Moral & Legal Control
Chapter 26
Evolution
• Natural selection
• Survivors survive, losers don’t
• No purpose, just the way it is
No purpose
Humans
• Not snails, fungi, or paramecia
• We are different
Thoughtful
Reasoning
Thought and Reason
• Humans may not have a
purpose
•Can have
purpose
Humans can select a
purpose
• Does not logically follow from
natural selection
• Survivors survive, losers
lose…
• But, we can select a
purpose
MM&T suggest this
purpose…
WELL-BEING OF LIFE
IN THE UNIVERSE
LIFE: human,
nonhuman, and
plant
Values
• Learned & unlearned
reinforcers and aversive
conditions
• Most of us have acquired values
that support the notion that we
should work toward the
betterment of life in the
universe
How to achieve this
ultimate goal?
• Design systems that provide
guidance toward the goal.
• Goal-directed system design
Goal-directed system
design
• First select the ultimate goal of
a system,
• then select the various levels of
intermediate goals needed to
accomplish that ultimate goal,
and
• finally, select the initial goals
needed to accomplish those
intermediate goals.
Assumptions…
• To achieve a goal, need to state
the goal and consciously design
systems to achieve the goal
• SYSTEMS: organizations (UN,
USA, UNCG, Psychology
Department)
Systems need goals
• To achieve goals, systems need:
•Resources
•Rules
•Contingencies
Resources
• Stuff
• Examples: UN needs
food, grain, technology to
prevent starvation
Rules
• Rules for use of
resources
• Example: Food must go
to starving, but
powerless, people
Contingencies
• Make sure that rules are
followed
• Example of a contingency that
ensures rule is followed:
• local distributors of resources
will lose their privilege of
distribution if they don’t
distribute properly (e.g., put
food on the black market)
CONTINGENCIES FOR
FOLLOWING THE RULES
OF GOOD RESOURCE
USE
Sources of
contingencies for
following rules?
•Legal
•Moral
Legal Contingencies
Legal Rule Control
• Control by rules specifying
added analogs to behavioral
contingencies and added directacting behavioral contingencies
based on material outcomes.
Example of Legal Rule
Control
• Goal: healthy life form
• Resource: uncontaminated
environment
• Legal rule: don’t contaminate
or your will be fined
• Legal contingency: a heavy fine
(analog to penalty contingency)
ANALOG TO PENALTY
Before
Behavior
After
You will have
$N in one
month.
You dump a
barrel of toxic
waste.
You will have
$N-2,000 in
one month.
Moral (ethical) Rule
Control
• Control by rules specifying
added analogs to behavioral
contingencies.
• Such rules specify social,
religious, or supernatural
outcomes.
Legal Control
• Works when someone is around
to observe the behavior and
impose the contingency
• Speed limits
• Seat belts
What if no one is there to
observe?
• Moral control:
• Individuals observe their own
behavior and apply punishment
and avoidance contingencies
(perhaps automatically)
Moral Control
• If society cannot observe the
behavior, but cares about the
outcome…
• Impure thoughts are not illegal,
just immoral
Legal Control
• If society can observe
the behavior and cares
about the outcome
• Parking meter expires…
•Won’t go to confession
•Will cost $$$$
Moral & Legal Control
• If society can sometimes
observe the behavior and
sometimes it can’t
• Stealing
• May go to confessional and to
police station
Aversive Basis of Moral & Legal
Control
• Analogs to punishment
• Sins of commission (committing
bad deeds)
• Analogs to avoidance
• Sins of omission (omitting or
failing to do good deeds)
Why Do Legal and Moral Control
Fail?
Moral Control
Penalty too small
Legal Control
Penalty too
improbable
SD
(Deadline)
Before the
day's end.
Before
You will lose
the op. to
enter
heaven
when you
die.
After
You will not
lose the op.
to enter
heaven
when you
die.
Behavior
You perform
your day's
good deed.
S
After the
day's end.
After
You will lose
the op. to
enter
heaven
when you
die.
Congratulations!
• You have completed (except for
the final exam) your first course
in Behavior Analysis!!!
• You have been a pleasure to
teach!
• I have appreciated your
attention and thoughtful
attitude about the material.