[Martin Taylor 990117 23:43]
[From Rick Marken (990117.1120)]
Martin Taylor (990116 14:23) --
An excellent post, Martin.
Thanks.
Could you possibly point me to references
in the conventional psychological literature to theories of "moral
behavior". I know about Kohlberg but that's about it. Do you know
of any discussion of (or, better, research on) moral behavior from
an S-R or reinforcement perspective? That would be _really_
interesting to me.
Sorry. I don't know that literature at all. My story about the bonobo
and the bird came from a TV program about bonobos.
Just so you don't think I'm getting too lovey dovey, I will take
mild exception to one point in your post.
I'm sorry, but I have to agree with your exception, at least to some extent.
You say:
acts (note carefully, _acts_, not "reference values") that are
called immoral in one society may be required if one is to be
moral in another society.
I would say that reference values _can be_ and often _are_
dubbed immoral.
Yes they are, in the abstract. But it is the acts that influence people
and from which they assess the reference values that they then assert to
be immoral. I was wrong to insist on the acts being called immoral
independent of the references. I was thinking of acts such as a woman
marrying two or more brothers at one time, which is immoral in our society,
but required (if she is to marry any of them) is some society described
by (I think) Desmond Morris in one of his TV programs.
I, for example, have a reference for my car
being parked out in front of my house. If someone else has
a reference for that car being up on blocks on a side street
in Hollywood then I would dub that reference "immoral".
Would you if you have no acts on which to base a perception that the person
had that "immoral" reference value? If your car just stayed put?
If
that someone managed to make the perception of my car match
his reference then that person has stolen my car. I wouldn't
necessarily judge the _acts_ the person used to steal the car
to be immoral. For example, the thief may have just opened a
door that was accidentally left open and turned the keys that
were accidentally left in the ignition. All the acts might have
been completely moral; just the reference signal (having my car
in some location other than in front of my house) was immoral.
I call it immoral, by the way, because the theif's control is
achieved at the expense of my ability to control.
Yes, I accept the example. I even have a real-life story very like your
hypothetical one that supports your claim that reference values matter.
I was part of a cricket team from Toronto touring England. On such tours,
the hosts often arrange after-game parties at somebody's house. At one
game, we were invited to a party, and one of our team wanted to bring a
girl he had met at an earlier game. He needed to borrow a car to fetch
her, and one of the opposition players lent him his keys and told him
the model and colour of car, and where it was. The next thing we heard
was a call from our player, who had been arrested for car theft. He had
taken the wrong car, but it was the same model and colour, parked in
the same area, and the keys fitted it. Once it was established that he
had no intention of stealing the car, and it (and he and the girl) were
returned to the cricket ground, the whole thing was treated as a joke.
The moral (and legal) implication changed when the reference value was
determined, though the acts had not.
So I was wrong to say that the acts themselves are immoral. It is through
the acts that people are influenced, and through the acts that people infer
the reference values that they assert to be immoral.
I call it immoral, by the way, because the theif's control is
achieved at the expense of my ability to control.
I think that's a bit overstating the case. It is impossible for people to
live in the same area without some conflict (i.e. one person's control
actions affecting or prohibiting another's control possibilities). It's
why we have laws to determine when it's OK to do so. If I drive through
a green light at an intersection when you are stopped on the crossing
street by the red light, I am controlling at the expense of your ability
to control, but neither of us would think my behaviour immoral, would we?
If I buy the last vacuum cleaner available in a sale, and you, coming after,
can't buy one, am I being immoral? (this actually happened before Xmas, I
being the lucky/immoral one. I didn't feel immoral, just lucky, since
we had just driven across town from another store of the chain, that had
sold out a little earlier.)
Martin
