1 Domain of the ought: Prolegomena

1

DOMAIN OF THE OUGHT: PROLEGOMENA

The domain of the ought includes ethics, morality, and human conduct. Ethics probably best can be construed as the subarea of philosophy that is concerned with values and duties or obligations. Morality has to do with codes, systems, and rules of proper human conduct. Human conduct in turn is the ultimate focus of ethical/moral distinctions and judgments. Ethical thought subsumes two distinct issues: (1) the nature of good and (2) the nature of right. The denotative object for which good can be a qualifying adjective traditionally is regarded as open-ended; the notion of right usually only is applied to human acts. Moral codes typically possess a strong theological underpinning and constitute the specific component of the domain of the ought that is most salient in the consciousness of the general public. An instance of human conduct is the most basic existential event about which an ethical/moral judgment can be made. While the terms 'ethics' and 'morality' can be and often are used equivalently, especially at an informal level, it is pragmatic to treat them as existing in a hierarchical relationship, along with human conduct, such that the domain of the ought constitutes a three-level hierarchy. See

Figure 1-1: The domain of the ought Figure 1-1. This hierarchical organization has the advantage of allowing the content of a lower level of normative reality to serve as both input into and an object of analysis for a higher level.

2 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality For instance, a moral rule can dictate the choice among a series of alternative courses of action; an ethical principle can arbitrate between two conflicting moral prescriptions. Note that the position of ethics at the top of the hierarchy requires at least some ethical disputes to be adjudicated by considerations external to the normative domain itself. It is the purpose of this chapter to sketch in enough detail about the three levels of the domain of the ought so that they can be related to critical psychological distinctions later. Proceeding from the top downwards constitutes the most judicious sequencing. ETHICS Ethics is the branch of philosophy that analyzes the nature of our moral experience and judgments. It is supposed to be a normative endeavor, concerned with values, ideals, goals, and end states; however, ethical phenomena possess an existential context, a major component of which is reality as construed by contemporary social science, such that assumptions about the nature of homo sapiens and society serve as input into any naturalistically based ethical doctrine. The nature and status of ethics best can be abstracted in terms of the following: (1) initial characterization, (2) normative-descriptive distinction, (3) hypothetical and categorical imperatives, (4) function of the discipline, (5) existential status, (6) relationship to epistemology and metaphysics, (7) relationship to law or jurisprudence and religion or theology, (8) relationship to science, (9) contemporary decentralization, (10) reference individual, and (11) folk ethics. Initial Characterization The domain of ethics is multifaceted and infinitely descriptive.

It is anything and everything that can occupy our consciousness: life, liberty, happiness; physical world, psychological world, social world; people, society, habits; deeds, dreams, duties; love, sex, desire; ad infinitum. Ethics in effect focuses on life, human existence, or the human condition. The subject matter of ethics certainly is continuous with that of other intellectual disciplines concerned with the nature and status of the human being, except for a crucial addition. Ethics goes beyond the current state of affairs, the immediately given, the way things presently are; it transcends existential reality as represented by the descriptive labels and categories characteristic of empirical science.

Ethics goes beyond the descriptive what is and gives

substance to the notion of a prescriptive what should be. Although the prescriptive focus of ethics sets the discipline apart from other endeavors, it also serves as the source of some fundamental problems. For instance: 1. What kind of intelligence can conceive of the existence of a should be in the first place? 2. How can a specific 'should be' be meaningful unless it already is part of a person's past experience? 3. How is a specific should be given substance operationally? 4. What is the origin of a specific should be? How does one arise?

Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 3 5. According to what criterion or standard does a specific entity constitute a should be? 6. Are the evaluation conditions for a should be different from those of a mere is? 7. Are the epistemological status of a should be and an is the same? The above sampling should suggest that the construction and eventual evaluation of an ethical reality are far from a simple process. This fact has been recognized since the days of David Hume, the eighteenth century British empiricist, who argued that statements containing a should be cannot be derived from statements containing only factual what is referents. It is not possible to argue that a particular combination of empirical properties constituting factually what is the case also should be the case. For instance, certain stimulation might afford an individual pleasure. It does not follow that the stimulation is good or pleasure is a desirable end state. Ethical systems, as normative endeavors, require a logic or justification milieu all their own. Implicit in the prescriptive focus of the discipline is the assumption that the natural world possesses some order, structure, design, or perhaps even purpose: human existence has meaning. Ethical doctrine embodies this order and meaning; it is one thing that contributes to the realization and maintenance of order and meaning. This makes the task of constructing an ethical reality an awesome responsibility.

(Contrast Nazi order and design with that of

Buddhism.) In other words, the ethical enterprise itself is a value-laden endeavor.

Normative-Descriptive Distinction The prototypical example of a descriptive endeavor is science in the generic sense of the term: science is supposed to deal with facts and descriptions of empirical entities. Description involves manifestations and categories of existence. A normative endeavor, such as ethics, is supposed to be prescriptive or evaluational: ethics deals with qualitative distinctions relative to worth, moral acceptability, and personal or social welfare that often serve as guides to action. Prescription involves manifestations and categories of value. It simply is not the case that science strictly is a descriptive endeavor or that ethics exclusively is a normative enterprise. No description or fact is ever value-free; an evaluative ethical statement is never expressed in a descriptive, empirical vacuum. Each discipline is both descriptive and normative concurrently. Descriptive scientific statements only arise because of priorly, but implicitly, made evaluative distinctions; and ethical statements merely expand on descriptive ones. The normative-descriptive distinction in practice amounts to a continuum, one in which science is customarily regarded as responsible for descriptive reality and ethics is traditionally assigned the task of originating normative distinctions. The ramifications of the notion of a normative-descriptive continuum readily become apparent in the context of the existence-value terminology.

Existence and value do not

constitute two independent, unrelated metaphysical categories: they are ineluctable components of the same underlying reality. It is delusive to assume that one can be analyzed independently of the other. Existence and value are codetermined entities: one's values dictate the nature of existence, and the nature of existence dictates one's values.

4 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality Hume's proscription about deriving statements of value from those concerning existence is unaffected by transforming the normative-descriptive dichotomy into a continuum. Because any statement, whether a descriptive, scientific one or a normative, ethical one, is a combined existential-evaluational entity, the logical and conceptual problems involved in derivation are even more extensive than Hume ever believed.

Hypothetical and Categorical Imperatives The order and design that underlies an ethical system eventually can lead to prescriptive statements of directive force, better known as imperatives. Immanuel Kant is credited with distinguishing between two types of imperatives: (1) hypothetical and (2) categorical. 1. Hypothetical imperatives are related to ethics as an applied endeavor: the means function (see Preface). The canonical form of such an imperative is "If Y is the goal, then do or be X." The directed action or state X is conditional on the desire or necessity of achieving a certain outcome Y. This kind of imperative embodies a means-end relation, i.e., some technique or skill that accomplishes the objective. Hypothetical imperatives are directly amenable to empirical evaluation with respect to how effective they are. 2. Categorical imperatives are related to ethics as a conceptual entity: the end function (see Preface). The canonical form of such an imperative is "Do or be X." The directed action or state X is unconditional. This kind of imperative embodies the highest level, or most abstract, moral prescription(s) of an ethical system. Kant himself promulgated a few presumably equivalent versions of a categorical imperative relative to how other human beings should be treated; however, the term has more general application than to Kantian ethical philosophy. Categorical imperatives are metaphysical statements whose validity is not independent of the epistemological and evaluational assumptions embodied by a specific conceptual approach to ethics. Categorical imperatives tend to possess hallowed status: they are usually regarded as universal in applicability and as epistemologically prior, special, or unique. This kind of imperative in effect expresses exceptionless, foundational moral precepts from which hypotheticals are derivable. Ostensibly, a categorical imperative basically is normative in nature, while a hypothetical imperative is a combined normative-descriptive statement with the normative 'if' component constituting an implicit categorical. In other words, the categorical "Do or be X," could be the goal Y of a hypothetical.

Function of Ethics To fully appreciate the purpose of ethics, it is necessary to recall that the discipline stands at the top of the domain of the ought hierarchy and possesses both an end and means function. As an end, ethics is the area of philosophy concerned with value and obligation: it attempts to resolve fundamental conceptual issues relative to the notions of good, bad, right, and wrong. As a means, an ethical system implicitly serves as a philosophy of morality: it is the impetus, arbiter, or justifier of numerous phenomena that reside at the morality level of the hierarchy.

Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 5 End Function

The end function minimally entails (1) the construction of ethical universes, (2) clarification of ethical terms, and (3) a vision of the ideal. Ethical theorists construct hypothetical universes just as others do: viz., physicists, chemists, psychologists, sociologists. The ethicist constructs a normative reality, as opposed to a strictly descriptive one. In this context, about a dozen classic theoretical issues concern the discipline. For instance: (1) are ethical properties empirical or nonempirical, (2) is the notion of a summum bonum meaningful, (3) are there universally recognized or valid standards of human conduct, (4) is ethical reasoning continuous with nonethical reasoning, or (5) what is the nature of the relationship existing between good and right? These kinds of issues will be analyzed later in Chapters 7 and 8. A critical task of the discipline is clarification of the meaning of ethical terms. The nature of this activity can involve (1) the active construction of a new ethical vocabulary in a manner reminiscent of hypothetico-deductive theories, (2) surveys of the typical range of applicability of key ethical notions, or (3) a linguistic analysis of the types of uses of everyday ethical words. The general trend in clarification is away from the attempt to establish an absolute set of defining characteristics for an ethical term toward an exhaustive descriptive account of the many different ways in which a term can be used or of the many different linguistic contexts in which it can appear. Meaning is not an absolute, fixed property of an ethical term: the exact meaning of an abstract ethical concept is a function of various historical and/or contextual factors. How the discipline currently addresses the problem of meaning usually is a good indication of the current state of ethical thought as a whole: meaning is the microcosm of the disciplinary macrocosm. Ethics historically provides a vision of the ideal. This is the case at both the individual level, i.e., the good life, virtuous person, content of self-realization, and the group level, i.e., good government, social welfare, human rights in general. The general public usually is not aware of this aspect of ethics, because the vision of the ideal is argumentative, symbolic, or contemplative, not physical or institutional in nature. For instance, Bentham's brand of utilitarianism served as the impetus for social and political reform in nineteenth century England; likewise Hegel's and Nietzsche's ethical musings provided an intellectual foundation for the Third Reich.

Means Function The means function involves the relationship of ethics to morality and will be abstracted in terms of ten possible subfunctions. 1. Ethics plays a role in the generation and shaping of moral standards, principles, norms, and even practices. 2. Ethics provides the ultimate set of evaluative criteria by which moral standards, principles, norms, and practices are justified.

6 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality 3. Ethics is involved with both the phenomena of and use of sanctions; namely, devices employed to get people to act morally. 4. Ethical knowledge is used to facilitate moral education and training. 5. Ethics serves as a vehicle for analyzing and resolving moral controversy, disagreement, or conflict. 6. Ethics serves as an impetus for making our accepted moral beliefs consistent with each other. 7. Ethics should allow us to reconstruct our moral beliefs in such a way that they agree with the content of our everyday moral experience. 8. Ethics serves as an implicit theory of moral choice. 9. Ethical principles directly guide conduct on occasion. 10. Ethics should enhance and enlighten our conscious moral awareness. These ten subfunctions are not necessarily mutually exclusive or exhaustive: the listing could be condensed or expanded, depending on one's purpose.

The most important

subfunctions probably are those related to (1) moral evaluation and justification and (2) moral conflict and consistency. These topics are the ones that are most intimately related to ethics as an interpretive philosophical endeavor. It should be noted that there is no one-to-one relationship between a specific approach to ethics and a particular moral view. The same ethical system can be used to justify different conceptions of morals, and a particular morality can be justified by an appeal to different ethical systems. A specific morality can exhibit a prodigious longevity and acceptance level, but be justified by appeal to vastly different ethical principles over time, i.e., different historical eras. A specific set of ethical principles likewise can endure and be reinterpreted in the context of many different moralities. Existential Status One of the fundamental assumptions underlying our analysis will be that ethics is a

naturalistic phenomenon. This means that ethical doctrine is as much a real-time, real-space component of the natural universe as anything else is. This view of the existential status of ethics has at least four significant consequences. 1. The question of why ethics is the way it is exists at two levels: (1) internal content and (2) external factors. Internal content is a matter of historical evolution, and external factors involve functional change. Intemal content and extemal factors merely amount to opposite sides of the same coin.

External factors constitute input; intemal content amounts to

output. 2. Ethical ideas and ideals cannot transcend the epistemological beliefs of the people that hold them. This includes the notion of ought or should be. This nontranscendence will become apparent later in the context of discussing the human conduct level.

Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 7 3. Ethics is more reactive than proactive in many respects. The primary stimulus for ethical change is not new or enlightened intellectual knowledge per se, but rather moral conflict, degeneracy, or irrelevancy occasioned by fundamental societal/economic change. 4. Social science knowledge relative to homo sapiens, society, the economy, technology, political organization, and the like is absolutely necessary for understanding and interpreting ethical doctrine.

Relationship to Epistemology and Metaphysics One of the influences on ethics is philosophy itself, the intellectual discipline of which ethical analysis is a component. The ethical analysis characteristic of a given historical period is not unrelated to the nature of the philosophical inquiry associated with the period. Two areas of philosophy of especial concern in this regard are (1) epistemology and (2) metaphysics.

Epistemology Epistemology concerns the nature and source of true knowledge: what is knowable and under what conditions? An epistemological issue is one involving the mechanics of knowledge acquisition and justification. The dominant epistemological orientation of contemporary, if not modem, philosophy is empiricism. The relationship of ethics to epistemology is clear-cut: ethics is subsidiary to epistemology. Ethical issues are constrained by epistemological considerations and limitations. This is true even if a particular ethical theorist does not adopt the currently dominant epistemological viewpoint, i.e., is an intuitionist with respect to the source of moral knowledge. The fundamental epistemological issue in the context of ethics is whether normative ethical knowledge is different from strictly descriptive nonethical knowledge.

Metaphysics Metaphysics focuses on the nature of reality and the kinds of substances out of which it is composed: what really exists? A metaphysical issue, currently at least, is one that transcends scientific resolution or logical analysis. The dominant metaphysical orientation of contemporary, if not modern, philosophy is a material or physical realism. The relationship of ethics to metaphysics is problematical. Some philosophers claim that ethics is subsidiary to metaphysics: the ethical universe is superimposed on an already given metaphysical universe. Other philosophers argue that metaphysics is subsidiary to ethics: the ultimate nature of reality is contingent on ethical considerations. Subsumed by the first view is the belief that the metaphysical universe is value-free; inherent in the second view is the assumption that the metaphysical universe is not value-free. My own belief is that, while the first view would constitute the ideal, in actuality metaphysics and ethics are so interminably intertwined they amount to co-ordinate, interpenetrating areas. The universe is both descriptive and normative concurrently; any

8 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality epistemological statement is both metaphysical and ethical simultaneously. The relationship of ethics to metaphysics in effect is both a metaphysical and ethical issue simultaneously. Relationship to Law or Jurisprudence and Religion or Theology Assuming that ethics and morality constitute separate, but overlapping domains, ethics

most often is confused with law and religion.

Because both these endeavors are as

multifaceted and infinitely descriptive as ethics, the relationship of ethics to them is complex. We only are going to focus on the more apparent aspects of the relationship in the context of the assumption that ethics merely is an intellectual, philosophical endeavor, while law and religion constitute virtual social institutions. Law Law in a sense amounts to an institutionalized morality: it specifically is the one associated

with civil authority.

Law is the official secular system of morality deriving from our

organization into various types and levels of political, governmental subdivisions, although the content and validity of the law transcends the state. This system of morality is characterized by five things: 1. The basic distinction between permissible and impermissible is operationalized in terms of legal and illegal. Illegal activities are those that break the law. 2. The body of law is constructed in terms of objective, third-person access properties of external behavior. An illegal act must exhibit various externally resolvable properties. 3. People committing illegal activities are subject to various sanctions or penalties, which can include forfeiture of money, personal freedom, or even life. 4. Sanctions or penalties can only be imposed after a trial proceedings which involves institutionalized and well-regulated sources and rules of evidence. 5. Law is universally recognized as necessary for the preservation of civilized society, but it cannot be presumed that this is the only purpose of the law. The relationship of ethics to law is the same as the relationship of ethics to any morality, as mentioned previously in the chapter: arbiter, justifier, clarifier, resolver, and the like.

The

direct influence of ethical doctrine on jurisprudence has been minimal historically: we typically don't consider a jurist to be an ethicist.

The purpose of law is not to formalize or

institutionalize abstract ethical doctrine. The notions of ethical and unethical do not covary with those of legal and illegal in any systematic or consistent way. Ethics at times has had a salutary ancillary effect on the law, as in the case of Bentham's utilitarianism. More recently, in the context of the British ordinary language analysis approach, distinctions and concepts in the English common law have served as models for ethical clarification. This reverses the prototypical relationship of ethics and law.

Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 9

Religion Religion is one mode of assigning meaning to life, the universe, or existence. This is done by an appeal to some divine being, or principle, that serves as the source, or justifier, of virtually everything. In the dominant Western religions at least, the notion of a deity has been formulated in such as way as to include both normative (value) and descriptive (existence) aspects. Any entity that is credited with creating the universe and human life also is supposed to be the embodiment of perfect goodness, virtue, concern, love, and the like. Such a being can be presumed to have definitive expectations about proper human conduct and how life should be lived. Religion interfaces with the domain of the ought hierarchy more at the level of morality than it does at the level of ethics. Religion either serves as the source of morality or is a morality. As we shall see later in the chapter, the over-all Hebraic-Christian tradition serves as the source of our common morality. The relationship of ethics to religion strictly is a matter of personal preference or belief. Some philosophers deem it necessary to provide ethical doctrine with a theological underpinning: it certainly is possible to advocate a "will of God" ethics. Other philosophers consider theology to be irrelevant for ethics: ethical doctrine need not possess any theological foundation. Unlike ethics, religion is a social institution with certain vested interests.

For a true

believer, religion is all-pervasive: it provides a pair of conceptual sunglasses that colors life and reality such that if ethical distinctions exist at all they are distinctly subsidiary to theology. For someone who is neutral with respect to religious belief or does not see any particular need for it, normative matters are not conditional on the existence of some divine being.

Relationship to Science The relationship of ethics to science involves more than the traditional normativedescriptive dichotomy or the naturalistic existential context in which ethics is embedded. According to Vargas, who takes a behavioristic approach to ethics, both the conduction of science and the practice of ethics are concerned with control. Control merely is a "buzz" word for how certain physical or psychological mechanisms operate.

Whenever a behavioral

psychologist uses the term "control," it is assumed for benign purposes or the betterment of humankind.

In other words, Vargas has an instrumentalist conception of both science and

ethics. But the sources and consequences of control differ in each case. In science, the immediate source of the controlling contingencies is nature, i.e., the physical environment. The goal of science is the attainment of stimulus control by properties of the environment, such that we know more about the world. In ethics, the immediate source of the controlling contingencies is us. Ethics deals with control of people by other people. It entails a body of practices which specify how this control should be exercised. The goal of ethics is the attainment of a benign social control by society at large, such that we can function more effectively as moral beings.

10 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality Contemporary Decentralization Contemporary ethical doctrine is quite fragmented: the discipline is decentralized. This is true at virtually every level of analysis: (1) specific models, (2) target population, (3) problem situations, (4) substantive content areas, and the like. For instance, we have medical ethics, business ethics, legal ethics, governmental ethics, reproductive ethics (or biogenetic engineering), psychotherapeutic ethics, scientific ethics, computer ethics, even battlefield ethics. It even has come to the point where each individual ethical sentence constitutes an analytical universe unto itself. This state of affairs parallels that of contemporary social science in general and psychology in particular, where there is not even agreement on the purpose and goals of the discipline. Decentralization has both advantages and disadvantages. The primary advantage is an increase in descriptive precision; the primary disadvantage is a decrease in explanatory comprehensiveness.

The next section details the consequences of decentralization in the

context of target population.

Reference Individual What constitutes the basic reference individual or group about which ethical distinctions and judgments are to be made; how general are ethical principles supposed to be? There is no absolute answer to these questions. 1. Ethics is the product of human consciousness, and the human being ordinarily is conceded to be the discipline's usual focus of concem. But the notion of a human being is not a technical or operationally definable one, and certainly the concept of a standard human being is vacuous. 2. Traditional Westem ethics at least is said to apply to everyone or be impersonal. But the inclusiveness, or generality, of the notion of everyone varies and tends to be contingent on relativistic, idiosyncratic factors. The primary intemal factors restricting the domain of everyone are age and cognitive status: the notion of everyone usually is limited to rational adults. Children and members of the abnormal population usually are considered to be beyond the realm of ethics. The primary extemal factor restricting the domain of everyone is group membership: the notion of everyone usually is limited to rational adults comprising a certain group. The notion of group can be defined variously: tribal affiliation, nationality, race, religion, sex typing, economic or political status, and the like. The notion of everyone in effect is a complex psychological-sociological one that is embedded in some ideological context. It can be defined in different ways to cater to various vested interests: most blatantly, it can be a tool of the establishment. At a more abstract level, everyone is not an ethically neutral term. Delineation of the domain of everyone is as much an ethical issue as determining the properties of good or right.

The notion of a basic reference

individual or group involves value judgments with unavoidable ethical consequences.

Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 11 3. Various competing ethical communities as well as noncompeting ethical populations exist in the context of contemporary decentralization. An example of the former would be abortion advocates versus the Roman Catholic Church; an example of the latter would be children versus adults. The goals or desires of competing ethical communities cannot both be met. For instance, if the Catholic Church's position on abortion were to be universally adopted, women would lose absolute control over their bodies. The goals or desires of noncompeting ethical populations ordinarily can both be met. For instance, society's protection of and special provisions for children in no way infringe on the privileges of adulthood. Folk Ethics

Does a folk ethics, analogous to folk psychology or folk medicine, exist?

Some

philosophers, such as Mandelbaum, presume so. What Mandelbaum means by folk ethics are the implicit, but enlightened, precepts of the moral consciousness of the general public. Interpreted this way, the notion of folk ethics would more appropriately be assigned to the morality level of our domain of the ought hierarchy. Folk ethics in effect really amounts to folk morality. Folk ethics is a critical notion for Mandelbaum because it serves as the ultimate reference point for evaluating abstract ethical doctrine.

Such doctrine must agree with the intuitive

precepts subsumed by folk ethics in order to be valid. MORALITY Morality is the level of the domain of the ought hierarchy of which the general public is most immediately aware. The average person tends to regard questions of right and wrong, virtue, good character, and the like as moral ones. Unlike the case of ethics, morality is neither conceptual nor solely conceptual in nature.

Morality is an ineluctable component of the

community to which one belongs: the notion of community can be variously defined. Morality is just as much a social phenomenon as a normative entity. Morality has to do with the everyday practices and beliefs that are regarded as necessary for a just and humane existence. It is doubtful that the unique defining property of morality can be reduced to one monolithic, universally accepted entity; however, morality historically either has been assigned a theological base or has been constructed around presumed salient features of human nature: moral precepts have been construed either as divine commands or as natural laws. Moral reality briefly will be abstracted in terms of (1) initial characterization, (2) basic reference point and goal, (3) Kant's two classes of duties, (4) common morality, (5) primary precept, (6) two thematic tensions, and (7) two kinds of moral judgments. Initial Characterization

It could be argued that the phenomenon of morality is universal; however, the substantive content of specific moralities is so varied that moral relativism seems to be the norm: there

12 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality might be some underlying absolute necessity associated with morality, but its numerous manifestations need have nothing in common. A morality entails a system of precepts of some degree of formality that specifies proper conduct, preferred qualities of character, typically approved goals, and the like, all of which must be relative to a given community. Moral precepts guide and regulate behavior. The relationship of morality to human action in general easily can be misconstrued: (1) Morality is not the sole or even the primary determinant of human behavior; and (2) rarely is an individual cognizant of moral considerations when choosing among various altemative courses of action. Morality really is a way of codifying the consequences of our humanity: it specifies what is permissible and impermissible for us by virtue of the fact that we are human beings (or creatures that might possess a special relationship to some divine being). This aspect of morality is highlighted by the fact that the natural universe which we inhabit, i.e., the material world that sustains us as biological entities, is morally neutral. Explosions, disease, famine, fire, flood, and the like can have dire consequences. None of these events ever is prevented from happening simply because human beings could regard its effect(s) to be immoral. Morality is superimposed on the physical world by a human intelligence that limits its applicability to events that are mediated by human activity and choice. Using psychological terminology, moral precepts do not serve as significant sources of behavioral control. There is a huge discrepancy between abstract moral dicta and actual dayto-day practices: immorality abounds. This should not be surprising for two reasons: (1) Morality merely constitutes an ideal, something to strive for; and (2) the consequences of immorality in contemporary society at least are desultory, i.e., there are no really meaningful sanctions that currently are triggered by instances of immorality. Basic Reference Point and Goal

Moral precepts can center on the individual person, the self, or the members of a group, others or significant others. A focus on the self is associated with the principle of culture, whereby a person is encouraged to strive for self-realization or increase its well-being. A concern for the self is considered to be a rational and/or prudent goal, one that is derivative of classical Greek philosophy. Personal welfare served as the cornerstone of pre-Christian morality; however, it typically was assumed that the well-being of the self also contributed to a general well-being or the social welfare. A focus on others can take two forms: (1) one's immediate social or reference group or (2) the generalized other, i.e., every other member of the human race beyond the self. 1. A focus on other group members generates the principle of loyalty, whereby a person is obligated to strive for the fulfillment of the wishes and interests of the group. A concem for other group members is regarded as altruistic. This kind of morality is reminiscent of primitive tribal cultures, which implicitly possessed an ingroup versus outgroup mentality.

Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 13 2. A focus on the generalized other is associated with the principle of beneficence or benevolence, whereby the individual is supposed to strive for the well-being of any and every human being. This concern is derivative of Christian morality which preaches agape, an impartial good will directed at one's fellow human beings. The Christian exhortation is to love God and your neighbor as yourself. The concern for others associated with this focus is not based on social, psychological, or anthropological considerations; rather it devolves from the presumed nature of humanity and its possible relationship to or understanding of some divine being.

Personal Fulfillment Versus Social Welfare The issue of whether morality should be directed toward personal fulfillment or the general welfare is complex and not easily resolvable. 1. It cannot be assumed that either aim is derivable from the other: personal fulfillment does not guarantee general happiness, nor does over-all societal welfare guarantee personal happiness. 2. Because morality is a social phenomenon, i.e., moral precepts only exist relative to some kind of community of people, a purely pragmatic approach to morality would have to emphasize a social welfare focus. 3. The only way to justify a personal welfare focus would involve appeal to the argument that each individual person somehow is special, either as a property of humanity or in relation to some teleological, especially theological, view of the universe. 4. As will become evident in later chapters, the self and significant other constitute technical psychological notions, neither of which can be regarded as more fundamental than the other. Kant's Two Classes of Duties

It is commonplace to characterize the substance of morality in terms of duty or obligation. Not only do possible duties or obligations to the self and others exist, but also Kant emphasized a distinction between (1) duties of perfect obligation and (2) duties of imperfect obligation. 1. Duties of perfect obligation are primary and absolute. They presumably are ideal candidates for universalization, Kant's classic criterion for determining the correctness of a possible moral precept (see Chapter 8). Donagan treats them as prohibitory in nature: they are most conveniently stated in the negative. For instance, it is impermissible to lie under any circumstances. This class of duties appeals to those people whose concern for others derives from loyalty: specifically stated "nevers" help stabilize and maintain social organization. 2. Duties of imperfect obligation entail desirable, but provisional, actions or end states. They function as nonspecific, open-ended commands. For instance, it is desirable for a person to extend charity to a specific individual or under all circumstances. This class of duties is

14 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality

emphasized by those people whose concern for others is motivated by agape: benevolence is to be expected from an individual possessing impartial good will. A perfect obligation always overrides an imperfect one in cases where these two classes of duties conflict. It is never permissible for a duty of imperfect obligation to be executed by an action which is specifically prohibited by a duty of perfect obligation. The age-old dictum that a good end cannot be pursued by evil means merely is a conceptual extension of this perfect duty-imperfect duty relationship.

Common Morality By common morality is meant the everyday received morality accepted by the Westem world. It even would be appropriate supposedly to deem common morality "folk morality" (see the prior discussion on "folk ethics"). While common morality at an informal level tends to be identified with the moral tenets of Christianity, i.e., the Hebraic-Christian tradition, it actually possesses three components that function as guiding principles: 1. An enlightened concern for the self, as reflected in the notion that personal happiness, wellbeing, or self-realization constitutes a desirable end goal. 2. A conditional or reciprocal regard for others, as manifested in socially co-operative behavior, contractual relationships and obligations, promise keeping, and the like. 3. An unconditional respect for others, i.e., impartial good will, agape, or virtual reverence for humanity, culminating in charity, self-sacrifice, good deeds as ends in themselves, and the like. Common morality is much less restrictive than its detractors realize. For instance, smoking, alcoholism, neglecting to take advantage of educational opportunities, pure laziness, and the like are not immoral although they inhibit self-realization; killing and suicide are acceptable courses of action in many contexts; broken promises are readily glossed over in extenuating circumstances.

Primary Precept Most people agree that common morality possesses a primary precept; however, there is lack of agreement on how it is best expressed. The issue in effect is not whether a primary precept exists, but rather the degree to which the various versions of it correspond. Probably the most pervasive and ubiquitous version of the primary precept is the so-called Golden Rule: do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. This principle also can be stated negatively. The Golden Rule obviously is devoid of specific moral content. It merely tells you to treat people as you would have them treat you. The basic moral proposition tapped by this version is that two or more moral agents should be related in a symmetrical fashion: they should possess the same moral status with respect to each other. Kant captured the essence of the Golden Rule at a more formal level: act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.

Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 15 Another rendering of the primary precept is the general Christian dictum: love God and your neighbor as yourself. This version is more figurative than the Golden Rule. In essence it means that you should honor and revere God and treat other people with impartial good will. As is the case with the Golden Rule, this dictum does not offer specific moral advice. It merely tells you the general stance you should adopt in dealing with other people.

Kant has a

particularly cogent characterization of this stance: act so that you treat humanity, in your own person or that of another, always as an end, and never as a means only. The structure of the Golden Rule and the Christian dictum are identical. In each case, (1) the basic reference point is the self, which serves as the criterion of acceptability of some specified course of action; and (2) the object of the action is a generalized or significant other. The precepts do ostensibly differ with respect to the content of the specified course of action, i.e., "do unto" versus "love." But the behavioral effects of these two directives should be the same; namely, treating others with dignity and respect.

Two Thematic Tensions Moral reality is characterized by two opposing themes, or thematic tensions, that are only incidentally related to the personal fulfillment-social welfare dichotomy: moral doctrine can emphasize either (1) duty/obligation or (2) pleasure/fulfillment. 1. An obligation focus makes morality an extemally imposed entity. Duties and obligations are imposed on the individual, such that the execution of moral rules often requires the repression or denial of some fundamental human desires or interests. Kant even goes so far as to argue that something is not our duty unless it is contrary to our interests. In the context of this focus, morality is an absolute property of an entity; and the distinction between the moral and nonmoral is made via an appeal to formal, relational, or logical criteria. 2. A fulfillment focus makes morality an inherent property of the human condition.

The

purpose of morality is to fulfill our desires, interests, and the like, i.e., to promote pleasure and well-being. There is no inherent or necessary conflict between duty and interest. In the context of this focus, morality is a relative or contingent property of an entity; and the distinction between the moral and nonmoral involves an appeal to material or substantive conditions that constitute the usual objects of interest of the traditional social sciences: people, society, culture, habits, practices, and the like.

Two Types of Moral Judgments A distinction traditionally is made between (1) first order and (2) second order moral judgments. 1. First order moral judgments involve the rightness or wrongness of acts in and of themselves, regardless of who the performer of the act is. The individual committing the act is not the reference point; rather the specific content of the act is the focus. An act is

16 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality treated as an objective event in the universe, i.e., as a proper object of third-person access and analysis. First order precepts in effect deal with the material permissibility of acts. 2. Second order moral judgments pertain to the rightness or wrongness of an individual in performing a certain act. The reference point is the doer. What is at issue is the culpability or inculpability of the doer. An act in this context is more than an objective event in the universe: one or more aspects of the doer, such as its motive, intention, goal, desire, and the like, must be appealed to in order to fully interpret and comprehend the act. In other words, the existential status of the act from the doer's own subjective point of view must be taken into account: an act is treated formally as whatever is connoted by the doer's description of what is occurring. Second order moral precepts in effect deal with the formal permissibility of acts. First and second order moral judgments often conflict, because the material and formal descriptive interpretations of an act need not correspond. For instance, an act considered materially may be classified as stealing, while the same event is treated formally by the doer as an instance of borrowing: e.g., using a neighbor's lawn mower on a Saturday afternoon without permission. HUMAN CONDUCT The kinds of events about which ethical/moral judgments are made must be ascribable to human beings: they are overt actions or inferences based on overt actions, such as mental states, traits, qualities of character, and the like. Human conduct and whatever legitimately can be inferred from it constitute the basic epiphenomena of ethics and the first level of the domain of the ought hierarchy. Conduct is a fancy term for what people do.

A social scientist in general and a

psychologist in particular are more apt to refer to this doing as behavior; a humanist in general and a philosopher in particular are more likely to refer to this doing as action. Conduct, behavior, and action constitute congruent, but not necessarily equivalent, notions. We merely preview the notion of conduct in this section to simplify matters somewhat and will not consider the problem of legitimate inferences until later in Chapters 5 and 6. Our aim is (1) to demonstrate the open-endedness of the concept of conduct and (2) to show how different historical conceptions of action constrain ethical reality.

Open-Endedness Although human conduct is the implicit focus of virtually every social science, it is an explicit object of concern for the psychologist. It now is fairly well accepted that the explicit task of psychology is to resolve the nature of human behavior, especially that of the individual organism, treated as an analytical entity. This is one reason why an ethical reality must be superimposed on a logically prior psychological reality. Conduct is not really a given in our perceptual consciousness: we only see instances of conduct because we have been trained to do so in the context of some implicit characterization

Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 17 of it. Descriptions of conduct cannot occur in a conceptual vacuum. Conduct is a theoretical construct: there are as many conceptions of human conduct as there are people who feel the need to theorize about it. The number of perspectives from which conduct can be resolved is endless, because the notion of human conduct is embedded in a more comprehensive framework that encompasses human nature, society and custom, free will and determinism, mentation or cognition, moral responsibility, physiological processes, and the like. One aspect of the conceptual framework that usually is employed to explain instances of human conduct is origin: what is the etiology of conduct? In fact, the denotative content of human conduct rarely, if ever, is resolved independently of its presumed cause.

This will

become apparent in the next section.

Some Illustrative Historical Conceptions It is necessary to unpack the notion of etiology in greater detail to generate some representative conceptual approaches to conduct. Specifically, let us assume that the presumed primary or sole cause of conduct can be classified according to two binary-valued input dimensions, which when made orthogonal to each other establish four mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories of causes.

This etiological classificational scheme generates a 2 x 2

output table, to each cell of which many different conceptions of behavior could potentially be assigned. See Figure 1-2. LOCATION OF CAUSE

NONPHYSICAL

INTERNAL

EXTERNAL

FOLK PSYCHOLOGY

PRIMITIVE ANIMISM

SUBSTANTIVE NATURE OF CAUSE PHYSIOLOGICAL MATERIALISM PHYSICAL COGNITIVE

RADICAL BEHAVIORISM

PSYCHOLOGY

Figure 1-2: Some etiological approaches to conduct

18 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality The two input dimensions are (1) location of cause and (2) substantive content of cause. Location can be either internal or external. Internal essentially means within the organism under the skin; external means outside the organism in the external environment. Substantive content can best be abstracted in terms of nonphysical versus physical. A nonphysical entity is not a real-time, real-space event; a physical entity is part of the naturally occurring universe. Thus, the four categorical types of causes are (1) internal nonphysical, (2) internal physical, (3) external nonphysical, and (4) external physical: any event serving as a causal source of conduct must be uniquely assignable to one of these categories. The internal-external dimension is correlated with the classic free will versus determinism issue: determinism presupposes external causes of behavior, while only internal causation allows behavior to be self-generated.

The distinction between nonphysical and physical

accounts of conduct corresponds to that between informal, predisciplinary and formal, professional psychological accounts of behavior: the source of behavior must be physical in contemporary monistically oriented academic, experimental psychology.

The internal

nonphysical category serves as the implicit reference point for most traditional ethical doctrine because it views the human being as a self-willed creature, responsible for its conduct. What currently appears in each output cell of Figure 1-2 merely is the most representative, i.e., historically most significant or currently dominant, conceptual approach to conduct associated with that cell. The main diagonal cells generate (1) folk psychology and (2) radical behaviorism; the negative diagonal cells produce (1) physiological materialism and cognitive or epistemological psychology and (2) primitive animism, which is the logical approach to consider first.

Primitive Animism The notion of an extemally sourced nonphysical cause of conduct might seem anomalous in a contemporary context; however, it was not such in the days when no distinction was made between inanimate and animate motion and it was assumed that various kinds of spiritual entities inhabited physical objects and bodies and made them move. The rustling of leaves on a tree, the continuous flow of river water, the movement of a human in space were all due to possession by some invisible, noncorporeal entity, such as a demon, soul, or the like. These various kinds of nonphysical entities are classified as externally sourced because they were assumed to have an independent existence and could flit around from one physical body to another. Primitive animism constitutes a dead end for ethical doctrine for a number of reasons: 1. It contains no formal theory of action. Action at best is nothing but physical movement, and physical movement is not unique to the human being. 2. Explanatory animistic entities are circular in nature. They amount to redescriptions of the phenomena to be explained at another, presumably higher, level of reality. To say that human movement is the result of possession by a spiritual entity explains nothing: it merely extends ignorance to another level of reality.

Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 19 3. In primitive animism the important ethical entities are not human beings or their exhibited activity, but rather the spiritual entities serving as the source of human action: there are good and bad spirits, which serve as the source of good and bad acts. 4. The causal determinism inherent in primitive animism is random, capricious, nonrational, or emotional.

Animism breeds superstition, which in turn leads to magicalism as the

primary behavioral control technique. Human beings are at the mercy of spiritual forces that must be courted and appeased. Ethical behavior is not so much a matter of proactive choice, but rather long-term patience or survival. We have continually referred to the animistic doctrine as primitive, not because it is simplistic (which it is), but rather because it is characteristic of so-called primitive tribal cultures. The world view associated with a typical primordial tribe does not allow a high-level, abstract ethics. Morality tends to be equated with custom, and the basic ethical distinction involves a personalistic us versus them dichotomy.

By and large the moral code of the

primitive tends to be instrumental and utilitarian in nature.

Folk Psychology The internal, nonphysical category generates numerous versions of an informal, commonsense, folk psychology, the distinguishing characteristic of which is the assumption that overt action is the mere extension or by-product of one's state of mind. A specific instance of conduct in effect represents the expression of at least one mental state. A mental state is classified as internally sourced because it is a property of the individual person and has no existence independent of the person; and it is categorized as nonphysical here because the Cartesian interpretation of mind is implicitly assumed in folk psychology. The number and variety of possible mental states in folk psychology are infinite. Philosophical analysis suggests that there are two basic classes of mental states that create action: beliefs and desires. Beliefs are cognitive items, while desires are motivational entities. A given instance of behavior could possess both a cognitive and a motivational component. Folk psychology has at least two drawbacks: 1. It often leads to inconsistent, or contradictory, predictions: sometimes it works; sometimes it does not work. This state of affairs should not be surprising, given the fact that folk psychology amounts to folklore, whose validity status is personalistic or idiosyncratic and intuitive or superficial. 2. The notions of mental state and action are codetermined entities in folk psychology: they are circularly defined in terms of each other.

Mental states are inferred from the

observation of certain actions, and certain events qualify as actions because they are relatable to certain mental states. A belief, desire, and action in effect constitute an all-ornone, indissoluble triad. Because an action merely is an extension of a person's state of mind in folk psychology, knowledge of the person's state of mind is necessary to identify instances of action. Only the person committing an act has direct, or first-person, access to its mental states. The onlookers

20 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality to a piece of behavior only can make indirect, or third-person, inferences with respect to the performer's state of mind. Either of these conditions makes the notion of action a completely subjective one in the context of folk psychology.

First-person access reports are beyond

reliability and validity assessment; the content of third-person inferences can be in error. In folk psychology an action in effect is whatever an individual says it is doing or intends to be doing. The basic evaluative reference point for an action is internal. It certainly is possible for a person's descriptive conception of its act to disagree with the descriptive conception of the act derived from third-person inference. Folk psychology considers the individual human being to be an agent, or more specifically, a moral agent. Agency means that action is self-generated: the actual producer of action is the individual organism, conceived as an autonomous creature. The human being possesses free will and is morally responsible for its actions. Folk psychology interfaces very nicely with traditional Hebraic-Christian morality, as well as the deontological tradition in ethics with its stress on duties and obligations.

Physiological Materialism; Cognitive Psychology The internal, physical category generates such conceptual approaches to conduct as physiological materialism and cognitive psychology. Conduct perennially has been related to structural parts and dynamic processes of the body and to cognitive events presumed to be occurring in the brain; however, it only has been in the last century that these organismic events have been given a strictly physical, or material, interpretation and considered to be accessible to scientific investigation. It is possible for a mental state to exist in the context of this cell, but it must be given some representation as a non-Cartesian, physicalistic, physiological or cognitive entity. Contemporary physiological psychology and cognitive psychology do not put limitations on the notion of conduct above and beyond those associated with academic, experimental psychology in general. Research psychologists in fact prefer to treat the notions of conduct and action as undefined terms and focus on instances of behavior that can be used to (1) identify the existence of a specific action or (2) quantify the frequency of occurrence of a specific action. Another way of stating this is to point out that the typical experimental psychologist will willingly deal with a piece of behavior from an external, third-person access framework without ever evaluating or justifying this framework via reference to the mental state or intention of the individual performing the behavior. The advent of technical physiological and cognitive psychology certainly has not revolutionized the process of construction of an ethical reality; however, it has both broadened and refined the domain of ethical problems and issues. For instance, increased physiological knowledge and enhanced physiological technology literally have created the area of bioethics, encompassing such subissues as reproductive ethics, genetic engineering, organ transplant ethics, and even the very definition of life itself; increased cognitive knowledge and its utilization via computer modeling and computer simulation have created ethical problems in all

Domain of the Ought: Prolegomena 21 sorts of areas: computer privacy, job loss and restructuring due to automation, educational opportunities and performance expectations for the developmentally disadvantaged and the like. Radical Behaviorism

The prototypical conceptual approach that treats conduct as an exclusive function of external, physical input is descriptive behaviorism, of which B.F. Skinner's radical version constitutes the best contemporary exemplar.

The critical feature of any descriptive

behaviorism is the assumption that stimulus and response events exhaust the psychological universe: only two metaphysical categories of existence are necessary to characterize psychological reality. Any presumed psychological entity, even a traditional mental event, must be assignable to either a stimulus or response category. What makes Skinner different from other descriptive behaviorists, such as John Watson, is his willingness to admit the existence of mental events; however, he regards them strictly as epiphenomenal in nature: they are just as much output as overt behavior is. Mental events in effect constitute internal responses which set up discriminative stimuli to which the person is selectively attentive due to reinforcement contingencies under the control of the surrounding verbal culture: we must learn to verbalize what is occurring "in our minds." For Skinner, an instance of conduct straightway is a piece of behavior, which in turn is some response instance from some response class. A response class is defined functionally; that is, in terms of its effect on the environment. Physiological movements or activities that have the same effect on the environment are members of the same response class.

The

meaning of a given response class always is assigned via third-person access according to some external criterion. An effect on the environment can be termed a consequence. There are two critical classes of consequences for Skinner: (1) reward or positive reinforcement and (2) punishment. The crux of Skinner's radical behaviorism is the proposition that virtually all significant responses that a human being can exhibit are potentially under the control of reward and punishment contingencies. The human being merely is the locus of certain variables, not a moral agent. Skinner's dynamics involve determinism, but it is a bidirectional one according to which the individual organism and the environment constantly are mutually influencing each other. The implications of Skinnerian psychology for ethical reality are enormous, and Skinner himself has mapped the traditional ethical distinctions onto his psychological universe: e.g., moral precept, good, bad, rights, obligations, duties, justice, fairness, and the like.

He

postulates no new or radical normative principles; rather he simply relabels the fundamental epistemological entities of his system in the framework of the over-all instrumentalist, utilitarian philosophical tradition. The unique aspects of Skinner's ethical prescriptions derive from his rejection of the individual organism as an efficacious moral agent (autonomous man in his terminology) and his construal of moral action as a property of the holistic, physical or

22 A Psychological Approach to Ethical Reality naturalistic system to which we belong. A brief summary and analysis of Skinnerian ethics will appear in Chapter 9.