[from Gary Cziko 930420.2008 GMT]
Rick Marken (930419.0800) said:
There were no "mistakes" made in Wako [sic]-- everybody was trying to
control for perceptions that were important to them (for higher
order reasons) and doing the best they could. Saying that one group
or the other had the "wrong" goals (I've heard people say that the
FBI shouldn't have wanted to flush out the Davidians with gas) seems
pretty non-PCT to me; people set their goals to satisfy higher order
references and the particular setting of these lower order goals
depends on disturbances and other higher level goals as much as on
the higher order goal itself.
Dan Miller (930420.1200) said:
...it [the Waco affair] fits Isaac
Bashevis Singer's definition of tragedy in that innocent children died.
These constrasting posts have made me wonder about how and in what way any
of the adults were any more or less innocent than the children (I mean
"innocent" in the legal sense of "not guilty").
Rick says reference levels cannot be "wrong" which might suggest that one
cannot be really guilty of anything. And yet PCT appears from some angles
appears to provide the autonomy and capacity for responsibility that would
appear to be necessary for someone to be really guilty.
When I was sympathetic to behaviorism, the notion that one could be guilty
of anything made no sense to me (we were "beyond freedom"). When I first
understood PCT, I understood that were not beyond freedom and so we could
be guilty. But now I'm confused again. What could it mean in PCT to be
guilty?--Gary
ยทยทยท
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