Current preoccupation with learning-theory has led psychologists, and other social scientists, to expect more from it than can presently be delivered. The subsequent reflections are submitted in order to suggest that at least some formulations of the relation between learning-theory and the “culture-concept” are somewhat defective. More specifically, I shall examine two recent contributions by O. K. Moore ), whose attempts at definition are distiguished by the employment of the formidable weapons of symbolic logic. Without denying the advantages to be (...) gained, by the sciences in general and the social sciences in particular, from the introduction of this new logic, I would justify my critical concern with Moore's definition of “culture” in terms of “learning-theory,” because it may become representative of other contributions whose partial inadequacies are easily obscured by the technicality of a symbolic language into which the actual empirical complexity of an issue could be falsely thought to have been properly translated. (shrink)

The following reflections are submitted in awareness of an unfortunate situation which currently finds both psychologists and philosophers concerned with the search after criteria for assessing human conduct, yet with either profession suspicious of the contributions to be expected from the other. The objections frequently entertained against psychologizing philosophers are only matched by those entertained against philosophizing psychologists. Yet, if the worst is said, it still remains true that much psychological work, devoted to problems of mental health, maturity or neurosis, (...) makes contact with moral issues. It also is true that such contact has so far not been fruitful to the point of encouraging psychologists or philosophers to expect new illumination from each other. Unless it be groundless, in principle, to look towards psychological findings as potentially relevant for moral theory or vice versa, it would seem that the only cure for poor relations between the two disciplines are better ones rather than none at all. At any rate, it is on the assumption that more successful relations are possible that I shall now comment upon what appears to be both a most influential and unsuccessful attempt by one psychologist to solve an ethical problem. I shall take my departure from B. F. Skinner's recent Science and Human Behavior,∗ especially from his chapters on value and the survival concept. (shrink)