SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL BASIS OF ETHICS-A REVIEW OF MAX HOCUTT, THE

Behavior and Philosophy, 2003 by Waller, Bruce N

Hocutt has a much simpler account for what is good and bad: "Briefly, the good is the reinforcing or reinforced. The bad, as we have observed, is just the opposite" (p. 118). This is indeed simple, but it invites a simple response: what is positively reinforcing is often actually bad for us. One need not be a moral objectivist to note that many things that are immediately reinforcing-cigarettes, chocolate chip cookies, cocaine-are long-term aversive. Skinner (1971) offered a clear example:

In the incentive system known as piece-work pay, the worker is paid a given amount for each unit of work performed. The system seems to guarantee a balance between the goods produced and the money received. The schedule is attractive to management, which can calculate labor costs in advance, and also to the worker, who can control the amount he earns. This so-called "fixed-ratio" schedule of reinforcement can, however, be used to generate a great deal of behavior for very little return. It induces the worker to work fast, and the ratio can then be "stretched"-that is, more can be demanded for each unit of pay without running the risk that the worker will stop working. His ultimate condition-hard work with very little pay-may be acutely aversive. (pp. 34-35)

But Hocutt is well aware that there are bigger issues than immediate reinforcement and the moral system favored by a specific society. Goodness (what is reinforcing) may require a broader perspective that encompasses long-term results. Hocutt is a strict relativist, and from his relativist position all morality is local: "The truth is this: Since there is no transcendent Morality, conduct can meaningfully be judged moral or immoral only by using the relevant local morality as a standard" (p. 153). But his sophisticated version of relativism does not preclude larger judgments concerning the worth of moral systems:

If the health, happiness, longevity, and prosperity of their members are any measure, some societies are very much better ordered than others. In other words, some cultures, including some moralities, are superior to others. I would be the last person to deny it. (p. 200)

If Hocutt accepts this much in the way of transcultural critiques of morality, it may appear that he has conceded everything that contemporary moral realists want: that is, such moral realists as Peter Railton (1986) and Michael Smith (1991), who seek an objective cross-cultural standard for morality based on the needs of human animals, needs and values discovered by empirical research in psychology and sociology and biology, and making no appeal to transcendent moral truths. And in fact, Hocutt does have some kind words for Railton's moral realist emphasis on "actual interests and beliefs" and the challenges of balancing them "to accommodate likely projections and modifications of these interests and beliefs into the future." Hocutt regards this as an important, difficult, and legitimate task, and praises Railton's work on these issues: "These are all important insights, for which Railton deserves much credit" (p. 242). But Railton pushes further, and proposes a larger test for morally right practices; specifically, the morally right thing to do is the act or practice that "would be morally approved of were the interests of all potentially affected individuals counted equally under circumstances of full and vivid information." And this step moves too far into the philosophically ideal for Hocutt: