Chapter 26B

Chapter 26B
Moral and Legal Control1
FUNDAMENTALS
What’s the meaning of life? What’s the purpose of life? Every freshman trudges off
to college hoping to find the evasive answer (in addition to an improved social life and the
skills and/or diploma [union card] needed for that high-paying executive position).
But those students with enough intellectual and self-management skills to make it
into their sophomore year find no answer to this question. And by the time they graduate
from college, they have learned that a search for the meaning of life is appropriate only
for the same greenhorn freshman they now send off in search of sky hooks, left-handed
monkey wrenches, and snipes. The graduating senior knows life has no purpose, no
meaning.
Well, the humble authors of this book never gave up the search for sky hooks, left-
handed monkey wrenches, snipes, or the purpose of life. And now that we’ve recently
discovered that purpose, we’ll stop to share it with you, before going on with our search
for the left-handed monkey wrench and other illusive goals of the naive.

GOAL-DIRECTED SYSTEMS DESIGN2
At first, it might seem that the “purpose” of all life is the promotion of its own well-
being. As Darwin pointed out, the environment selects the surviving forms of life; and, as
a result, species evolve in ways that support their own continued survival. The losers
don’t evolve in surviving ways. So the survivors do survive, and the losers don’t. And thus
we have biological evolution. However, their well-being or even survival isn’t the purpose
of those surviving forms of life, any more than the purpose of a wave is to lap against the
shore. That’s just the way it works.
But we human beings aren’t just any life form. We aren’t snails. We aren’t
paramecia. We aren’t fungi (the plural of fungus). We’re thoughtful, reasoning life forms -
at least sometimes. So, though our lives may not have a purpose, they can have.

THE WELL-BEING OF LIFE FORMS (HUMAN, NONHUMAN, AND PLANT)
Regardless of how humanity got here, whether through divine decree or cosmic
accident, we suggest that humanity should select as its purpose the well-being of life in
the universe. We suggest this, even though a careful analysis shows that purpose
doesn’t logically follow from Darwin’s analysis of the evolution of life forms. We believe
human beings can act intelligently enough to select their purpose; and we nominate the
well-being of life as the purpose we human beings should select.
1
Special thanks to Master’s student Stephanie Bates for helping to revise this (Fall 2007)
2
For an advanced treatment of goal-directed systems design, see Malott, R. W., & Garcia, M. E. (1987). A
goal-directed model for the design of human performance systems. Journal of Organizational Behavior
Management, 9, 125—159.

Regardless of whether we are now atheists, agnostics, or born-again true
believers, most of us have grown up in the context of one or another of the world’s great
religions. So most of us have acquired learned values (learned reinforcers and aversive
conditions) that support the notion that we should work toward the betterment of life on
earth.
Definition: Concept
Value
V Learned and unlearned reinforcers
V and aversive conditions.

In other words, most of us find it reinforcing to know life will survive, especially
animal life, more especially human-animal life.
(In fact, hidden deep in our value structure is usually a learned bias for the well-
being of the human animal that has the same skin color as ours, the same religion, the
same nationality, the same profession, and even the same special orientation within that
profession. But nowadays, many of us struggle to rise above such a narrow bias, to
embrace all humanity, or even all life.)
Some need to resort to enlightened self-interest to justify their concern for
nonhuman and plant life. For example, they argue we must care about the survival of the
varieties of species in the Amazon rain forest because those species may ultimately help
the survival of humanity. Others argue we must care, even if their survival isn’t in our self-
interest. However, we’ve heard of few outside of India who argue for the survival of flies
and mosquitoes.
So we’re willing to admit some arbitrariness about the ultimate goal of the well-
being of life in the universe. We’re just saying we’ve been brought up to value that, and
we bet you have, too. Here’s what B. F. Skinner said on a related theme. He said pity the
culture that doesn’t convince its young that its survival is of great value, because that
culture will be less likely to survive. We’re just expanding the concept of culture a bit to
include all life. If you find that too much of a strain and want to reduce it to the well-being
of humanity, you wouldn’t hurt our feelings.

RULES, RESOURCES, AND CONTINGENCIES
Suppose you agree that our ultimate value and goal should be something like the
well-being of life in the universe (perhaps with a special bias toward human life on earth).
How do we achieve it? Just letting human nature (the direct-acting contingencies of
reinforcement and punishment) take its course ends in wars and rumors of wars, threats
of nuclear annihilation, starvation, pollution, destruction of our environment, crime, drugs,
and on and on. Darwin’s survival of the fittest through natural selection works. But the
largest creature fit to survive the havoc we are creating may be the cockroach.
So, in self-defense, we may need to provide guidance to our human nature, as
wonderful and as horrible as it is. We may need to design systems that guide humanity
toward our ultimate goal - the survival and well-being of life, including our human
descendants. We may need to use goal-directed systems design.

Goal-directed systems design assumes that to achieve a goal, you should state
that goal and consciously design your systems to achieve that goal. Systems are
organizations: the United Nations, the United States, Michigan, Western Michigan
University, the Psychology Department, this course, this book, your family, you, your car.
Yes, we think of you as an organization and a system; and you can be chair of your
board of directors, if you like3.
If a system is to do more than float aimlessly through life, it needs a goal, an
ultimate value. For example, the goal of the United Nations might be the well-being of life
in the universe. Systems need resources to achieve their goals. For example, the United
Nations may need fruit, vegetables, grain, and agricultural technology to prevent people
from starving in some Third World countries. Systems also need rules for the use of
those resources. For example, the food must go to the starving but powerless masses.
And they need contingencies to ensure that food distributors follow those rules. For
example, the local distributors of those resources will lose their privilege of distribution if
they don’t distribute properly - if they put the food on the black market for the highest
bidder.
The system must obtain each of those components - the resources, rules, and
contingencies. So all systems, including the United Nations and you and your car, need
subsystems. And those subsystems must in turn have clear goals, such as the
production of food for the United Nations. And those subsystems also must in turn have
resources, rules, and contingencies. On and on, unto to the lowest level: Like who buys
the paper clips? Like whose turn is it to run over to the deli and pick up sandwiches for
the office staff?
Definition: Concept
Goal-directed systems design
□ First you select the ultimate goal of a system,
□ then you select the various levels of intermediate goals needed to accomplish that
ultimate goal,
□ and finally, you select the initial goals needed to accomplish those intermediate
goals.

As we will see next, legal and moral control involves setting contingencies to get
people to use the world’s resources (everything from food and other people down to
paper clips) so as to contribute to the well-being of life in the universe. In other words, we
suggest that legal and moral control is, or at least should be, part of a goal-directed
systems design aimed toward the well-being of life in the universe.

3
System: 1. A group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole. 2. A
social, economic, or political organizational form. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English
Language (3rd ed.). Copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from
INSO Corporation.

QUESTIONS
1. What do the authors suggest is the purpose of life?
a. Why?
2. Give a few examples of systems.
3. Goal-directed systems design—define it and give a partial example.
a. Point out the role of resources, rules, and contingencies.

CONTINGENCIES FOR FOLLOWING THE RULES OF GOOD RESOURCE USE
1. Do you think religion is one of the most important aspects of people’s lives?
a. yes
b. no
c. Why?
2. Do you think it’s important to understand the role religion plays in people’s lives?
a. yes
b. no
c. Why?
3. Do you think it’s important to understand the role religion plays in people’s lives in
terms of the principles of behavior?
a. yes
b. no
c. Why?
Well, that’s what we’re going to try to do in part of this chapter. But it ain’t easy.
What we are trying to do is understand how religion works from a behavioral perspective;
but, in no sense, do we mean to offend anyone—Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist,
Confuciusist, Taoist, agnostic, or atheist.

Concept
LEGAL-RULE CONTROL

Don’t dump your toxic waste here, buddy.
Goal: healthy life forms.
Resource: uncontaminated environment.
Legal rule: Don’t contaminate, or you’ll be fined.
Legal contingency: a fine — analog to a penalty contingency — punishment by the loss
of a reinforcer (dollars).

EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE-MANAGEMENT CONTINGENCY:

ANALOG TO PENALTY
Before Behavior After

You wil have You dump a You wil have
$N in one barrel of toxic $N-2,000 in
month. waste. one month.

This is an example of legal-rule control - the use of added contingencies involving
fines, jail, etc.
Definition: Concept
Legal Rule Control
□Control by rules specifying added analogs to behavioral contingencies
□and added direct-acting behavioral contingencies
□ based on material outcomes.

Note that the legal contingencies are added to the ineffective natural contingencies.
Most often the contingencies are analogs, though sometimes they’re direct-acting (for
example, all curfew violators will be shot on sight is direct-acting).

Concept
MORAL (ETHICAL) RULE CONTROL

Ah, there ain’t nobody lookin’. So I’ll just dump this hazardous waste over here and . . .
STOP!
What? Who’s that? Who said that?
This is your conscience, brother. Even when the cops aren’t around, I’m always here to
keep you on the straight and narrow.
Well, hee-hee, I was just kidding. I wasn’t really gonna’ . . .

Definition: Concept
Moral (ethical) rule control
□Control by rules specifying added analogs to behavioral contingencies.
□Such rules specify social, religious, or supernatural outcomes.

This is moral-rule control—the use of added contingencies involving excommunication,
Heaven, Hell, reincarnation into a lower caste, etc.
Note that the moral contingencies are added to the ineffective natural
contingencies. Sometimes moral rules are supplemented with direct-acting physical
outcomes (for example, the time your mother boxed your ears when she heard you use
the Lord’s name in vain).
Come on, conscience, it’ll cost a fortune to move all these barrels over to an authorized
hazardous-waste dump.
Brother, you dump it here and you’ll be a polluter.
So?
Polluters are evil people who don’t care about anything but the fast buck.
Well, for sure I don’t want to be an evil person.
Brother, I knew you’d choose the moral path.
But still, I’ve only got a few barrels; and that won’t hurt much.
NO!
Why not, conscience, just a few barrels?
Because God won’t like you. There is no room in Heaven for polluters.
Are you sure, no room for just one or two?
No room for even the little toe of a single polluter. Never!
That’s heavy.

ANALYSIS
Yes, when you sin, the outcomes are sizable and certain, even if they are delayed.
Goal: healthy life forms.
Resource: uncontaminated environment.

Moral rule: Don’t contaminate or you’ll experience God’s wrath.

Moral contingency: an analogue to a penalty contingency—exclusion from Heaven or an
analogue to a punishment contingency—time in Hell.

EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE-MANAGEMENT CONTINGENCY: ANALOG TO
PENALTY

You wil enter You dump a You wil not
Heaven when barrel of toxic enter Heaven
you die. waste. when you die

This is another example of moral-rule control—the use of added contingencies
involving excommunication, Heaven, Hell, etc.
We started out with this contrived example, but we’ll end with some serious questions.
1. Do you think most of the world’s religions (or at least yours) contain rules of conduct
that are important for the proper functioning and even the survival of society?
a. yes
b. no
c. Why?
2. Do you think those religions also contain some sort of contingencies to support the
following of those rules?
a. yes
b. no
c. Why?
3. Do you think our example of the polluter’s struggle with her conscience is a good
illustration of such a rule and such a contingency?
a. yes
b. no
c. Why?

EXAMPLE OF MORAL-RULE CONTROL4
The hungry Yanomamo hunter goes into the Brazilian forest and bags a monkey.
Does he skin it, cook it, and eat it on the spot? No, he takes it back to the village to share
with others. Why? Because he believes that if he doesn’t he will lose his hunting skills. In
4
Based on Malott, R. W., & Kent, H. (1976). The development of moral control. In J. Krapfl (Ed.),
Behaviorism and ethics. Kalamazoo, MI: Behaviordelia.

some hunting cultures, hunters even insist that everyone else get a piece of meat before
they do, again to avoid losing their hunting skills.
This is an example of goals and their needed resources, rules, and contingencies.
The goal is the nutritional support of the village. The resource is the scarce animal
protein. The rule is share it. The contingency is punishment by the loss of hunting skills if
you gobble it down all by yourself.
For another example, look at the Ten Commandments; for instance: Thou shalt
not mess around with someone else’s husband or wife. The goal is the rearing of
children. The resource is the family. The rule is don’t endanger it with hanky-panky. The
contingency is punishment by the wrath of God, sometimes supported by physical
stoning by your friends and neighbors.

LEGAL VS. MORAL CONTROL
Usually legal control works well as long as someone is around to observe the
behavior and impose the contingency. But often nobody’s lookin’ at midnight polluters, or
at solitary hunters, or at married people with roving eyes. Moral or ethical control comes
in handy in such cases. So social systems need to arrange for individuals to observe
their own behavior and apply the punishment and avoidance contingencies (perhaps
automatically). That way, the social system (society) can get the individual to follow the
rules for the proper use of the system’s resources, even when no one’s looking. Then we
can work toward our ultimate goal (the well-being of universal life) during all our waking
days, or at least we can avoid working against that ultimate goal.
As we’ve seen, sometimes moral control works when legal control fails. But the
reverse also applies. Sometimes legal control works when moral control fails:
Fellow citizens, you have a moral obligation to your country to preserve our scarce
resources during these times of crisis. Therefore, to preserve our oil supplies, I ask that
you not exceed 55 mph.
Lots of luck.
Fellow citizens, we have a new law in this great land of ours. Anyone caught exceeding
55 mph will get a traffic ticket. Collect a few of those tickets, and you’ll need to dust off
your walking shoes, good buddy.
Fellow citizens, you have a moral obligation to your babies and toddlers under four to
secure them in an infant or child restraint seat when driving.
Well, I meant to. Be reasonable. I drive carefully. Who are you to tell me what to do? I
know what’s best for my child, don’t I?
Hear ye, hear ye, fellow citizens. It is now a law of the land that all children under the age
of four must be buckled into an infant or child restraint seat.
If society can’t observe the behavior or its outcomes, it doesn’t have much choice
but to use moral control. For example, impure thoughts are not illegal, just immoral. If
society can observe the behavior and cares about the outcome, it uses legal control. For
example, letting your parking meter expire won’t cause you to go to confession, but it
might cost you a buck or two. If sometimes society can observe the undesirable behavior

and sometimes it can’t, then society often uses both moral and legal control. For
example, stealing may send you both to the confessional and to jail.

When Society Cares About the Outcome
of a Behavior
And the behavior Society Uses
is
Observable Legal Control
Not observable Moral Control

THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF MORAL CONTROL
Moral Control Is Hard to Establish and Maintain.
For example, to establish and maintain something that even approximates moral
control, the Jewish culture needs the Old Testament and the Christian culture needs both
the Old and New Testaments. These cultures also need the continuous efforts of the
rabbis with their synagogues and the priests and ministers with their churches.
Religion battles eternally with harmful direct-acting contingencies—those that lead
to the misuse of resources (often human resources), direct-acting contingencies that will
destroy the temple of our bodies—drugs of a rapidly increasing variety, from caffeine and
nicotine through alcohol and on to crack. Religion battles eternally to prevent the
powerful from exploiting the powerless (except when a representative of religion has
been bought by the powerful), then religion’s function reverses).
Moral control is hard and costly to establish, hard and costly to maintain, and often
fails. But when no one else is looking but you and your conscience or you and your God,
moral control earns its keep. The world would be in an even greater mess if we didn’t
have these moral contingencies.

THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF LEGAL CONTROL
For moral control to work, the social system must establish a special learned
aversive condition—the thought of the wrath of God or the thought of the wrath of your
parents. And those thoughts must be aversive, even when no one’s looking. Such an
effective aversive condition is hard to establish and hard to maintain.
Getting people to memorize the specific commandments or rules is easy. The hard
part is putting teeth in the bite of those commandments. The hard part is arranging
learned aversive outcomes for noncompliance with those rules. Don’t be selfish. That’s
easy for people to memorize. If you are selfish, you will be no more likely to pass through
Heaven’s gates than would a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Getting people

to accept that rule is the hard part, especially when being selfish generates so many
sizable, probable reinforcers.
Sometimes it’s easier to establish legal control because it’s fairly easy to establish
the fear of legal outcomes as learned aversive conditions: Steal this, buster, and we’re
throwing your rear in jail. Children needn’t go to Sunday school for 6 years to establish
the possibility of jail as an aversive condition. And the parents needn’t go to church the
rest of their lives to maintain the possibility of jail as an aversive condition. As long as jail
is a highly probable outcome, rules involving it control behavior well. Of course, it all falls
apart when jail is improbable.
However, there’s a tradeoff. True, it takes most of the efforts of organized religion
to establish and maintain our sensitivity to the reinforcing and aversive values of religious
outcomes. But all it takes is God or our conscience to monitor compliance with those
moral rules, once religion has established a conscience or a belief in God. And we
needn’t pay taxes to support God or our conscience (though we must financially support
religion’s efforts to maintain our sensitivity to the reinforcers and aversive conditions
associated with religious moral rules).
But we do pay heavy taxes to support the police and the judges. Also, it may not
cost us much to establish the thought of jail as an aversive condition; but the jails and
prisons themselves add a heavy tax burden. By contrast, we don’t have to pay taxes for
the maintenance of Heaven and hell; we just have to support religion’s efforts to establish
and maintain our belief in them.
Drawbacks Benefits
Moral Rule Aversive Easy for God
Control control is to monitor
hard to compliance
establish with moral
and maintain rules.
Legal Rule Expensive to Easy to
Control monitor establish jail
compliance as an
with rules aversive
condition.
Getting
caught is
often
improbable

RESPECT FOR OTHER PEOPLE’S VIEWS
We have three different but overlapping groups of readers for this book—
believers, atheists or agnostics, and behaviorists; some behaviorists are believers and
some are atheists or agnostics. We want to remain friends with all of them.
We have the greatest respect for and appreciation of religion. In no way are we
criticizing organized religion. We are simply analyzing one of the crucial contributions of

organized religion. We are trying to understand the contribution of religion to the material
well-being of humanity; others have written more effectively than we could about the
contribution of religion to the spiritual well-being of humanity. Some of our best students
think we should not include an analysis of the behavioral processes underlying the
material contributions of religion; other of our best students think this is the most
important part of our book. It ain’t easy, but we’re doing our best to keep everyone happy
without shirking our responsibilities to point out this important intersection between
behavior analysis and religion5.
On the one hand, we are not challenging traditional views of Jesus, God, the devil,
Heaven, and Hell. On the other hand, we are not endorsing them. Challenging or
endorsing these views is not the point of this chapter. We are simply looking at part of the
profound impact these religious views have on humanity. And we are simply trying to
understand the psychological (behavioral) processes through which these views have
their impact.
Also, some behaviorists may be suspicious of our use of the mentalistic term
“conscience.” We may seem to be losing touch with our behavioristic base. No. We just
mean self-observation, self-evaluation, and rule control. We’re using poetic license only
to keep things flowing. Just consider us to be scientists trying to get across complex
concepts and analyses without putting our readers to sleep.

THE AVERSIVE BASIS OF MORAL AND LEGAL CONTROL6

THE MODEL OF RELIGIOUS CONTROL
We should note that the contingencies described in this chapter are generalized
forms of moral and legal control and that cultures vary in the specifics of moral control.
The use of heaven and hell as a form of moral control comes from Judeo-Christian
traditions. And we write within this context because most of the readers of this text are
familiar with the concepts of Heaven and Hell. However, in some cases, aspects of moral
control may be more complex and subtle than we indicate here. Even agnostics and
atheists are affected by the moral contingencies in their cultures. Although they may not
believe their behavior has religious consequences, their morality is usually similar to that
of their religious peers. Agnostics and atheists refrain from stealing, lying, killing, etc., just
as the religious do.

5
We’ve asked some professors of religion about the appropriateness of this topic and they thought that the
topic was interesting and important. One in particular thought that an important benefit to society of religion
is moral control; and he believed, as we do, that moral control is primarily based on aversive control. He
told us that our presentation of moral control can be applied to most religions without dismantling their
belief systems.
6
We’ve asked some professors of religion about the appropriateness of this topic and they thought that the
topic was interesting and important. One in particular thought that an important benefit to society of religion
is moral control; and he believed, as we do, that moral control is primarily based on aversive control. He
told us that our presentation of moral control can be applied to most religions without dismantling their
belief systems.

WHY DO WE NEED HELL TO HAVE MORAL CONTROL?
Why aren’t the promises of Heaven enough to produce moral behavior from
believers? Why do we need the threat of Hell, as well? Why must aversive control play
such a large role in our moral contingencies?
To be functional, it may help that religion invokes the threat of Hell. Here’s the
problem with using rule-governed analogs to reinforcement based on the promise of
rewards in an afterlife such as access to Heaven. Procrastination! We can always
postpone that difficult walk on the razor’s edge that leads to Heaven. We can always sin
today and struggle up the straight, narrow, and steep road to Heaven tomorrow, or
maybe the day after tomorrow. But rule-governed analogs to punishment and avoidance
often control our behavior more reliably than rule-governed analogs to reinforcement.
Why? Because they don’t let us procrastinate our lives away in sin.
For example, this rule won’t control our behavior very well: Perform many good
deeds and you will spend eternity in Heaven. Why not? Because the statement of that
rule does not make noncompliance a very aversive condition. It allows us to cop out and
procrastinate. It allows us to say, I am too busy to perform any good deeds right now, but
I will perform them when I get time. This is an ineffective rule-governed analog to
reinforcement by the presentation of a reinforcer.

INEFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE-MANAGEMENT CONTINGENCY:

ANALOG TO REINFORCEMENT BY THE PRESENTATION OF A
REINFORCER

You won't You perform You wil enter
enter Heaven enough good Heaven when
when you deeds. you die.
die.

But what about this rule? Commit a single mortal sin and you will definitely spend eternity
in Hell. The statement of that rule does make noncompliance a most aversive condition
(for believers). This is an effective rule-governed analog to punishment.


ANALOG TO PUNISHMENT

You wil enter You commit You won't
Heaven when one mortal enter Heaven
you die. sin. when you
die.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF HEAVEN IN MORAL CONTROL?
But, you might say, moral control isn’t all that aversive. People think of Heaven as
an afterlife rich with reinforcers. We would agree that Heaven, rich with reinforcers, is
crucial to moral control, but not because Heaven is the end result of procrastination-
tolerating reinforcement contingencies.
Then what role does Heaven play in supporting our moral behavior? Heaven
gives us something to lose! If you do too many evil deeds (sins of commission), you
will not get the reinforcers of Heaven (a rule-governed analog to punishment by the
prevention of the presentation of reinforcers). And if you fail to do enough good deeds
(sins of omission), you also will not get the reinforcers of Heaven (a rule-governed analog
to avoidance of the loss of reinforcers). And with analogues to avoidance come the
deadlines that battle procrastination.
For example, at one time, parents instructed their children to perform the following
prayer: If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. The parents said or
implied to their children something like this: Say your prayers every night before you go
to bed (deadline); so you will avoid harm to your soul, should you die before you wake.
A similar precautionary rule might be: Always do good deeds every day (deadline)
to ensure the salvation of your soul, because you never know when you may die. But this
is similar to the analogue to reinforcement contingency we discussed earlier; so why
would this analogue to avoidance contingency control behavior when the simple
instruction to perform many good deeds, analogue to reinforcement, wouldn’t? Because
the daily-deed rule contains a deadline.


ANALOG TO AVOIDANCE OF THE LOSS OF THE OPPORTUNITY FOR A
REINFORCER
SD After
(Deadline) You wil not
lose the op.
B efore the to enter
day's end. heaven
when you
Before die.
You wil lose
Behavior
the op. to
You perform
enter
your day's
heaven
good deed.
when you
die. S After
You wil lose
the op. to
After the enter
day's end. heaven
when you
die.

Deadlines that fight procrastination may also be established in other ways. When
an opportunity to do a good deed is presented to a person, it sets up a deadline for doing
that good deed. For example, if you’re driving along the highway at night and you see a
stranded motorist, you have the opportunity to help that motorist and, thus, to avoid
losing the opportunity to enter heaven when you die. But that opportunity has a deadline.
You need to help the motorist now. If you come back next week to help the motorist, it
will be too late—the motorist will be gone and you will have lost that opportunity to enter
Heaven.


ANALOG TO AVOIDANCE OF THE LOSS OF A THE OPPORTUNITY FOR A
REINFORCER
SD After
(Deadline) You will not
While the lose the
stranded op. to enter
motorist is heaven
there to be when you
Before helped. die.
You will
lose the op. Behavior
to enter You help
heaven the motorist.
when you
die. S S
After
When the You will
stranded lose the op.
motorist is to enter
no longer heaven
there to be when you
helped. die.

So moral rules control sins of commission (committing bad deeds), when they’re
stated as analogs to punishment. And they control sins of omission (omitting or failing to
do good deeds), when they’re stated as analogs to avoidance.
So, as near as we can tell, moral control that benefits the well-being of humanity is
exclusively, or almost exclusively, aversive control. In the case of religion, that aversive
control uses rule-governed analogs to punishment and avoidance. Hell (or something like
it) is the aversive condition to be presented, and Heaven (or something like it) is the
paradise to be lost.7

7
However, some argue that once you are saved, once you accept Jesus Christ into your heart, you will go to
Heaven automatically. Perhaps, but surely, only if accepting Jesus Christ means that you stop sinning and dedicate
yourself to a life of good deeds. In other words, how do we know a person has truly accepted Jesus? We know
people not simply by their words but also by their deeds. To accept Jesus Christ into your heart means you walk the
walk; you don’t just talk the talk. If a person claims to accept Jesus but continues in extremely sinful ways, surely
Heaven’s gates would not open for that person. It seems as if Heaven is entered only by those who live a righteous
life, not by those who merely say they have accepted Jesus Christ.
There is also the a more predestinationist Christian view that states that Jesus died to save us from our sins, that
whether or not we sin, it has been preordained that we either will or won’t go to heaven. However, if you sin, in spite
of what Jesus has done for you, you are a disappointment, even though you may have been predestined to sin and
be a disappointment. And it might be that this knowledge that you will be a disappointment also sets up analog
avoidance and punishment contingencies that are part of the predestnatinist system that prevents you from sinning.
On the other hand, it may be that some predestinationist Christians would prefer not to consider that behavioral
processes may be involved in the predestination of moral behavior.

Now you may say these two previous examples are a little extreme; and you may
be right. We have simplified the moral rules to make the underlying processes a clearer.
Sure, most people don’t really think they’ve lost their shot at heaven if the fail to do a
good dead for just one day, or maybe for a whole week. But I’ll bet there are many good
people who do believe a rule almost this extreme, and I’ll bet they knock off a lot more
good deeds during their lifetime than do those with a more flexible morality.
Also, I’ll bet you do feel a little guilty, every time you pass a stranded motorist or
are too busy to help someone in need, even though you may not have heard the click of
the latch on heaven’s gate. Our moral control is a little more subtle than I’ve indicated in
these examples but not much more subtle.

WHAT ABOUT SECULAR HUMANISM?

Sid’s Seminar
Joe: I’m into secular humanism.
Tom: What’s that?
Joe: Humanists care about the well-being of humanity. Secular means “not religious.” So
we say secular humanism to make it clear that we don’t use the concepts of Heaven and
Hell. We believe in and care about only the well-being of human beings or maybe even
the well-being of life in the universe, in the here and now.
Eve: Interesting.
Joe: Here’s one of the best features of secular humanism: We get away from aversive
control. No threats of Hell. No threats of the loss of Heaven.
Sid: As I understand it, secular humanism supports pretty much the same sorts of moral
rules as do most formal religions.
Joe: Yes, sir. Except the rules don’t describe aversive contingencies. The rules describe
analogs to contingencies of reinforcement.
Eve: How can that be? We were just reading that analogs to reinforcement don’t work too
well with moral control.
Joe: Well, I’ve never really thought about it before.
Eve: What’s the reinforcer in your analogs to reinforcement?
Joe: The well-being of life in the universe, in the here and now.
Tom: For example?
Joe: If you send $20 to Greenpeace, you’ll be helping to save the whales.
Tom: What happens if you don’t contribute?
Joe: The whales aren’t as well off.

Eve: Joe, that sounds like an analog to an avoidance contingency to me. Like sending
the $20 helps to avoid the aversive outcome of losing another whale to the whaling
industry. The only problem with this contingency is that it may allow too much
procrastination, because there’s no clear deadline; so the humanist may set aside the
solicitation letter and envelope, meaning to send in a check tomorrow, only to find that a
year later the solicitation material still sits unanswered, buried under an accumulated
stack of other procrastinated tasks.

INEFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE-MANAGEMENT CONTINGENCY: ANALOG TO
ESCAPE
The world wil You send The world wil
lose N $20 to lose N-1
whales. Greenpeace. whales.

Max: And that may be a problem with secular humanism. It doesn’t matter when you
send in our $20, because it will always save a whale, more or less. So you never get
around to it.
Joe: Yes, it’s hard. You have to supply your own supplementary rule and deadline. You
must say to yourself, if I don’t send in the check right now, I will probably forget to; so
right now becomes an effective deadline. You must create your own theoretical, direct-
acting escape contingency.

EFFECTIVE INFERRED, DIRECT-ACTING CONTINGENCY: ESCAPE

You fear You send You don't
infinite $20 to fear infinite
procrastin- Greenpeace. procrastin-
ation. ation.

Max: And that may be a problem with this sort of secular voluntarism. It requires a very
rare sort of behavioral history that will cause a person to generate and be controlled by
such an anti-procrastination rule.
Joe: Yeah, and I’ve also got to be the sort of person who feels guilty for not doing my little
bit to save the whales. Aversive control even here.
Tom: So you admit your secular humanism is as much involved with aversive control as
is organized religion?
Joe: I’ll admit it’s beginning to look as if all moral control is based on aversive
contingencies, regardless of whether the control is religious or secular.

WHAT ABOUT LEGAL CONTROL?
Sid’s Seminar
Tom: I’m not sure about the value of Joe’s secular humanism. What I am sure about is
the value of law and order. Is that based on aversive control, too?
Joe: You’ve got to be kidding. Law and order bristles with aversive control.
Max: It sure does. That’s why many behavior analysts have criticized traditional legal
systems because they emphasize aversive control and downplay reinforcement by the
presentation of reinforcers.
Tom: What else could they do?
Max: Instead of penalizing illegal behavior, they could reinforce legal behavior.
Tom: How?
Max: Instead of giving speeding tickets backed with fines, they could give safe-driving
awards backed with cash prizes.
Tom: That’s a great idea.
Joe: Except for a couple of problems: First, taxpayers are already revolting, and the
budget of our overworked legal system is already straining. Can you imagine the state
police agreeing to sell 10 patrol cars and lay off 20 traffic officers to finance cash prizes
for safe driving?
Sue: And if you made reinforcement intermittent enough to be practical, it would be too
intermittent to maintain safe driving.
Joe: That’s related to my second point: It’s not clear that would be a reinforcement
procedure anyhow. It may be more like an analog to punishment by the prevention of the
presentation of a reinforcer.
Tom: What do you mean?
Joe: Like speeding results in the prevention of a low probability event—the presentation
of a cash prize. But the speeder can say, I probably won’t get the award anyway, so I
might as well speed because, for sure, speeding will get me home quicker.
Eve: So whenever you have laws to prevent behavior, like speeding or stealing, they’re
going to involve some sort of punishment contingency or its analog.
Tom: What about laws to encourage behavior—like laws to encourage citizens to pay
their taxes on time? Couldn’t you give a bonus to everyone who paid his or her taxes on
time?
Joe: First, to pay for it you’d have to increase everyone’s taxes; so that’s sneaky from the
start. And second, you’ve got a deadline—April 15. And deadlines mean aversive control.
It’s an analog to avoidance of the prevention of the presentation of a reinforcer.
Tom: Huh?
Joe: You’d beat the deadline to avoid preventing the tax man from presenting you with
your bonus.

Sue: More aversive control.
Sid: Let me butt in with this summary, otherwise the transcript of this seminar will get too
long.

SID’S SUMMARY
1. Immoral behavior and illegal behavior don’t differ fundamentally. Both usually interfere
with achieving our ultimate goal—the well-being of life in the universe. In one way or
another, both usually involve a failure to follow the rules for proper uses of resources
needed for life’s well-being.
2. Society must add both moral and legal contingencies to counteract the natural
contingencies of reinforcement and punishment that support immoral and illegal
behavior.
3. Both moral and legal contingencies are usually indirect-acting analog contingencies.
So they control behavior only when they are expressed as moral and legal rules.
4. Though immoral and illegal behavior don’t differ fundamentally, in practice it’s harder
to observe some behaviors than others.
5. Generally, society adds moral analog contingencies to control behavior that’s harder to
observe and legal analog contingencies to control behaviors that are easier to observe.
So behavior we call immoral is usually harder to observe directly, and behavior we call
illegal is usually easier to observe.
6. Sometimes we combine moral and legal contingencies, especially when we can
sometimes observe and sometimes not observe the same class of behavior.
7. Moral analog contingencies usually have outcomes that don’t materially affect the
individual who is behaving. For moral analog contingencies based on religion, the
outcomes are supernatural or spiritual, not material. For moral analog contingencies
based on secular humanism, the outcomes for the behaving person are social—the well-
being of others.
8. Legal analog contingencies usually have material outcomes (for example, penalties or
imprisonment).
9. Moral and legal rules describe both behaviors that should occur and those that
shouldn’t.
10. Rules describing analogs to punishment and penalty contingencies suppress
behaviors that shouldn’t occur. Rules describing analogs to avoidance support behaviors
that should occur.
11. In most cases, it seems necessary that the moral and legal analog contingencies be
based on aversive control.

QUESTIONS
Note the contingencies in this section are there only as an explanatory aid. You do not
need to memorize them to do well on this quiz.
1. Legal-rule control - define it and give an example, including the contingency.
2. Moral (ethical) rule control - define it and give an example, including the contingency.
3. When do you need moral control? Give an example.
4. When do you need legal control? Give an example.
5. What is the function of Heaven and Hell in supporting moral behavior?
a. What role does procrastination play? Give an example.
b. Some argue that promises of Heaven control moral behavior through analogs to
reinforcement, with Heaven being the reinforcer. In terms of rule control, why is
this an inadequate explanation? Give an example. Explain this in terms of
establishing operations.
c. In terms of rule control, why do threats of Hell work? What role do analogs to
punishment play? Explain this in terms of establishing operations. Give an
example.
d. What role do analogs to avoidance of Hell play? Explain this in terms of
establishing operations. Give an example.
6. According to the authors, what is the function of Heaven in terms of
a. reducing sins of commission (committing bad deeds)?
b. reducing sins of omission (omitting or failing to do good deeds)?
7. What’s the relative role of aversive control versus reinforcement by the presentation of
reinforcers in secular humanism?
8. What’s the relative role of aversive control versus reinforcement by the presentation of
reinforcers in the legal system?
a. Using examples, explain your answer for laws designed to decrease behavior.
b. Using examples, explain your answer for laws designed to increase behavior.

WHY DO MORAL AND LEGAL CONTROL FAIL?
Our world would be in an even bigger mess than it is now, if we didn’t have moral
and legal control. But one reason we are now in such a mess is that moral and legal
control often fail. Why? Why do moral and legal rules describing contingencies that are
not direct acting sometimes fail to control our behavior? There are several reasons.
Often, for legal rules, the penalty for each act is too improbable (for example, you
probably won’t get caught speeding during the next minute). Often, with religious rules,

the penalty for each act is too small. This could occur because the person rationalizes an
exemption from the rule or doesn’t believe it in the first place (for example, It says you’re
not supposed to kill, but God didn’t mean in times of national emergency, or I’m not so
sure a God exists anyway, so why shouldn’t I steal a few dollars?).
(By failure of moral or religious control, we mean failure of moral rules, such as the
Ten Commandments, to control our behavior. We don’t mean failure to get people to
profess a belief in religion. For example, there are many more people who claim to be
Christians than who consistently practice the teachings of Christ.)
Why Do Legal and Moral Control Fail?
Moral Control Penalty too small
Legal Control Penalty too
improbable

QUESTION
1. Give two reasons for why moral and legal control often fail, and give an example for
each reason.

Example
APPLICATIONS OF ETHICAL (MORAL) AND LEGAL CONTROL
One way to evaluate the health of a culture is in terms of the well-being of its most
wealthy and powerful. But, of course, the well-being of the wealthy and powerful is
assured in all cultures except those breathing their last breath. Even the well-being of the
average members or of the middle-class members may not reflect our most strict
standards for the health of a culture. Perhaps our most strict standards are found in
measures of the well-being of the poorest and most powerless in a culture—those not in
position to demand good treatment.
Who are the poorest and most powerless in almost any culture? The children,
the mentally handicapped, those labeled mentally ill, and the prisoners. These people are
often not in a position to demand their share of society’s resources. And they are not
often in a position to demand that we reduce the aversive conditions of their lives. So the
culture that helps the helpless may meet our strictest standards of health.
Now who are these infants whose deaths add to the mortality statistics? The
children of the rich and powerful or of the middle-class? Of course not. These horrible
statistics come from the dying children of the poor and powerless. And, as we must care
for the well-being of the children of the poor and powerless, so also must we care for the
well-being of the mentally handicapped, those labeled mentally ill, and prisoners.
We’re pleased to live in a society where so much good work is being done to
protect and even improve the well-being of these poor and powerless. Such folks are
much better off than they would have been in previous centuries. And they’re much better

off than they are in other countries. For example, in the United States the infant mortality
rate is 10 per 1,000, as compared to 183 per 1,000 in Afghanistan. (Imagine what it must
be like being a parent knowing your infant has only 1 chance in 6 of surviving.) But even
in the United States, we still have room for improvement when compared to Japan, with
its infant mortality rate of 5.2 per 1,000.

INTERVENTIONS: THE RIGHT TO EFFECTIVE INTERVENTION (TREATMENT)
In Chapter 4, we discussed the right to effective interventions. Most people agree
that everyone has a right to help with his or her problems—at least as long as we talk in
generalities. But many people disagree when we get down to the nitty-gritty.
And the nitty-gritty has become especially nitty and gritty now that the powerless
have not only a moral but also a legal right to effective interventions rather than just
custodial maintenance. This is especially true now that, for the first time in the history of
human services, we have effective interventions that can at least help most of these
unfortunate people, even if those interventions can’t solve all their problems. And those
interventions are generally behavioral interventions. Before behavior analysis, custodial
care was often the best anyone could do. But that’s not true anymore. Generally, a right
to effective intervention now means a right to behavioral intervention, though many would
argue the data are not all in on that one.
Goal: physically and behaviorally healthy life forms.
Resources: powerless people.
Legal rule: Provide the powerless with effective repertoire-improving interventions or
suffer legal penalties.

NITTY-GRITTY #1: WHEN, IF EVER, SHOULD WE USE AVERSIVE
CONTROL?
Perhaps the use of aversive control is the most debated moral and legal nitty-gritty
in the field of behavior analysis. We have reviewed much of that debate earlier, in

Chapters 4, 6, and 7. Chapter 20 also contains a section comparing and contrasting
various ways to reduce undesirable behavior.
A glance at humanity’s history may suggest why people often resist the use of
aversive control. We can almost view the history of humanity as the history of the misuse
of aversive control. It’s the history of the powerful using aversive control to redistribute
the resources of the less powerful. And though the powerful may redistribute those
resources in the name of the well-being of humanity, somehow a disproportionate share
of those resources ends in the possession of the redistributors. In other words, it’s easy
to guess which portion of humanity has had its well-being improved. (If you don’t think so,
ask the original North Americans, or the indigenous peoples of the Brazilian Amazon, or
the indigenous peoples of any developed or currently developing country. They’ve all
been ripped off and are continuing to be ripped off.)
So we shouldn’t be surprised that many good people question the use of aversive
control, especially in interventions with the most powerless—children, the mentally
handicapped, those labeled mentally ill, and prisoners. Aversive control can be an
effective technique, perhaps one that should even be demanded in the name of the right
to effective intervention; but it is as subject to abuse in institutions for the powerless as it
is on a national or international level.
This means that we need all sorts of moral and legal rules and enforcers of those
rules to make sure that even people of goodwill use aversive behavioral interventions for
the well-being of the client, and that they don’t use aversive control for their convenience.
Our use of aversive control must always truly be for effective intervention and the well-
being of our clients.

NITTY-GRITTY #2: WHO GETS THE RESOURCES?
We never have enough resources; for example, we don’t have enough behavior
analysts. About half of us behavior analysts work with the developmentally disabled. But
what about the undereducated, poor folks? What about the high percentage of college
dropouts? What about the thousands and thousands of people in the United States who
are dying because of obesity-related problems?

NITTY-GRITTY #3: WHO SHOULD CHANGE, THE INDIVIDUAL OR SOCIETY?
Should Sid have helped Bobbie (the transgender student) change to meet
society’s standards, or should he have helped society change to meet Bobbie’s
standards? Should behavior analysts work to make prisons more effective in their efforts
to help the prisoners become productive, useful, law-abiding citizens? Or should behavior
analysts recognize that poverty is the major correlate of street crime; and should they
work toward changing a society so it will do what it takes to eliminate poverty? Or
suppose the behavior analyst has an adult who argues that he or she prefers the love of
little children to adults and that this is normal and healthy for both parties. Does the
behavior analyst work to change what society would call a child molester or does the
behavior analyst work toward changing what the accused would call a repressive
society? How do you decide, other than in terms of your culturally programmed biases?

NITTY-GRITTY #4: WHO DECIDES?
Who decides the tricky issues: the behavior analyst, the client, the person paying
the tab? How do we work for the well-being of the client or society rather than the well-
being of those with their hands on the purse strings?

RESEARCH
Life is full of conflicting interests. In research, we have the interests of a society
that can benefit from scientific knowledge, the scientists whose careers can benefit from
their contributions to that knowledge, and the participants who may benefit, be
unaffected, or be harmed by this quest for knowledge.
No one is above the need for moral and legal guidance. We scientists are no
better than candidates for the Presidency of the United States (both successful and
unsuccessful). When it comes to conflict between our interests and the interests of
others, we all have the morality of a used-car salesperson. When our rear ends are on
the line, it’s just too hard for us to make decisions that will consistently work toward the
well-being of humanity.
Fortunately, in recent years, society has given us some help—human-subjects
review boards and animal-welfare review boards. Such boards review human and animal
research to ensure that the well-being of the participants is properly considered.
Furthermore, most scientific groups look out for the well-being of society in that they
monitor the accuracy of the data their members report. A scientist who commits the sin of
cheating, of presenting false data, loses his or her credentials as a scientist and ends up
selling used cars. This doesn’t happen often; but when it does, the lightning bolts are
unleashed.

QUESTIONS
1. Who are the poorest and most powerless in almost every culture?
2. What may suggest why people resist the use of aversive control?
a. Explain and illustrate.
3. List and illustrate four nitty-gritty concerns we must consider in pursuing the
right to effective intervention.
4. Whose interests may be in conflict in scientific research?
a. What is done to protect the participants’ interests?
b. false

ADVANCED ENRICHMENT8
Controversy:
FIVE PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS OF PSYCHOLOGY
Before you leave this book and enter the world of heavy-duty intellectual conflict,
here’s an introduction to five alternative points of view you might encounter. These
include the philosophies of:
 spiritualistic mentalism
 materialistic mentalism
 cognitive behavior modification
 methodological behaviorism
 radical behaviorism—the EPB point of view (i.e., the correct view)
Each of these five philosophies accepts or rejects four basic concepts. These include:
 mentalism
 materialism
 all psychological events are behavioral
 private events
To get a better understanding of how these concepts are woven into the five different
philosophies, we’ve put together a mythical conversation between the representative
philosophers. To illustrate the philosophies, we have analyzed a single event, in terms of
each view. And the event we will analyze is Todd’s bowel movement.
Please imagine five wise philosopher-psychologists. They are the Board of
Philosophical Censors sitting in a castle, high above the land (maybe in Heaven),
discussing a controversial textbook. Each philosopher-psychologist represents a different
view.
Point: And to help you navigate this dialogue we will recap the important points in a
grayed background like this.

MENTALISM
The Materialistic Mentalist: Have you read this textbook we’re in?
The Spiritualistic Mentalist: Yes, I have; and I’m really angry.
The Materialistic Mentalist: Me too. What’s your beef?

8
Wowee, boy and girls, they’ve slipped another Advanced Enrichment section in on us. And we know what
that means, don’t we. It means it’s time to hunker down and read this baby two or three times until we get it
straight, or almost straight. Tough stuff, but important enough that many professors requested that we add
it. So, grab that yellow highlighter and go for it.

The Spiritualistic Mentalist: That book ignores the most important concept in psychology
—the mind.
The Materialistic Mentalist: I agree; mind is where it’s at. I use it all the time.
Definition: Concepts
Mentalism
□ The doctrine that the mind causes behavior to occur 9
Mind
□ An entity or collection of entities
□ assumed to cause behavior
□ It may be either material or nonmaterial
□ but it is not the behavior itself

The Spiritualistic Mentalist: Yes, you remember Todd - the constipated boy? A good
example of the limitations of behaviorism. Todd had closed his mind to the idea of bowel
movements. Then he changed his mind; and his mind caused him to have bowel
movements. His mind willed him to go to the bathroom or not. But Dawn completely
ignored the poor little fellow’s mind, when she instructed Todd’s mother to give him a
piece of bubblegum immediately after each bowel movement.
The Materialistic Mentalist: Our mind causes us to feel as we feel, to think as we think, to
act as we act—in short, to be as we are. Ignore our mind and you ignore our most
important structure. And that’s my criticism of those behaviorists; they have no place for
mind in their world view.
Point: Mentalists believe in mentalism; in other words, they believe the mind causes us to
behave.
So we’ve got mentalists and we’ve got behaviorists. But we philosophical
psychologists split hairs a little finer than that. Now let’s look at the two kinds of
mentalism.

SPIRITUALISTIC MENTALISM
The Spiritualistic Mentalist: That brings up the other thing that’s bugging me. Todd’s case
study and the whole book too accurately reflect the materialistic nature of contemporary
psychology and philosophy.

9
Mentalism: n, the doctrine that there is a distinct group of conscious or mental phenomena not reducible
without reminder to physical phenomena. English, H.B & English, A.C. (1958) A comprehensive dictionary
of psychological and psycholanalytical terms. New York: David McKay
The belief that some mental phenomena cannot be explained by physical laws. The American Heritage®
Dictionary of the English Language (3rd ed.). Copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic
version licensed from INSO Corporation.

The Materialistic Mentalist: You think we’re only in it for the money?
The Spiritualistic Mentalist: No, I mean materialistic in a different sense. I don’t think
you’re mercenary money grubbers any more than I am. (The spiritualist smiled, showing
she understood the ambiguity of her reply, yet still leaving it for her audience to decide
whether they were all money grubbers or none were.) I mean you deal only with the
material side of Todd; you ignore his nonmaterial dimension, his spiritual dimension.
The Materialistic Mentalist: Just what is this nonmaterial, spiritual dimension you claim
we ignore?
The Spiritualistic Mentalist: When you talk about the mind as a structure, you reveal that
you think of the mind as a physical entity.
The Materialistic Mentalist: Of course. What else is there?
The Spiritualistic Mentalist: There’s the nonmaterial side of life. Early human beings
conceived of the nonmaterial spirit to help them understand the world (a thing’s spirit
caused it to act as it did). Then the concept of nonmaterial spirit shifted into the concept
of nonmaterial soul to help later human beings understand the world (a thing’s soul
caused it to act as it did). And now the concept of nonmaterial soul has shifted into the
concept of nonmaterial mind, still helping us understand our world (our mind’s causes us
to act as we do).
The Materialistic Mentalist: Your history fascinates me. You say that all three terms,
spirit, soul, and mind, originally referred to more or less the same nonmaterial dimension.
You claim we shifted from spirit to soul to mind. But I always think of mind as a physical,
material entity.
The Spiritualistic Mentalist: Of course you do. And the rest of my history says why: The
nonmaterial mind shifted into the material mind because of the materialistic, scientific
world view so popular now. You’ve forgotten the nonmaterial ancestors of the mind—the
soul and the spirit.
Materialism
□The doctrine that the physical (material) world
□ is the only reality10

Spiritualism
□ The doctrine that the world is divided into two parts:
material and spiritual

10
Materialism: in philosophy, a widely held system of thought that explains the nature of the world as
entirely dependant on matter, the final reality. Early Greek teaching, e.g., that of Democritus, Epicurus, and
the proponents of Stoicism, conceived of reality as material in nature. The theory was renewed and
developed beginning in the 17th cent., especially by Hobbes, and in the 18th cent. Locke’s investigations
were adapted to the materialist position. The system was developed further from the middle of the 19th
cent., particularly in the form of dialectical materialism and in the formulations of logical positivism. The
Concrete Columbia Encyclopedia is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1995 by
Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

The Materialistic Mentalist: Perhaps, but I don’t even understand what it means for
something to be spiritual, not physical or material or materialistic.
The Spiritualistic Mentalist: That’s so sad. You scientific psychologists will never
understand, because with science you can only study the material, not the nonmaterial,
not the spiritual. You insist that ultimately everything is physical, that ultimately human
beings consist of no more than a few cents worth of chemicals.
The Materialistic Mentalist: The price may have gone up a bit since the last time you
checked with that old cliché. But don’t you agree that “from dust thou art and to dust thou
shall return”?
The Spiritualistic Mentalist: Our physical body, yes, but not our spirit, not our soul, not our
mind. The spirit, the soul, the mind, whatever you want to call it, contains our essence,
what we are. You can never bribe the human spirit with bubblegum, like Dawn tried with
Todd.
Definition: Concept
Spiritualistic mentalism
□ The doctrine that the mind is spiritual (nonphysical)11

MATERIALISTIC MENTALISM
Definition: Concept
Materialistic mentalism
□ The doctrine that the mind is physical, not spiritual.

The Materialistic Mentalist: Sorry, I just can’t buy that. Dawn did a good job of getting
Todd to have regular bowel movements, and she did this with bubble gum. The chance
to get the materialistic bubble gum caused Todd to change his materialistic mind which
decided to have a materialistic bowel movement. His changed mind caused his bowels to
move.
The Spiritualistic Mentalist: You materialists really strain to deny the spiritual side of life.
The Materialistic Mentalist: You’re right, most of us modern psychologists don’t buy into
your view of a nonmaterial world. We’re material creatures in a material world. Nothing
exists other than that handful of chemicals, those molecules, those electrons, those
subatomic particles, whirling around.
The Spiritualistic Mentalist: I pity you and your barren, materialistic philosophy.
The Materialistic Mentalist: Please don’t interrupt me with your condescending sympathy;
I’m not done. What I wanted to say is that at least some of us contemporary
psychologists still study the mind.

11
Spiritual: of, relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material, immaterial.
Of, concerned with, or affecting the soul. Relating to or having the nature of spirits or a spirit; supernatural.
The American Heritage Dictionary. [Note that we’re not using spiritualism in the modern sense of
spiritualism, the belief that the dead manifest their presence to people, usually through a clairvoyant or
medium.] Microsoft® Encarta© Encyclopedia 99. © 1993 – 1998 Microsoft Corporation.

The Spiritualistic Mentalist: Yes, but a material mind, one that ultimately consists of only
that handful of chemicals, not the immaterial mind. Not the true mind.
The Materialistic Mentalist: The universe contains material reality. Todd had material
bowel movements. And his material mind caused him to do so.
Point: there are two kinds of mentalism: spiritual mentalism and materialistic mentalism.
They both believe that the mind causes us to behave, but the materialistic mentalist
thinks that the mind is physical (more or less synonymous with the brain), while the
spiritualistic mentalist think that the mind is spiritual (like the soul).
The Cognitive Behavior Modifier: Can I squeeze into this conversation? That immaterial
nonsense is so far out in left field it’s immaterial to everything. But I’d like to hear more
about Todd’s material mind.
The Materialistic Mentalist: Todd had a bowel movement when his mind told him to. He
had a bowel movement when his mind thought it was the right time. He had a bowel
movement when his mind perceived that it would benefit him, when his mind sensed the
need to do so, when his mind believed it was reasonable, when his mind had the desire
to do so. Todd’s material mind made the decisions about when and how he should act.
(Note that we could have filled in Todd’s mind in the spiritual mentalistic view with much
the same activities as in the materialist mentalistic view. The main difference between
the two views is whether that mind is spiritual or physical.)

COGNITIVE BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION
Cognitive structure
□ An entity
□ assumed to cause action;
□ the way the organism sees the world,
□ including the organism’s beliefs and expectations.
□ It is material, but not behavior

Cognitive behavior modification
□ An approach that attempts to modify behavior
□ by modifying the cognitive structure.
The Cognitive Behavior Modifier: I’ve got bad news for you materialistic mentalists. The
mind you speak of is as much a fiction as the spiritualist’s nonmaterial world—pure
invention. Todd’s mind doesn’t tell Todd what to do. Todd tells himself what to do, based
on his perceptions of reality—based on whether he attributes to himself or to others
responsibility for control over his life, whether he expects the proper response will
produce reinforcers, whether he believes he can effectively produce the desired
response. He has hypotheses about what works; he has rules for effective action.
The Materialistic Mentalist: But those are all properties of Todd’s mind.

The Cognitive Behavior Modifier: I think not. We no longer need the old-fashioned
concept of mind. Instead we have the modern concept of cognitive structure, with its
cognitions—perceptions, attributions, expectations, beliefs, sense of efficacy or
effectiveness, hypotheses, rules. Todd controls his actions through his cognitions. He
attributes to himself the ability to control his life: He expects a bowel movement will get
him some bubble gum. And he believes he can effectively produce the bowel movement
when he has a sensation of bowel pressure. We needn’t invent a mind to explain Todd’s
actions.
Point: the Cognitive Behaviorist doesn’t believe in the mind. Instead he believes in the
cognitive structure which he thinks is the cause of all behavior.
The Radical Behaviorist: Now let me get in on this. The behavior analyst’s concept of rule
control deals with most of these same issues. But, to make my point clearer, let’s drop
the bubble gum intervention and look at the dessert intervention Dawn and Todd’s
mother later used (Chapter 24). Remember, Todd’s mother told him the following rule: If
you have a bowel movement anytime before dinner, I’ll give you a dessert after dinner.
We could say Todd’s behavior came under the control of that rule; it was rule governed.
The Cognitive Behavior Modifier: Perhaps, but rule-governed behavior is behavior. And
I’m talking about more than behavior. You can’t reinforce Todd’s cognitions—his
sensations, perceptions, attributions, expectations, beliefs, sense of efficacy, hypotheses,
rules12. Instead, when Todd’s bowel movements produce dessert, his perception of this
helps him make a hypothesis that his bowel movements cause his mother to give him the
desired gum. He then expects that gum from his mother will follow his bowel movements.
He believes it. And he believes in his own efficacy, his effectiveness in getting the
dessert. He attributes to himself the ability to get the dessert. All of this involves Todd’s
cognitive structure—his expectations, hypotheses, rules, and so on. However, his
cognitive structure can also change the way he experiences what you behaviorists call
reinforcement. I’m saying how he perceives the dessert’s relation to his behavior can
change the effects of the so-called reinforcement. In other words, the delivery of dessert
following Todd’s behavior influences his cognitions; but also his cognitions influence the
way the dessert affects his behavior; if he doesn’t perceive, believe, and attribute to
himself that he can have a bowel movement and get dessert, your so-called
reinforcement won’t work.
The Radical Behaviorist: I think cognitive behavior modification is simply a special type of
materialistic mentalism. And your cognitive structure is just the mentalist’s mind.
Point: the Radical Behaviorist thinks that the mind and cognitive structure are essentially
the same thing, invented explanatory fictions, even if they have different names. Both
cognitive behaviorist and mentalists think that nonbehavioral, nonenvironmental
structures cause the person to behave.

12
Not all cognitive behavior modifiers would take this position; some do attempt to reinforce thoughts or at
least to reinforce the behavior of thinking.

RADICAL BEHAVIORISM13
The Radical Behaviorist: But we’re talking about the same thing; you’ve just added a few
unneeded concepts, that’s all.
The Cognitive Behavior Modifier: Such as?
The Radical Behaviorist: All the cognitions—the perceptions, attributions, hypotheses.
We don’t need these terms as special cognitive structures. We can explain the success
of Dawn’s second intervention simply by saying that Todd performed the behavior of
stating a rule. He said to himself, If I have a bowel movement today, I’ll get dessert
tonight. And that rule controlled his having a bowel movement.
Definition: Concept
Radical Behaviorism
□An approach that addresses all psychology
□ in terms of the principles of behavior

Radical behaviorists are willing to consider all the data of psychology, including the
data of such nonbehavioral psychologists as Freud and Piaget. Radical behaviorists are
willing to consider private events such as thinking, dreaming, and feeling. But in all cases
they consider such data and events in terms of the principles of behavior. And they
consider events such as thinking and dreaming to be behavior.
The Cognitive Behavior Modifier: Don’t forget beliefs. Todd must believe in the rule.
The Radical Behaviorist: We don’t need belief as a special cognition. We just appeal to
Todd’s behavioral history. The rule statement will govern his behavior if similar rule
statements have proven accurate in the past. The simple concept of language-based,
rule-governed behavior is all we need to deal with the complexities of your cognitions.
And we need only the concept of rule-governed behavior when we’re dealing with
indirect-acting analogs to contingencies of reinforcement and punishment. (Of course,
the analysis of how rule control works isn’t simple.)
Point: Radical Behaviorists think that the behavior of stating a rule can control behavior, if
rules have accurately described a consequences in the past.
The Cognitive Behavior Modifier: Is that so? Then what about the first procedure Dawn
tried with Todd, in which his mother gave him a piece of bubble gum immediately after a
bowel movement? Did that involve rule-governed behavior?
The Radical Behaviorist: Not necessarily. That might have been a simple, direct-acting,
reinforcement contingency, not an indirect-acting analog to reinforcement. Todd needed
no rules, because the reinforcer followed the response immediately; that means the
reinforcer was able to reinforce the response—the contingency was able to directly act
13
There seem to be as many different varieties of behaviorism as behaviorists. (This is probably true of
mentalism and cognitivism as well.) So we don’t pretend to have defined the radical and methodological
behaviorism views, rather just one variety of each. There’s a good chance your professor will not find
herself or himself fitting comfortably into either of our definitions and will want to provide a supplemental or
even an alternate definition. That additional definition would be great, as no doubt it will point to important
issues we have not addressed.

on the bowel movement behavior without the aid of rule statements. But with the dessert,
the reinforcer was too delayed to reinforce the bowel movement; so he needed a rule
describing that contingency.
Point: Radical Behaviorists believe both rule statements and direct-acting contingencies
control behavior in humans.
The Cognitive Behavior Modifier: Well, from our view, Todd had cognitive rules (not your
language-based rules) even with the immediate bubble gum. And, because of the
bubble-gum contingency, Todd modifies his cognitive structure—his cognitive rules,
hypotheses, and expectations. He now expects bubble gum after a bowel movement. But
that’s not because the bubble gum reinforces anything.
The Radical Behaviorist: I’m afraid I don’t see the need for all this cognitive structure.
The Cognitive Behavior Modifier: Let me take it further. What about nonverbal animals?
Do rules govern their behavior?
The Radical Behaviorist: Of course not. An animal can’t state a rule if it can’t talk.
The Cognitive Behavior Modifier: Right, but we cognitive behavior modifiers contend that
animals have cognitions; they have beliefs, expectations, rules, and hypotheses. And it is
these cognitions that determine their actions. So you see that when we talk about
people’s beliefs, expectations, rules, and hypotheses, we mean more than you do with
your simple rule-governed behavior. That’s why we’re more than behavioral; we’re also
cognitive. We believe cognition controls behavior.
The Radical Behaviorist: And that’s where I think you go too far. You don’t need to invent
all those complex cognitive concepts to account for the learned behavior of animals. The
direct-acting contingencies of reinforcement and punishment are all you need there. Why
add extra baggage?
Point: Radical behaviorists believe that direct-acting contingencies control the behavior of
animals. And, because animals do not have rule-governed behavior, indirect-acting
contingencies can not control their behavior. On the other hand, cognitivists believe that
cognitions control the behavior of animals, as well as human beings.

METHODOLOGICAL BEHAVIORISM
The Methodological Behaviorist: I’m the only one who hasn’t gotten into this debate, so I
guess it’s my turn. I’m afraid you, my radical-behaviorist friend, also have some extra
baggage—all that rule-governed-behavior business. You don’t really need the concepts
of rule-governed behavior and indirect-acting analog contingencies.
The Radical Behaviorist: I agree with you part way; I agree we don’t need these more
complex concepts when we’re dealing with nonverbal animals, like the rat in the Skinner
box. And often we don’t need them when we’re dealing with direct-acting contingencies,
as when Todd’s mother gives him some gum immediately after a bowel movement. Take
another look at the last diagram we showed—the one involving direct reinforcement with

gum. Look closely and you’ll see the label at the bottom of that one is General Behavioral
View, not Radical Behavioral View.
The Methodological Behaviorist: So?
The Radical Behaviorist: My point is that you and I agree there. Then the diagram
explains the view of both the radical and the methodological behaviorist. We agree in our
analysis of the processes governing behavior, when only direct-acting contingencies of
reinforcement and punishment are involved.
The Methodological Behaviorist: OK, but we sure don’t agree in the case where Todd
gets his dessert sometime after the bowel movement. I don’t like the idea of your
guessing about private events, such as what people think or say to themselves. Seems
like mentalism to me.
The Radical Behaviorist: True, mentalists make inferences about unobserved events,
and so do I. Yet there’s a difference in the inference. Mentalists infer causes of a type
they’ve never observed (mental, nonbehavioral causes, often nonmaterial causes). But
radical behaviorists of the sort I represent infer behavioral processes (people covertly
stating rules to themselves) just like those we can often observe (others publicly stating
rules to people). It just happens that we can’t observe people covertly stating rules to
themselves, but we’ve no reason to think covertly stating rules differs from someone
else’s overtly stating rules to a person. So even in this difficult, covert case, we’ve
probably got nothing more than behavior to which our standard principles apply.
The Methodological Behaviorist: It seems to me that one inference is as bad as another.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re inferring covert behavioral process, or covert cognitive
process, or covert materialistic mental process, or covert spiritualistic mental process.
They’re all bad news and have no place in a true science. As far as I’m concerned, your
inferred covert rules are made of the same materialistic, mentalistic stuff as the cognitive
behavior modifier’s cognitive structures.
The Radical Behaviorist: I think the nature of the inference does matter. For example,
you might ask me why the screen door is rattling. And I might infer that it’s the wind, or I
might infer that it’s evil spirits trying to get into the house. The inference of wind fits more
comfortably into an interpretation based on materialistic, natural science than does the
inference of evil spirits.
The Methodological Behaviorist: Perhaps, but as an empirical scientist, I prefer to stay
away from any kind of inferences. I prefer to include in our science only those events that
two or more independent observers can directly observe.
Point: Methodological behaviorists don’t believe in inferred, private events, not even in
rule-governed behavior.
Definition: Concept
Methodological Behaviorism
□ An approach that restricts the science of psychology to
□ only those independent and dependent variables
□ that two independent people can directly observe.

Radical Behaviorist: That’s clearly the safest road; but as Skinner said many years ago, if
we’re going to tell the whole story, our natural science of behavior must deal with private
events.
Because our radical behaviorist got the last word, you can correctly assume that her
philosophy represents that of the authors of Principles of Behavior.

Compare and Contrast:
FIVE VIEWS OF PSYCHOLOGY
Lets review the points:
Point: Mentalists believe in mentalism; in other words, they believe the mind causes us to
behave.
Point: there are two varieties of mentalism: spiritualistic mentalism and materialistic
mentalism. Both types of mentalists believe that the mind causes us to behave, but the
materialistic mentalist thinks the mind is physical (more or less synonymous with the
brain), while the spiritualistic mentalist thinks that the mind is spiritual (like the soul)
Point: the Cognitive Behaviorist doesn’t believe in the mind. Instead, he believes in the
cognitive structure which he thinks is the cause of all behavior.
Point: the Radical Behaviorist thinks that the mind and the cognitive structure are the
same thing, even if they have different names. This is because both cognitive behaviorist
and mentalists think that some nonbehavioral, nonenvironmental structures cause the
person to behave.
Point: Radical Behaviorist think that the behavior of stating a rule can control behavior.
Point: Radical Behaviorsts believe both rule control and direct-acting contingencies
control behavior in human beings.
Point: Radical behaviorists believe that only direct-acting contingencies control the
behavior of animals. Cognitivists believe that cognitions control the behavior of animals.
Point: Methodological behaviorists don’t believe in inferred, private events, not even in
rule-governed behavior.

Mentalistic14 Materialistic All Infers
(the mind (physical psychological private
View causes things events are events
behavior) cause us to behavioral
behave)
Spiritualistic
mentalism
Y N N Y
Cognitive
behavior
modification Y15 Y N Y

Radical
behaviorism
N Y Y Y
Methodological
behaviorism
N Y Y N
Materialistic
mentalism
Y Y N Y

How common are each of these five views?
Spiritualistic mentalism is the oldest, and it has played a large role in the field of
philosophy, especially in previous centuries. Though spiritualistic mentalism may still
have some popularity outside psychology, it isn’t too common among professional
psychologists. Materialistic mentalism is probably the most common view in psychology.
It seems to us to describe the common approach called cognitive psychology, including
cognitive behavior modification. We also would classify most psychoanalysis (for
example Freudian psychoanalysis) as materialistic mentalism.
Methodological behaviorism is the most popular view among behaviorists.
Though, methodological behaviorists often erroneously call themselves radical
behaviorist as we will explain in the next section. By the way, these sections on the five
philosophical views of psychology are among the most difficult in our book. Serious
students report that they need to read this advanced enrichment section at least 2 or 3
times to get a comfortable understanding of these views. If you double dip, you may find
that the second reading goes much more smoothly.

THREE ERRORS
There are two basic philosophical errors that cognitive and methodological
behaviorism contain, which radical behaviorism avoids.
14
I think mentalistic and behavioristic are mutually exclusive and exhaustive. In other words, a
psychological view is either mentalistic or behavioristic and it must be one or the other.
15
We argue that the cognitivist’s and the cognitive behavior modifier’s cognitive structure is just a modern
version of the mind, and thus cognitive behavior modification is essentially mentalistic.

The simplistic cognitivist error
□ Rats think
The simplistic behaviorist error
□ People don’t think

I believe the cognitivist error is fairly common. People often attribute the cause of
behavior to a cognitive process. In other words, the rat presses the lever because he
“knows” (a cognitive process) he will get water. When you get right down to it,
cognitivism is nothing more than the view of the everyday, person on the street
dressed up in the intellectual’s clothing, with them big scientific, PhD-sounding words
like cognitive structure.
The behaviorist error is restricted to methodological behaviorists; unfortunately,
the majority of behaviorists seem to be methodological, even when they erroneously call
themselves radical behaviorists.
When dealing with the philosophical basis of psychology, our enemy should be
simplistic analyses, regardless of their sources. (By simplistic analyses, we mean
analyses that are oversimplified, that ignore the complexities and subtleties of an issue.)
From my view, methodological behaviorism is simplistic in that it makes simplistic
extrapolations from the contingencies of the Skinner box to all the complex contingencies
controlling the lives of verbal human beings, thereby committing the behaviorist error of
denying that people think.
And cognitivism is simplistic in that it makes simplistic extrapolations from the
thinking verbal human being to the nonverbal and, therefore, nonthinking rat in the
Skinner box.
Cognitivism is also simplistic in that its concepts tend to be mere commonsense
reifications of behavioral processes. (Remember reification? It’s like: Why does Helen
lose her temper so easily? Because she has an angry cognitive structure. How do you
know she has an angry cognitive structure? Because she loses her temper so easily.)

Biological Determinism
Another major source of simplistic analyses is biological determinism—the theory
that many of the important behavioral differences between people are genetic; just one
set of many examples is sexual behavior and sexual values, as we discussed earlier.
Two common types of simplistic analysis flow from biological determinism: The
first type of simplistic analysis is to assume that the same biological/behavioral
processes directly underlying some form of complex human behavior are the same as
those underlying some relatively simpler form of animal behavior, especially when the
two behaviors serve similar functions.
One example of this sort of simplistic analysis would be to say a person’s building
a home is based on a nest-building instinct, in more than a poetic sense, with the
implication that instinctive reinforcers similar to those controlling an animal’s nest

building, before mating season or before winter, also control the behavior of the owner of
Big Bart’s Construction Company, or the behavior of Sid and Dawn when they hired Big
Bart to build their house. Another example is the biological determinists’ argument that a
woman’s putting on lipstick is genetically programmed to attract a mate, just as is the
reddening of the rump of the receptive female baboon—no kidding!
The second type of simplistic analysis coming from biological determinism is
the assumption that the genetic processes underlying some form of complex human
behavior are the same as those that underlie the inheritance of our biochemical-
chemical/anatomical functions and structures. So biological determinists argue that the
difference between people in terms of their skills at complex matching to sample, skills at
repeating long lists of numbers, and knowing who wrote Faust (such repertoires as are
sampled on IQ tests) are innate in the same way as are the differences in height and eye
color.
Incidentally, the people in power rely heavily on biological determinism to defend
the status quo and to defend their staying in power. For example, women are genetically
programmed to be mothers/housewives while men are genetically programmed to be
executives. (Honey, I wish you had that mathematics gene, but seeing as you don’t,
would you mind doing the dishes, mopping the floor, and ironing my shirts after you nurse
baby, while I go off to my office in the Mega-Buck Bank Building? And oh, yes, I am
genetically programmed to chase that cute little secretary.)
Similarly, wealthy whites are genetically programmed to rule the world, while poor
people and people of color unfortunately lack those crucial high-IQ/get-up-and-go genes.
(Honey, I wish you had them high-IQ/get-up-and-go genes, but seeing as you don’t,
would you mind doing the dishes, mopping the floor, and ironing my shirts after you nurse
baby, while the missus and I go off to the Mega-Buck Bank Building Banquet? And when
we get back, you can take a couple hours off to visit your son who was genetically
programmed to end up in his new home, Big State Prison; such a pity.)
You think I’m kidding? Then check out The Bell Curve16, a best-selling, scholarly
book, written by a couple of guys with really high IQ/get-up-and-go genes.
Now the fact that the more powerful use biological determinism to justify their
suppression of the less powerful doesn’t necessarily mean biological determinism is
wrong. But it might give a person pause to consider. The divine right of kings is alive and
well in America today.

All of these examples of biological determinism illustrate what we call the
simplistic biological- determinist error:

16
Herrnstein, R. J. & Murray, C. (1994). The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life.
New York: Free Press.

Definition: Concept
The simplistic biological-determinist error
□ Analogous behaviors are
□ homologous behaviors

By analogous behaviors we mean behaviors that serve the same function (e.g.,
building a nest and building a house). And by homologous behaviors, we mean behaviors
that have the same directly underlying behavioral causes (e.g., genetically determined,
instinctive reinforcers). So an example of the simplistic biological-determinist error is that
a bird’s nest building and a human’s house building are both instinctive because they
both serve the same function.
To stretch this new concept slightly, the simplistic biological-determinist error also
is to make an analogy between performance on an IQ test and eye color or height and
then to assume they are homologous in that differences between individuals on IQ
performance tests have genetic involvement, just as do differences in eye color and
height.
We consider many of the arguments based on biological determinism to be
simplistic; but this criticism is neither to deny that we are biological animals nor that the
principles of biology apply to us. It’s just like another concern we have: we consider many
of the extrapolations from Rudolph in the Skinner box to be simplistic; but this concern is
not to deny that we are behavioral animals, that there is a little of the rodent in all of us
(maybe quite a little); and this concern is not to deny that the basic principles of behavior
underlie all our actions. It’s just to say that we’ve got to be careful; be simple, not
simplistic, whether we’re talking about the application of biological principles or
behavioral principles.

QUESTIONS
1. What are three related terms that originally all referred to the nonmaterial dimension?
2. What seems to be the dominant view in contemporary psychology about the reality of
a nonmaterial world?
3. According to the mentalistic view, what causes a person to behave? Give an example.
4. According to the cognitive-behavior-modification view, what causes a person to
behave? Give an example.
5. According to the radical behaviorist view, what role do cognitive structures play?
6. According to the radical behaviorist view, what causes a person to behave? Give an
example.
7. How do cognitive behavior modifiers and radical behaviorists differ in their view of
animal behavior?

8. How do radical behaviorists and methodological behaviorists differ in their view of
complex human behavior involving delayed reinforcers?
9. Draw a table showing the position the five views of psychology take concerning
mentalism, materialism, behaviorism, and inferences of private events.
10. Give an example of each of these three errors:
a. the simplistic cognitivist error
b. the simplistic behaviorist error
c. the simplistic biological-determinist error
11. Define each of the following concepts (we normally recommend this question for
graduate courses but not undergraduate courses):
a. mentalism
b. mind
c. materialism
d. materialistic mentalism
e. spiritualistic mentalism
f. cognitive structure
g. cognitive behavior modification
h. radical behaviorism
i. methodological behaviorism
j. the simplistic cognitivist error
k. the simplistic behaviorist error
l. the simplistic biological-determinist error

Conceptual Question
1. What is your opinion of the merits of each of the five views of psychology? What do
you see as the strengths and weaknesses of each?

Chapter 26B

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