L., 109, 123 Suppes, P., 70 Thorndike, E.L., 86 Titchener, E.B., 27, 68 Tolman, E.C., 26, 70, 85, 86
Vargas, E.A., 9 Watson, J.B., 21, 25, 33, 64, 67, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89 Wertheimer, M., 27, 68 Wundt, W.M., 24, 27, 30, 68, 91
SUBJECT INI)EX
Abnormal population, 10 Abnormality, 35, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47-55, 182 as immorality/unnaturalness, 54 contemporary view of, 48, 49 cultural, relative approach to, 51, 53-54 - etiology of, 48, 50-51 homosexuality, as instance of, 51-54 informal, implicit operational specification of, 55 operational identification of, 48, 51-55 personal adjustment criterion in, 51, 54-55 - psychogenic view of, 29, 50-51 reality level of, 48-50, 51 somatogenic view of, 50 statistical, frequency approach to, 51-53 traditional view of, 48-49 versus anomaly, 48 versus maladaptation, 49, 50, 51, 54, 55 - versus normality, 41, 48 Abortion, 11 and the Catholic church, 11 Absolute (pure) objectivity, 65-66, 71-73, 81 Academic, experimental psychology, 18, 20, 23-25, 30, 45, 47, 57, 61, 63, 64, 67, 69, 70, 83, 89, 93, 99, 100, 105, 107, 108, 111, 115, 117, 133, 135, 137, 138, 152, 162, 168, 171,173, 177, 193 as conceptual basis of applied psychology, 24 conflict with applied psychology of, 25 current status of, in America, 25 goal of, 24 historical roots of, 24 value system of, 24 Act, 79, 88, 110, 112, 122, 124, 131,136, 143,144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 163, 168, 187, 188, 189, 190 ethical/moral status of, 79-81,105-106, 139, 141, 142, 143, 150-151,166, 174, 181 - good versus right, 141, 144 in utilitarianism, 152, 153 - involuntary, 85, 174, 175 -voluntary, 85, 88, 113, 124, 128, 174, 175. - S e e a l s o Action (human); Behavior; Behavior, as output; Conduct; Response events Act psychology, 28, 68 -
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Action equation, 150, 169, 188 implementation decisions associated with, 142, 151-153 misapplication of, 150-151 Action (human), 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 41, 77, 78, 129, 131,142, 166, 171,174, 175, 190, 191 - theory of, 18. - S e e a l s o Act; Behavior; Behavior, as output; Conduct; Response events Action psychology, 25, 26, 28, 34, 58, 67, 70, 84, 85, 86, 87, 90, 152, 162, 163, 173 After-the-fact explanation, 161 A g a p e , 13, 14, 136, 142, 149 Age, 31, 35, 37, 41, 42, 48 as discriminator, 36 American culture, pragmatic, utilitarian orientation of, 24, 27 American Psychological Association, 25 American Psychological Society, 25 Animism (primitive), 17, 18-19 Applied, professional psychology, 23-25, 30, 44, 45, 57, 58, 61,111,135, 137, 138, 161,171 conceptual basis of, 24 conflict with academic psychology of, 25 current status of, in America, 25 evaluative aspects of, 44-45 goal of, 24 historical roots of, 24 value system of, 24 Associationistic psychology, 27 Automata, 32 Axiological pluralism, 132 -
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Bad, 4, 19, 21, 41, 42, 43, 51,103, 110, 121,122, 127, 128, 142, 143, 144, 154, 155, 157, 164, 165, 170, 178, 179, 182, 183, 185, 194 Hobbes' mechanistic account of, 130 - Moore's exemplars of, 129 approach to, 130, 179, 181-182 - status of, 127-128. - S e e a l s o Evil Behavior, 16, 18, 20, 21, 25-26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 34, 39-40, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 60, 61, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 77, 78, -
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21)8 S u b j e c t I n d e x 83, 84, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 106, 107, 108, 110, 112, 127, 131,136, 137, 138, 140, 143, 144, 145, 152, 154, 155, 156, 161,162, 163, 168, 169, 171,172, 173, 174, 175, 177, 179, 180, 181,182, 187, 189, 190, 191,193, 194 - as input, 97-98 - as molar activity, 87 - deviant, 53 - end focus on, 89 - instrumental, means focus on, 89 - versus conscious experience: metaphysical neutrality of, 99-100, 107. - See also Act; Action (human); Behavior, as output; Conduct; Response events Behavior, as output, 97, 175 - access to, 84, 85-86 - as descriptive, semantic label, 84, 99-100, 107 - as metaphysical category, 84, 99-100 - existential reality level of, 87-89 - historical overview of, 84-85 - material composition of, 84, 87-89, 94, 95, 107108 - objectivity versus subjectivity status of, 84, 86-87 - properties of, 87-88 - relationship to substrata and superstrata of, 84, 90 - use of, 84, 89. - See also Act; Action (human); Behavior; Conduct; Response events Behavior modification, 48, 49, 51, 55 Behavioral change inducement operations, 191 Behavioral change specialist, 175 Behavioral control consequences, 175 Behavioral psychology, 9, 43, 48 Behavioral variability, 175 Behaviorism, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 33, 39, 40, 41, 43, 46, 70, 73, 136, 162, 184 - as experimental psychology, 42 - contemporary, 49 "Behaviorist manifesto," 67 Behavioristic systems, 27, 28 Bioethics, 10, 20 British empiricism, 3, 25, 91, 113, 130, 131 British school of epistemological, mental philosophy, 113, 130 Buddhism, 3, 134 Cartesian entities, 161 Cartesian interpretation of mind, 19, 91, 94, 100, 137, 172 Cartesian mind-body dualism, 43, 84, 94, 96, 97, 99, 112, 138, 172 Cartesian philosophy, 84, 88, 91, 113 Categorical imperatives, 2, 4, 115, 137 Causal agency in functional role specification, 32, 34, 88, 95, 96 Causative input event, 176, 177 Cause, 17, 18-22, 36, 38, 65, 69, 106-107, 117, 136, 167, 193 - of behavior, 17, 18-22, 28, 41-42, 50, 51, 58, 61, 64, 85, 112, 137, 175
- types of, 17, 18, 83, 107 Central state identity theory, 34, 94, 95, 96, 97, 176 Change imperatives, 45 -descriptive, 45, 160, 161,162, 163, 193, 194 - normative, 45, 160, 161, 162, 163, 183, 193, 194 Character, 11 - qualities of, 12, 16 - traits of, 75, 155 Chomsky's approach to language, 184-185 Christian dictum (general), as a maxim, 15 Christian (the ideal), 134 Circularity [circular concept(s)], 18, 19, 61, 108, 124, 134, 140, 171 Classical conditioning, 87, 131 - as Pavlovian conditioning, 131 - as respondent conditioning, 131 Classical Greek philosophers/philosophy, 12, 124, 130, 131,133 - Aristotle, 124 -Epicureans, 130, 133 - Plato, 133 - Socrates, 133 -Stoics, 130, 133 Cognitive ability/capacity, 167, 193 Cognitive approach to ethics, 104, 108-112, 1 1 4 , 118, 122, 140, 163, 164-165, 168 -naturalistic version, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 116, 186 - nonnaturalistic version, 109, 111, 112, 114, 116 Cognitive behaviorism, 27, 28, 69, 96, 97, 99, 112, 184, 186 - contemporary, 96 - information processing version, 27, 69 Cognitive-developmental psychology, 28, 29. See also Genetic-epistemological psychology Cognitive/epistemological psychology, 25, 58, 162. See also Cognitive psychology; Epistemological psychology Cognitive materialism, 148 Cognitive models, 96, 98 Cognitive processes, 20, 25, 64, 65, 83, 98, 99, 167, 173,
176,
177
Cognitive psychology, 17, 18, 20-21, 39, 64, 68, 69, 87, 91, 99, 100, 107, 133, 138, 162, 163, 176, 176-177, 193. See also Cognitive/epistemological psychology; Epistemological psychology Cognitive theory, 131 Cognitive variables, 163 Color vision (blindness), 52-53 Combined epistemological-social action statements, 57-58, 108, 159, 160-163 - descriptive mechanism focus, 191 - generic laboratory situation focus, 160, 162-163, 179, 191 - optimal approach, 163 - real-world focus, 160, 161-162 - self-focus, 160-161, 163, 191 Command(s), 13, 118, 146, 166, 185 - divine, 11, 59 Common good, 123, 124-125, 132, 151
Subject Index
as general, inclusive good, 124-125 Computer-brain analogy, 27, 69 Computer simulation (modeling), 20, 27, 43, 95, 99 Conditioning, as world view, 24 Conduct, 1, 16-22, 41, 83, 152, 176 - etiology of, 17-22 - historical conceptions of, 16, 17-22 open-endedness of, 16-17. See also Act; Action (human); Behavior; Behavior, as output; Response events Conscience, 59 Conscious experience, 25, 27, 30, 35, 41, 64, 65, 70, 72, 76, 83, 84, 90, 99, 107, 108, 132, 135, 171, 177 as end, 96 as input, 97, 98-99 as means, 97 versus behavior: metaphysical neutrality of, 99100, 107. - See also Conscious experience, as output Conscious experience, as output, 97, 173, 180 access to, 84, 91-93 as descriptive, semantic label, 84, 99-100, 107 - as metaphysical category, 84, 99-100 composition of, 84, 94-96, 107-108 existential reality level of, 94-96 - historical overview of, 84, 90-91 objectivity versus subjectivity status of, 84, 93-94 relationship to substrata and superstrata of, 84, 97 - use of, 84, 96-97. - See also Conscious experience Conscious intelligence, 32, 33, 34, 95, 125, 166, 167, 173 Consciousness, 28, 68, 72, 74, 86, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 107, 108, 112, 113, 114, 125, 132, 160, 163, 169, 170, 171,173, 185, 190 adaptive function of, 89 animal, 93, 99 - as regulating overt behavior, 172 dissociation of (Janet), 50 emotional, 28, 68, 73, 74, 83, 92, 93, 97 operations of, 70, 85, 89 - perceptual, 68, 73, 74, 83, 91, 96, 184 - self, 90, 91, 93, 96, 140, 156, 160, 167, 171-172, 172, 184, 192 - utility of, 25, 27 Consequential events (consequences), 131, 132, 162, 169, 180, 182, 188, 189 compositional nature of, in utilitarianism, 152-153 delayed, remote, 182, 183 exploitative nature of, in utilitarianism, 153 -good, 132, 149-154 immediate, 182, 183 in hedonism, 132 - in teleology, 142 negative, 183 positive, 183 Consequentialism, 121,138, 141,144, 147, 149154, 166, 169, 189. See also Teleology; Utilitarianism
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Content of observation, 63, 64, 65, 66, 75, 78, 83, 96, 97, 107 definition of, 64 examples of, 64-65 in combined objective x subjective orientation, 70, 71 in objective orientation, 67, 74 in quasi-objective orientation, 69 in subjective orientation, 68, 74 locus of psychological causation in, 64-65, 69, 70, 74, 78, 83, 96 - object of study in, 64-65, 69, 70, 74, 78, 83, 107 Contingencies (controlling), 180, 181, 182, 183 aversive, 182 behavioral, 194 environmental, 163, 175 punitive, 182, 183 reinforcement, 21, 88, 152, 169, 173, 179, 180, 182, 183, 184 - reward, 21, 162 social, 183 Control, 9, 28, 39, 40, 41, 67, 89, 99, 136, 160, 161, 162, 175, 180 autocratic, 170 12, 19, 110, 111,165, 166, 168, 169, 170, 175, 176, 182, 183, 185, 191 by mental events, 64 counter, 170 - psychological, 44 punitive, 169 reinforcement, 85, 87, 169, 182 social, 9, 44, 182 Countercontrol, 170 Culpability of actor, 16, 75, 77, 79, 191, 193. See also Moral judgments, second-order
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2
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Darwinian evolutionary tradition, 26 Declaratives, as ethical statements, 110, 116, 164 Deontic logic, 118 Deontology, 20, 79, 105, 121,132, 137, 144, 147, 150, 151,153, 154, 156, 157, 161,166, 189, 191, 192, 193, 194 in relation to right act, 141-142, 148, 149 Kant in, 149, 173 theologically based, 141. - See also Formalism Depth psychology, 26, 29, 30, 51, 58, 65, 69, 84, 87, 94, 96, 97, 108, 135, 138, 160, 173 Freudian, 161 - latter-day, 45, 135, 138 Descriptive behaviorism, 21, 27, 28, 28-29, 64, 67, 69, 94, 97, 98, 99, 101,176, 178, 193 Descriptive causal law(s), 64, 69, 87, 98 Descriptive existence, 3, 9, 45 Descriptive-normative distinction, 2, 3, 4, 9, 38 Descriptive system, 67 Determinism, 17, 18, 19, 64, 71, 89, 136, 137, 138, 172, 173, 174, 175, 190 bidirectional, 21 - psychic, 29, 65 -
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210
Subject Index
- psychodynamic, 96. - See also Determinism, semantic analogues for
Determinism, semantic analogues for: - externally imposed pathology, 43, 51, 161 - forced behavior, 42 - involuntary behavior, 88, 174, 175 - low-level, emotionally, physiologically determined behavior, 174 - reflexively determined behavior, 174 Determinism versus responsibility issue, 138, 159 Deterministic mechanisms, 144 Developmental psychology, 23, 71, 98 Developmentally disadvantaged, 21, 32, 37, 44, 61, 92, 192, 193 Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 4 th edition: DSM-IV, 49 Dialectical dialogue, 71, 185 Dialectical materialism, 97 Dialectical psychology, 26, 29, 34, 43, 45, 58, 66, 71, 84, 87, 97, 152, 160, 161,173, 184, 185 Differential qualia problem, 90, 93 Disciplinary psychology, 58, 100, 105, 107, 108, 110,
111,
177,
185
Discriminatory agents/characteristics, 35-38, 46 Divine holy order, 143 Divine origin, 140 Duties, 1, 2, 13-14, 15, 20, 21, 59, 105, 118, 126, 130, 132, 134, 138, 139, 143, 144, 148, 155, 156, 157, 163, 186, 193 -conflicting, 145, 146-147 - converging, 145, 146-147 -Kant's approach to, 15, 137, 154, 192 -Kant's two types of, 11, 13, 14, 143, 145, 146 - o f imperfect obligation, 13, 14, 143, 145, 146 - o f perfect obligation, 13, 14, 143, 145, 146 - ostensible versus actual, 146 -primafacie, 114, 145, 146 - to others, 13 -to self, 13, 145, 147 Eastern, Oriental psychology, 108 Emotional closure, 161. See also Emotional Satisfaction Emotional satisfaction, 42, 43. See also Emotional closure Emotive approach to ethics, 59, 104, 108-111, 114, 116, 117, 118, 122, 127, 128, 140, 144, 148, 163, 165-166, 168, 186 - prescriptivism version of, 110, 116, 117, 123 Emotive statements, 59. See also Emotive approach to ethics Empiricism, 7, 63, 68, 94, 103, 104, 112-113, 114, 115, 118, 129, 134, 154. See also Naturalistic cognitivism Enabling environment, as ultimate good, 134 Epiphenomenal output event, 61, 167, 176, 177 Epistemological ethical issues, classic set of, 5, 105, 108, 121 - cognitivism versus emotivism, 104, 108-111, 114 - ethical reasoning, 104, 117-118, 119
identification of ethical properties, 104, 112-116 meaning of ethical terms, 5, 104, 109, 116-117, 118, 179 - naturalism versus nonnaturalism, 104, 111-112, 114 - summary, 118-119 Epistemological psychology, 18, 26, 27-28, 68, 69, 70, 83, 152, 162, 173. See also Cognitive/epistemoiogical psychology; Cognitive psychology Epistemology, 2, 7, 103-104, 121 Epistemology, classic approaches to, 112-116 - empiricism, 112-113 - intuitionism, 112, 113-114 - rationalism, 112, 113 - revelationism, 112, 114 Ethical beliefs, as nontranscendent of epistemological beliefs of surrounding culture, 6 Ethical decentralization (contemporary), 2, 10, 11 Ethical doctrine, 107, 143, 176 - implementation of, 110-111 - naturalistically based, 2, 104, 108-112, 118, 125, 127, 130, 159, 183 -traditional, 18, 81,105, 106, 127, 168 Ethical/moral good, 123, 124 Ethical notion of everyone/impersonality, 10, 106, 124-125, 151,192 Ethical phenomena, derivation of, 75-81, 103, 105 Ethical principles, 2, 6, 52 - generality of, 10-11 - Hobbes' "Might makes right," 52 Ethical reality, construction of, 3, 5, 20, 159-194 Ethical reality, evaluation of, 3, 118 Ethical reasoning, 104, 117-118, 1 1 9 - and moral reasoning, 117 - deductive, 118 - deontic (logic), 118 - in moral choice, 118 - in moral evaluation, 118 - inductive, 118 Ethical respect, 156, 169 Ethical rights, !39, 140, 169, 192, 193 - as central metaphysical issue of ethics, 140 Ethical space, notion of, 75-76, 78 Ethical systems, 6 - design in, 4 -justification of, 3 - logic of, 3 - order in, 4 Ethical terms, clarification of, 5, 109, 117 Ethical terms, meaning of, 5, 104, 109, 116-117, 118 - causal, psychological theory of, 116-117 - referential theory of, 116 - Skinner's approach to, 179 - use approach to, 116, 117 - verificationist theory of, 109, 116 Ethically correct courses of action, 121, 137, 139, 141,142, 143, 145, 149, 150, 155, 156, 157, 165, 193 Ethically incorrect courses of action, 121, 141, 143, -
Subject lndex
150, 157 Ethics, 1-11, 23, 35, 45, 57, 60, 61, 62, 100 and bioethics, 10, 20 applied, 176 - applied types (examples) of, 10, 20 as comprising two worlds, 193-194 as exchange system, 186 as naturalistic endeavor/phenomenon, 6-7, 60, 105, 108-112, 118, 125, 127, 144, 159 - domain of, 2-3, 20, 76-77, 83, 103, 105, 124 - duty based, 151, 156 end function of, 4, 5, 6, 105, 118, 122 existential status of, 2, 6-7 - first-person, 79. See also Moral choice - folk, 2, 11, 14 - function of, 2, 4-6 goal of, 144 - in applied, professional psychology, 25 - introduction to, 2-3 language function in, 183-186 locus of causation in, 77, 78 means function of, 4, 5, 6, 57, 105, 118, 169 - ontogeny in, 57, 61-62 phenomena in, 58, 63, 78, 81 - phylogeny in, 57, 61-62 - plurality of, 23 - prescriptive nature of, 2-3, 59-60, 125-126, 139, 167 self versus significant other in, 60, 190-192 self-realization approach to, 134, 147 -Skinner's approach to, 21-22, 126, 159, 170, 178183 - third-person, 79. See also Moral evaluation ultimate source of, 166-167 Western, 10, 106, 124, 192 - will of God variant of, 9, 59, 114, 139, 141,168 Eudaemonism. See Self-realization, as metaphysical approach to good Evil, 14, 58, 114, 122, 127, 128, 129, 143,150, 151, 157, 162, 177, 179 - status of, 127-128. - See also Bad Exclamations, as ethical statements, 110, 165, 166 Existence of other minds problem, 90, 91, 93 Existential philosophy, 118 Existential psychology, 28, 30, 68, 94, 160, 168, 171, 172. See also Humanistic psychology; Phenomenological psychology; Third force movement Existentialism, 59, 140, 168, 194 Experience, 40, 41, 68, 90, 96, 100 Experimental learning psychologist, 40 Experimental psychologist, 87 Experimental psychology. See Academic, experimental psychology Extrinsic, instrumental good, 123-124, 141 as functional, contingent good, 123-124 -
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First-person (direct) access, 19, 20, 27, 28, 72, 73, 85, 86, 90, 91-92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100,
211
106, 108, 110, 118, 142, 160, 168, 169, 170, 171, 190, 191,193 contemporary view of, 92, 93 traditional view of, 92 Folk ethics (morality), 2, 11, 14 Folk psychology, 11, 17, 18, 19-20, 42, 43, 58, 64, 91,100, 105, 106, 107, 108, 137-138, 148, 161, 171,173,182, 193 Folklore, 19, 161 Formal permissibility, 16 Formalism, 79, 121,141,148. See also Deontology Free will, 17, 18, 20, 64, 106, 140, 160, 161,171, 173, 174, 190, 193 mentalistic, 113. - See also Free will, semantic analogues for Free will, semantic analogues for: conscious choice, 42 - free choice, 175 high-level, rationalistic, self-determined responses, 174 self-caused, 174 - self-control, 44, 106, 161, 171, 175, 193 self-determinism, 43, 160, 174 self-generated changes in behavior, 64, 175 -voluntary act/behavior, 85, 88, 113, 124, 128, 174, 175 Freewheeling phenomenology, 74, 91, 94 Freudian free association, 70, 74-75, 92 Freudian psychoanalysis, 26, 29, 30, 31, 51, 55, 69, 74, 75, 160, 161 Freudian psychoanalytic psychology, 24, 39, 50 Freudian psychology, 70, 94, 96 Freudian theory, 43 Functional (causal) role specification, 32, 33, 34, 88, 95, 96, 100, 107, 112, 117, 133, 173 Functional role(s), 127 Functionalism (functionalist psychology), 25, 27, 28, 43, 70, 74, 85, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97 classical, 89 Functionalism (philosophical approach to mentation), 94, 95, 96, 97, 173 -
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General good, 123, 125, 132, 151 as variant of common good, 125 General well-being, 13. See also Social welfare Generality, 66, 79 Genetic-epistemological psychology, 28, 69, 97, 178. See also Cognitive-developmental psychology Gestalt psychology, 24, 27, 28, 68, 70, 74, 86, 87, 89, 91, 92, 94, 96, 97 Golden Rule, 14-15 behavioral analogue for, 170 Good, 1, 4, 5, 10, 14, 19, 21, 41, 42, 43, 58, 103, 109, 110, 113, 114, 118, 121,127, 128, 133, 134, 142, 143, 144, 148, 150, 154, 155, 156, 157, 162, 164, 165, 166, 170, 177, 178, 179, 182, 183, 185, 189, 194 - as absolute property, 126 as descriptive label, 126, 127, 181 -
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212
as evaluative, grading concept, 122 linguistic concept, 125, 126, 127, 181 - as naturalistic property, 126 - as nonnaturalistic property, 109 - as relational notion, 125, 126-127 as social construct, 125, 127 classic doctrines of, 122, 123, 128-138 - conceptual status of, 122, 123, 125-127 content of, in act utilitarianism: eudaemonistic versus hedonistic, 151 - definitional expressions for: description versus predication, 122-123 distribution of, in act utilitarianism: good aggregative versus locus aggregative, 151-152 Hobbes' mechanistic account of, 130 - introduction to, 122 locus of, in act utilitarianism: particularist versus universalist, 151 - meaning of, 122-123 - Moore's conception of, 109, 150 - Moore's exemplars of, 128-129 - perfect realization of, 9 psychological interpretations of, 122, 129-138 Sidgwick's view of, 131 approach to, 130, 179, 181-182, 183 status of, as prescriptive concept, 125, 126, 127 of, 123, 126, 128-138 - types of, 122, 123-125 Good of its kind, 123, 124 - as best exemplar, 124 - as ethical/moral good, 124 - in Maslow's thought, 135 - in Rogers' thought, 136 self-realization as, 134 Good reasons approach, 117, 118, 123 Good will, 136, 157 -impartial (agape), 13, 14, 15, 136 Kantian (moral, rational will), 136-138 -
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Happiness, 2, 13, 14, 97, 109, 132, 136, 157 as ultimate good, 129, 130, 131 eudaemonistic view of, 130, 133 in Kantian ethics, 136 in utilitarianism, 151 Hebraic-Christian tradition, 9, 14, 20, 105, 114, 161, 173, 192 Hedonic (felicific) calculus, 131 Hedonism, as metaphysical approach to good, 129, 150, 151,192 as pluralistic doctrine, 132 - history of, 129, 130-131 philosophical criticism of, 129, 131-132 philosophical, ethical version of, 129-130, 131, 132, 133 psychological evaluation of, 129, 132-133 - psychological version of, 129-130, 131,133 Hegelian philosophical tradition, 26 Heisenberg's principle, 66 Higher-order inferable (theoretical) constructs, 43, 145, 154, 156. See also Hypothetical -
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(theoretical) constructs Homo sapiens, 2, 7, 41, 62, 167, 172, 173, 183, 192 Human being, 2, 12, 13, 35, 43, 44, 46, 61, 89, 91, 96, 129, 136, 140, 159, 167, 171 as automaton, 174 as autonomous creature, 20, 21, 171, 179 as biological entity, 90, 97, 172 - as energy transduction device, 162, 176 as ethical creature, 167 as information processor, 24, 173 as modeled after animal, 43, 129, 172 as modeled after machine, 172, 174 - as object of psychological analysis, 23, 29-31, 46, 60 - as physicochemical entity, 175 - as possessor of psychological rights, 43 - as psychic entity, 26, 29 - as psychodynamic entity, 26, 29 - as social entity, 90, 97 end methodological conception of, 29, 30, 31, 72, 73, 75, 97, 106 ethical status of, 106, 140 means and end methodological conception of, 29, 30-31, 72, 73, 75, 106 means methodological conception of, 29, 30, 31, 72, 73, 106 mechanistic approach to, 41, 89, 130, 161,172176, 190, 191,192, 192-193 metaphysical approaches to, 171-173, 190 - methodological approaches to, 171, 173, 190 moral agency conception of, 42, 140, 160, 171172, 173-176, 190, 191,192, 192-193, 194 psychological status of, 106 - two basic perspectives for studying, 171, 190 Human condition, 3, 15 Human desires/interests (as opposed to duties), 15, 132, 136-137 Human motivation, 129, 135, 170, 189 Human nature, 11, 17, 33, 136, 140, 171 criterial status of, 57, 60-61 mechanistic approach to, 130 Humanistic psychology, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 64, 68, 69, 70, 72, 86, 87, 89, 91, 94, 96, 97, 98, 100, 108, 135, 138, 160, 168, 171, 172, 184, 186, 193. See also Existential psychology; Phenomenological psychology; Third force movement Humean philosophy, 130 Hypnosis, 50 Hypothetical imperatives, 2, 4, 115, 137 and loci ofprescriptiveness, 59, 140, 168 Hypothetical (theoretical) constructs, 69, 72, 98, 100. See also Higher-order inferable (theoretical) constructs Hypothetico-deductive theories, 5, 43 Hysteria, 50, 51 -
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Ideal (as end state), 12, 123, 139, 141 - vision of the, 5, 139
Subject lndex Ideal observer/impartial spectator in ethics, 57, 62, 81 Idealist philosophy, 133 Ideals, 2, 142 - nontranscendence of, 6 Ideology, 161 Impartial spectator/ideal observer in ethics, 57, 62, 81 Imperatives, as ethical statements, 4, 59, 110, 118, 166 Imposition of ethical reality on psychological reality, 159, 163-167, 177;passim Information processing system, autonomous, energy-driven, 32, 34 Innate ideas, 113 Insect, as highest form of life, 172 Instrumental good, 123-124, 141 - as functional, contingent good, 123-124 Instrumentalism, 9, 19, 21, 44, 79, 151,155, 156, 162, 173, 179, 192, 194 Intellectual closure, 42, 43 Intelligence, 96, 172 Intelligence quotient (IQ), 31, 36, 41-42, 46, 47, 52 as discriminator, 37 Intelligence test (IQ test), 37, 42, 46, 47 Internal consistency (coherence), 136 Intrinsic good, 123, 124, 126, 128, 130, 141 - as canonical, prototypical type of good, 123 Introspection, 68, 74, 91, 92, 96, 173, 184 - by analogy, 92-93, 98 Introspective analogies, 93 Intuitionism, 7, 59, 109, 111, 112, 113-114, 115, 129, 131,140, 142, 148, 154 Intuitive understanding, 39, 40, 43, 55, 99, 118, 160 -
Justice, 21, 133, 182 social, 140, 143 -
Kantian ethical philosophy, 4, 149, 154, 156, 173, 192 Kantian framework, 28 Kantian philosophy, 91,145, 147, 154 Kantian principle of universalization (test), 13, 141, 145-146, 148, 149, 154 Kantian psychology, 136-137 Kant's categorical imperatives, as maxims, 14, 15 Kant's conception of good: good will, 129, 136-138, 139, 140 - as primary progenitor of one's duty, 138 - as respect for the moral law, as ultimate good, 137, 139 Kant's conception of human being, 136-137 Kant's moral psychodynamics, 136-138 Kant's nonmoral psychodynamics, 136-138 Laboratory situation (generic), 58, 115, 160, 162163 Language function, 73, 74, 106, 140, 159, 167, 168, 177, 183-186, 193
213
Language, in dialectical psychology, subtypes of, 185 protolanguage, 185 token language, 185 transaction language, 185 Law (jurisprudence), 2, 8, 143, 182 and legal system, 171, 182 - English common law in, 8 Learning macrotheory, 28, 70, 99 Linguistic analysis, 5 British ordinary language analysis, as variant of, 5, 8, 110, 117, 186 Linguistic reality, 49, 59, 107, 135, 140, 168, 169, 177 Linguistics, 110, 149, 167, 184, 185 Literary psychology, 161 Loci ofprescriptiveness issue, 57, 59-60, 139-140, 159, 163, 167-169 habitual status approach to, 59, 140, 168, 194 reality approach to, 59, 140, 168, 169, 194 - phenomenal world approach to, 59, 140, 167-168, 194 Locus of causation, 85, 87, 90, 96, 97, 98, 100, 107, 112 Logic, 103, 104 - deductive, 113 deontic, 118 Logical behaviorism (philosophical), 95 Logical behaviorism (psychological), 28, 70, 99 Logical consistency, 154 Logical positivism, 95, 96, 97, 109, 116 Logical principle, rule, 141, 149 -
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Magicalism, 19 Mainstream psychology, 29 Marxist philosophical tradition, 26 Maslow's need hierarchy, 135 Material composition, 89, 90, 95, 96, 98, 99, 107, 160, 172 Material composition specification, 32, 33, 34, 112, 117 - physiological approach to, 133 Material permissibility, 16 Material realism, 7 Materialism, 130; passim Mathematical model approach, 70 Meaning, 163, 168 connotative, emotional, 116 critical, 165, 166 denotative, descriptive, 116, 164, 165, 166 directive, 166 164, 165, 166 lexical, literal, 116 Mechanism, 41, 89, 130, 161,172-176, 190, 191, 192, 192-193 Mechanistic psychology, 110, 176, 178 Mental event(s)/state(s), 16, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 27, 34, 47, 64, 65, 79, 83, 84, 85, 91, 92, 93, 94, 98, 99, 100, 107, 112, 117, 133, 136, 148, 152, 161, 1 1 7 ,
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214
Subject Index
167, 170, 172, 184 active, 172, 173 -as cause, 99, 100, 107, 117, 137, 138, 149, 173, 176, 177, 178, 194 - as epiphenomenal output, 21, 58, 100, 101, 107, 112, 117, 149, 173, 176, 177, 178 - beliefs as, 19, 79, 98, 170 - Cartesian substantive approach to, 94, 96, 99 - closure on, 100-101 - composition of, 98, 99, 100 - conceptions of, 94-96 - desires as, 19, 79, 84, 170 - ethical reality/role of, 58, 159, 176-178, 194 - existential reality level of, 94-96 - functional approach to, 94, 95, 96, 99, 177 - functionally defined, 172 - logical approach to, 94, 95, 96, 99 - materially defined, 172 - passive, 172, 173 - phenomenology of, 93 - physical/physiological approach to, 34, 94, 95, 96, 99 - status of, 107 Metaphysical ethical issues, classic set of, 103-104, 121 -nature of duty, obligation, 121,138, 139, 145-147, 157 -nature of good, 121,122-138, 157 - nature of moral worth, value, 122, 154-156, 157 -nature of ought, ought not, 138, 139-140, 156 -nature of right, wrong, 121,126, 138, 139, 141143, 144, 157 -nature of virtue, vice, 122, 154, 155-156, 157 - nature of virtuous, vicious person, 122, 154-155, -
156,
157
relationship between good and right or bad/evil and wrong, 121,126, 130, 141,144, 147-154 - relationship between value and obligation, 121, 138, 141,147-154, 179 Metaphysics, 2, 7-8, 103-104, 121 Mind, 24, 25, 27, 28, 84, 92, 94, 100, 137, 172, 173 -Cartesian, 19, 84, 94, 100, 137, 172 - materialist account of, 97 - non-Cartesian, physicalistic interpretation of, 20 - universal, 30, 68 Mind-body issue (traditional), 33, 83, 99 Molecular, associationistic psychology, 27 Monism, 172 - idealistic, 107 -material, 95, 100, 105, 107, 173, 177 - mental, 107 - physical, 95, 100, 105, 107 Monistic, mechanistic psychology, 110, 176, 178 Moral agency, 42, 140, 160, 171-172, 173-176, 190, 191,192, 192-193, 194 Moral agent(s), 14, 20, 21, 31, 41, 42, 59, 146, 161, 179 Moral assessments, changes in, over time, 60, 78, 187, 188, 191 Moral behavior, 176 -
- as free choice, 176 - as programmable goal, 176 Moral character, 77, 78, 155, 177, 178 Moral choice, 6, 60, 63, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 8 l, 83, 106, 108, l lO, 112, l l8, 140, 157, 160, 167, 173, 178, 187, 188, 191,193-194 - as related to deontology, 142 - as related to teleology, 142. - See also Moral judgments, direct Moral codes, l, 19 Moral conduct, universal standards of, 141, 143-144 Moral conflict, 6, 7, 146 Moral consciousness (awareness), 6, 11, 62 Moral controversies, resolution of, 188-190 Moral controversies, types of, 6, 159, 186-190 - differences in degree, 188 -disagreements, 6, 159, 186-187, 188, 189, 190 -disparities, 159, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190 - divergences, 80, 81, 159, 186, 187, 188 Moral development, 62, 186 Moral dicta, 12 Moral dilemma, 118 Moral/ethical good, 123, 124 Moral evaluation, justification, 6, 60, 63, 75, 77, 78, 79, 106, 108, 110, 112, 118, 140, 154, 157, 160, 162, 186, 187, 188, 191,194 - as related to deontology, 142 - as related to teleology, 142. - See also Moral judgments, removed Moral judgments, 1, 2, 11, 16, 35, 60, 61, 63, 83, 118 - derivation of, 75-81, 103, 105 - direct, 63, 75, 76, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 105-106, 110, 112, 118, 140, 142, 154, 157, 160, 162, 163, 167, 168, 170, 171,177, 178, 186, 187, 188, 191,193 - existential status of, 103-119 - first-order, 15, 16, 77, 78, 79 - removed, 63, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 105-106, 110, 112, 118, 140, 142, 154, 155, 157, 160, 162, 163, 168, 170, 171,177-178, 178, 186, 187, 188, 189, 191,193 - second-order, 15, 16, 77, 78, 79 Moral law, 118, 147 -Kantian, 137, 139 Moral precept(s), 12, 13, 21, 59, 144, 182 - primary, 11, 14-15 Moral principle(s), 143, 144, 153 - traditional, 141 Moral reality, 104 Moral relativity, 143 Moral responsibility, 17, 18, 20, 61,106, 138, 160, 161,171,172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 182, 192, 193 Moral rule (prescription), 2, 4, 144 - and loci ofprescriptiveness, 59, 140, 168 - in rule utilitarianism, 153 Moral stipulation, 35-38, 46, 48, 49-50, 52, 54, 55 Moral traditions/universes, two basic kinds of, 159, 173-176 - mechanism, 173-176, 192 - moral agency, 173-176, 192
Subject Index Moral worth (value), 3, 60, 75, 77, 78, 143, 154156, 157, 162, 168, 178, 187, 188, 189, 190, 193 conceptualization of, 156, 189 -judgment of, 155, 177, 191 Morality, 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11-16, 35, 38, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 100 - Christian. See Hebraic-Christian tradition - common, 9, 11, 14 -folk, 11, 14 of, 11, 12-13, 130, 134, 160 - inner essence of, 169 - perspectives in: self versus externally imposed, 7273, 79, 81,106, 108 - pre-Christian, 12 - purpose (function) of, 144 thematic tensions in, 11, 15 Motion (animate and inanimate), 18, 85 -
- g o a l ( s )
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Nationality (versus race), 37 Natural law, 11, 130, 172 Natural (physical) universe, 12 - order in, 3 Naturalistic analysis, 128 Naturalistic cognitivism, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 116, 186 Naturalistic fallacy, 109, 111, 116 Nazism, 3, 43, 134 Nineteenth century French psychopathology, 24, 50 Nineteenth century German psychiatry, 50 Nomothetic laws, 89 Nonnaturalistic cognitivism, 109, 111, 112, 114, 116 Nonnormal functioning human adults: Maslow's "sickies," 135 Normative-descriptive distinction, 2, 3, 4, 9, 38 Objective, experimental psychology, 65, 67, 69, 168, 171 Obligations, 1, 4, 13-14, 15, 20, 21, 36, 59, 110, 121,126, 130, 132, 134, 137, 138, 139, 143, 144, 146, 156, 157, 164, 165, 166, 170, 179, 193 legal, 44 -primafacie, 114, 145, 146 - promissory, 142 Operant conditioning, 28 contingencies in, 162 Operant psychology, 28, 87 Operant response(s), 34, 85, 87, 88, 95, 180, 181, 184 characteristics of, 87 - verbal, 184, 185 Operational definition, 37, 40, 42, 48, 51-55, 58 - of behavior, 87, 88 Orientations, 63, 64, 66, 73, 75, 78, 83, 105, 167 - and language function, 184-185 - as mapping tool in ethics, 76-77 - combined objective x subjective, 66, 70-71, 72, 77, 184, 185, 186 definition of, 66 - objective, 66, 67, 71, 72, 73, 74, 77, 78, 79, 89, 107, 171,176, 184, 185, 190 1 1 3 ,
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215
- quasi-objective, 66, 69-70, 72, 74, 77, 78, 79, 89, 96, 107, 184-185, 186 - subjective, 66, 68-69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 81, 97, 107, 171,184, 185, 186, 190 - two perspectives and, 72-73, 79, 81, 106, 171 Ought, ought not, 1-3, 138, 139-140, 148, 156, 167, 181,183 Pain. See Pleasure Permissibles, 143 Personal well-being, as ultimate good, 129 Personality, 47, 133, 135, 136, 155 Phenomenological events in progress, 110 Phenomenological focus, 91, 108 Phenomenological psychology, 27, 28, 30, 42, 65, 68, 91, 99, 135, 160, 168, 171,172, 184, 186. See also Existential psychology; Humanistic Psychology; Third force movement Phenomenological reality, 170 Phenomenological sense, 167 Phenomenological tradition (Continental), 26 Phenomenological truth (versus reductive truth), 190 Philosophical existence criteria (contemporary), 3334, 58, 72, 78 Philosophical hedonism, 138, 147, 173 Philosophy of science, 113 Physical realism, 7 Physical science, 2, 9, 44, 48, 65, 66, 69, 86, 113, 162, 164, 172 Physiological materialism, 17, 18, 20-21,107, 112, 133, 138, 148, 176 Physiological psychology, 193 Piagetian genetic-epistemological psychology, 69. See also Genetic-epistemological psychology Piagetian psychology, 28 Pig philosophy, 132 Pleasure, 15, 128, 130, 131,132, 133, 136, 137, 147, 153 as causal or epiphenomenal mental state, 133 as positive affective state, 132-133 - as psychological entity, 132-133 ultimate good, 129, 130, 131,157 Bentham's quantitative view of, 131 in utilitarianism, 151 Mill's qualitative view of, 131 - Sidgwick's view of, 131 Practical reason, 137 Prediction, 39, 40, 41, 67, 89, 98, 99, 136, 160, 161, 162, 175 Predisciplinary psychology, 18, 58, 173 Prescriptions, 166, 181 Primacy of right, 148 Principle of altruism, 149, 151 Principle of association of ideas, 131 Principle of beneficence/benevolence, 13, 14, 142, 149 Principle of culture, 12, 149 Principle of loyalty, 12, 13, 142, 149 Principle of prudence, 130, 149 Principle of self-realization, 134, 146 -
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216
Subject Index
Principle of utility, 114, 146 Principles of just, representative government, 143 Professional psychology. See Applied, professional psychology Prohibitions, 13, 143, 145, 146, 147, 166 Proscriptions, 181 Psycho-analysis, 31 Psychodynamic events/system, 65, 70, 96, 161 Psychogenic approach (to therapy), 29 Psycholinguistics, 185 Psychological event, defining characteristics of, 23, 31-34 Psychological events with ethical significance, characteristics of, 163, 169-170 Psychological hedonism, 147, 173 in Kant, 136-18 Psychological knowledge, relativity of, 71-72 Psychological pluralism, 10, 23, 25-26, 32, 61, 63, 105 Psychological tests, testing, 27, 35, 37, 42, 45-47, 86 as social, sociological instruments, 46, 47 intelligence (IQ), 37, 42, 46, 47 - personality, 42, 46, 47 - validity of, 46, 47 Psychological universes, two basic kinds of, 159, 171 - objective: universal external psychological reality, 171,173, 193 subjective: individualistic intemal psychological world, 171, 173, 193 Psychology, 36 - as end, 23-24 - as means, 23-24 - causal input level of, 35, 38, 41-42 - classificatory level of, 35, 38, 42, 45-46 - conceptual types of, 23, 26-29, 32, 34, 83, 128 - constructive methodology of, 63-75 definitional level of, 35, 38, 40, 42 - descriptive level of, 35, 38, 39-40, 42 - direct objects of study of, 83, 84, 107 epiphenomenal level of, 35, 38, 40-41 ethical aspects of, 35-55, 57 existential status of, 23-25 - explanatory level of, 35, 38, 42-43 - focus of, 65-66 fundamental metaphysical categories of, 84, 107 fundamental metaphysical issue of, 32-34 - goals of, 23, 25-26, 32, 84. See also Psychology, conceptual types of implicit normative stance of, 35, 38, 44, 45, 108, 110 observational level of, 35, 38-39, 40 - observational quandary of, 65-66, 67, 69, 70, 72 - systems of, 26-29, 32, 39, 45, 46, 95, 96 units of analysis of, 57, 176 Psychology of language, 183-186 Psychometrics, 37, 46, 47, 136 Punisher, 181, 182, 183, 185 negative, 181 -
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positive, 181 Punishment, 21, 172, 175, 180 contingencies of, 21, 152, 169, 180, 181, 182 -
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Race, 35, 36, 41, 42, 48 as discriminator, 37 Radical behaviorism, 17, 18, 21-22, 67, 99, 107, 112, 133, 138, 148, 152, 176, 177, 180, 181, 182, 184 applied, 186 Skinnerian, 125 Rationalism, 91, 112, 113, 114, 115 - criteria of truth in, 113 Reason/rational thought, 59, 96, 104, 109, 111, 113, 133, 140, 153, 154, 165, 169, 186, 193 and loci ofprescriptiveness, 59, 140, 169 Reductive truth, 190 Reference individual, 2, 10-11. See also Target population Reinforcement, 92, 180, 184 contingencies of, 21, 88, 152, 169, 179, 180, 182, 183, 184 negative, 130 negative contingencies of, 181 -past history of, 100, 125, 168, 183 - positive, 21,130. See also Reward - positive contingencies of, 181, 182. See also Reward, contingencies of - verbal contingencies of, 173 Reinforcer, 36, 133, 179, 180, 181,182, 185 negative, 180 - personal, 182 155, 164, 165, 166, 179, 180, 181,183. See also Reward societal, 182 Relationship between bad and evil, 127-128, 143 Relationship between bad and good, 127-128, 143, 179 Relationship between value and obligation, 121, 138, 141,179 - ought constructs approach to, 147, 148 semantics approach to, 147, 148 - substantive dependence approach to: consequentialism, teleology, utilitarianism, 147, 149-154 - substantive independence approach to: deontology, formalism, 147, 148-149 Religion (theology), 2, 8, 9, 114, 128, 140, 141,147, 182 Representativeness, 66 Respect, 142 Response events, 21, 34, 46, 47, 64, 73, 85, 86, 87, 88, 95, 98, 100, 107, 133, 149, 152, 162, 164, 168, 169, 174, 176, 177, 178, 180, 183, 184, 187 analogical versus digital attributes of, 86 - as conceptual output constructs, 136 - as functionally defined, 21, 85, 88 - as physiological reflexes, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90 discriminative, indicative, 73 - operant, 34, 85, 87, 88, 95, 180, 181, 184, 185 - respondent, 88, 90 -
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Subject
tacting, 184. Act; Action (human); Behavior; Behavior, as output; Conduct Response-inferred constructs, in humanistic psychology, 184 Responsibility versus determinism issue, 138, 159 Revelationism, 112, 114, 115, 154 Reward, 21, 43, 175 contingencies of, 21, 162. - S e e also Reinforcement; Reinforcer Right, 1, 4, 5, 10, 11, 15, 16, 75, 76, 77, 80, 103, 124, 126, 130, 132, 138, 139, 142, 144, 145, 146, 148, 156, 157, 164, 166, 170, 177, 178, 179, 185, 187, 188, 189, 194 Right act, 141-143, 144, 145 classic approaches to, 141 defining properties of, 141 -extrinsic properties of, 141,142, 149-154, 157 -in deontology, 141-142, 148, 149 -in teleology, 141,142-143, 149-154 - intrinsic properties of: formal versus material, 141, 142, 148, 151,153, 157 Rights, 186 139, 140, 169, 192, 193 - human, 5, 21, 44 - individual, 182 legal, 44 - psychological, 44 societal, 182 Rogers' fully functioning person, 135 Rogers' self-theory, 135 -
- See also
-
110,
118,
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-ethical,
-
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Scientific explanation, 98 Scientific reality, 3, 67 Scientific theory, 42, 43 Self, 12, 13, 14, 15, 30, 31, 57, 58, 60, 85, 86, 90, 91, 92, 93, 98, 106, 108, 110, 130, 135, 146, 147, 149, 155, 159, 167, 170, 171,174, 175, 178, 187, 188, 190, 193 - implications for ethics of, 191-192 in combined epistemological-social action statements, 160, 163 - in ethical space, 75-81 - in orientations, 66-75, 171 in utilitarianism, 151 - versus significant other, 190-191 Self-realization, 5, 12, 14, 31,129, 136, 141,157, 170 as goal, 147, 160 as good of its kind, 134 - as moral duty/obligation, 138, 147 ultimate good, 134, 138, 151,160, 170 - personal fulfillment, 13, 15, 39 -personal well-being/welfare, 3, 12, 13, 14, 129, 133, 135, 151,157, 170 well-being, 133, 134 31,133, 135, 136 - self-fulfillment, 133. - S e e also Self-realization, as metaphysical approach to good -
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- s e l f - a c t u a l i z a t i o n ,
Index
217
Self-realization, as metaphysical approach to good, 129, 133, 160 - advocates of, 133-134 as conceptual response-inferred construct, 136 - in humanistic psychology, 135-136, 160 philosophical criticism of, 133, 134 - psychological evaluation of, 133, 135-136. - S e e a l s o Self-realization Self-report, 40, 55, 65, 68, 78, 81, 84, 92, 93, 94, 98, 99, 106, 160, 168, 192 - method of, 73-74 verbal report variant of, 73, 74, 86, 91,186, 188 Semantic distinctions/verbalisms, 129, 148, 161, 177 Semantics, 117 Sensory qualia, 93, 95, 96 Sentence, as logical unit of ethical analysis, 10, 117, 186 Sex, 31, 35, 39, 41, 42, 48 as discriminator, 36 heterosexual expression of, 51-54 homosexual expression of, 51-54 Sex typing, 36 Significant other, 12, 13, 15, 31, 36, 37, 57, 60, 85, 91, 93, 98, 106, 108, 155, 159, 162, 163, 171, 177, 189, 190, 192, 193 as generalized other, 149 - implications for ethics of, 191-192 - in ethical space, 75-79 - in orientations, 66-75 in utilitarianism, 151 - versus self, 190-191 Skinner box, 85, 86, 88, 162 Skinnerian behaviorism, 28, 67, 94, 107, 127, 169, 173 Skinnerian epistemology, 21-22, 179, 180-181, 183 Skinnerian ethics, 21-22, 126, 159, 170, 178-183 - as based on his approach to verbal behavior, 179, 181,185-186 as combined epistemological-social action endeavor, 179, 182, 183 conflicting value judgments in, 179, 183 relationship between good and bad in, 179 relationship between value and obligation in, 179 - types of good in: personal, others, cultural survival, 181-182, 183 - ultimate good in: survival of humankind, 179, 182, 183 Skinnerian objective approach, 185 Skinnerian operant psychology, 28, 87 Skinnerian psychological universe, 131, 183 Skinnerian psychology, 28, 87, 94, 125, 133, 162, -
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179,
180,
193
Skinnerian radical behaviorism, 48, 125, 140, 162, 168, 171 Skinnerian three-term contingency, 169, 188 Skinner's approach to verbal behavior, 179, 181, 184 mand in, 184, 185 tact in, 184, 185
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218
Subject Index
Skinner's descriptivism, 29, 99 Skinner's experimental analysis of individual behavior, 31 Social action, 57-58, 108, 110-111,159, 161,163, 179, 182, 183, 191,193, 194 Social philosophies/policies, 153 Social science (reality), 2, 7, 10, 15, 23, 44, 57, 105, 125, 127, 140, 142, 144, 148, 151,152, 153, 168, 193 Social welfare, 3, 5, 12, 13, 15, 125, 133. See also General well-being Special population(s), 32, 37-38, 43, 44, 81,106, 167, 174, 175, 191 - child, 37, 42 clinical, 37, 38, 42 exotic, 37, 42 - IQ-related, 37, 52 metaphysical status of, 57, 61, 81,140, 149, 159, 192-193. - See also Developmentally disadvantaged Speech, 73-74, 140, 167, 172, 183, 185, 193 Split-brain, 33 Standard human being, concept of, 10, 191 Standard observer, 43 Standard significant other, 37, 61,192 Standardized statistical subject, 30, 47 Standardized American social values, 162 Stimulus events, 21, 28, 34, 59, 64, 65, 78, 85, 88, 95, 98, 100, 107, 131,133, 136, 152, 162, 168, 169, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 183, 184, 188, 189 appetitive, 180, 181, 183 155, 180, 181,183 discriminative, 21 128, 180, 181 - sensory, 180 Stimulus-response associational learning theorist, 86 Stimulus-stimulus expectancy learning theorist, 86 Structuralism, 24, 27, 28, 30, 65, 68, 74, 87, 91, 92, 94, 96, 97, 184 Subjective, phenomenological psychology, 65, 68, 171 Suicide, 14, 147 Summum bonum, 5, 123, 124, 143 and morality, 124 as ultimate good, 124 Superstition, 19 Synonymic, ostensive definition, 116 -
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Target population, 10-11 Teleological concept(s), 124, 128, 134 Teleology, 79, 121,124, 138, 141,147, 153, 154, 157, 162, 191,194 as nondeontological approach, 124 historical status of, 142-143 in relation to good, 124, 142, 149-154 in relation to right act, 141, 142-143, 149-154 social status of, 142-143. -See also Consequentialism; Utilitarianism Ten Commandments, 115 Therapy, 29, 30, 31, 41, 45, 53, 55, 73, 86, 92, 93,
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97, 135, 138, 171,182 existential, 74, 92 - psychoanalytic, 74, 92, 138 psychotherapy (as semantic alternative), 51, 55, 70 Rogerian client-centered, nondirective, 74, 138 Third force movement, 26, 68, 135. See also Existential psychology; Humanistic psychology; Phenomenological psychology Third-person access, 8, 16, 20, 21, 27, 72, 85, 86, 89, 96, 98, 99, 100, 106, 108, 110, 112, 118, 125, 127, 128, 142, 152, 162, 163, 168, 169-170, 171, 176, 178, 180, 188, 189, 190, 191,193, 194 direct versus indirect, 86 third person inference, as subvariant of, 20, 84, 91, 92-93, 98 Third Reich, 5 Thorndike puzzle box, 86 Tolmanian learning theory, 28 Traditional ethical doctrine, 18, 81, 105, 106, 127, 168 Traditional moral doctrine, 141 Traits, 16, 42, 45, 46, 135, 155 -
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Understanding psychology, 26, 28-29, 33, 43, 58, 68, 83, 135, 138, 160, 163, 172, 192 Utilitarian, instrumentalist philosophical tradition. See Instrumentalism; Utilitarianism Utilitarianism, 5, 8, 19, 21, 44, 79, 121,141,142, 162, 179 -act, 149, 150-153, 188 and British utilitarians, 131, 132 -doctrine of, 130, 147, 149-154, 156 hedonistic, 149 149, 150 -rule, 149, 150, 153-154 theological, 149. -See also Consequentialism; Teleology Utility theory, 152 -
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- i d e a l ,
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Value qualities, existential status of, 103-119 Values, 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 23, 35, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 48, 54, 55, 58, 59, 62, 108, 110, 121, 124, 130, 132, 135, 137, 138, 143, 144, 156, 157, 164, 165, 166, 170, 179, 181,183, 189, 194 negative, 155 142, 155 Verstehen tradition (Continental), 26, 43, 138, 172 Vice(s), 60, 75, 78, 154, 155-156 examples of, 155 Vicious person, 154, 156 Vienna Circle, 109, 116 Virtue(s), 9, 11, 60, 75, 77, 78, 131,154, 155-156, 157 as, 129, 154, 155, 156 examples of, 155 Virtuous person, 5, 60, 157 - conceptualization of, 154-155, 156 -
- p o s i t i v e ,
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Watsonian behaviorism, 28, 66, 67, 85 traditional, 71
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Subject Index Western ethics, 10, 106, 124, 192 Western, European, Continental psychology, 108 Western religious tradition, 171 Will, 174. See also Free will; Free will, semantic analogues for Women's Liberation Movement, 36 "Women's Studies," 36
219
Wrong, 4, 11, 15, 16, 78, 79, 80, 103, 110, 139, 141, 142, 144, 145, 146, 164, 166, 170, 177, 178, 179, 185, 187, 188, 189, 191,194 versus right, 141,143 Wrong act, 143, 145, 148, 149, 150-154 versus right act, 143 -
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