A Functional Analysis of Psychological Terms Redux

In his seminal paper, “An Operational Analysis of Psychological Terms,” Skinner (1945) offered the revolutionary suggestion that, rather than endlessly debating the meanings of psychological terms, psychologists should analyze the variables that control their occurrence as verbal behavior. Skinner''s suggestion reflected the essence of his 1957 book, Verbal Behavior, wherein he argued that the behaviors of which language is composed (i.e., speaking and listening) are controlled by variables found in the social environment (which he called the verbal community), and that analyzing those variables would lead to an understanding of the behaviors. Although Skinner formally introduced his radical approach to language in 1945, it has yet to be fully realized. The result is that psychologists, including behavior analysts, still debate the definitions of terms. In the present paper, I review Skinner''s functional approach to language and describe ways in which behavior analysts have already applied it to traditional psychological terms. I conclude by looking at other current terms in behavior analysis that engender some confusion and encourage behavior analysts to apply a functional analytic approach to their own verbal behavior.     

From Self‐Respect to Respect for Others

The leading accounts of respect for others usually assume that persons have a rational nature, which is a marvelous thing, so they should be respected like other objects of ‘awesome’ value. Kant's views about the ‘value’ of humanity, which have inspired contemporary discussions of respect, have been interpreted in this way. I propose an alternative interpretation in which Kant proceeds from our own rational self‐regard, through our willingness to reciprocate with others, to duties of respect for others. This strategy, which shares some similarities with moral contractualism, offers a way to justify other‐regarding moral requirements from self‐regarding rational dispositions.     

Respect in psychotherapy

There have been only a few investigations of how therapists foster or impede the development of respect in psychotherapy. Respect concerns how we look at our patients and takes into account their uniqueness. Transferential-countertransferential, existential, and developmental foci are presented as a basis for understanding the origins and current status of respect along with the developmental possibilities inherent in the therapeutic process. The unchecked countertransference and deliberate, unethical behavior are cited as the principal means by which therapists perpetuate cycles of disrespect. Strategies that the therapist might utilize to facilitate the development and maintenance of respect are described.     

Mystical Theology Redux: The Pattern of Aquinas'Summa Theologiae

The deleterious effects of the modern divorce of spirituality and theology can and must be redressed by the revival of mystical theology, theology that is ultimately concerned with the union of God and humanity. Aquinas' Summa Theologiae provides a model of such a mystical theology, a work which is both an exhortation to contemplation and an act of contemplation. The mystical themes of the Summa are evident in four operative principles, the theoretical, the theological, the anthropological and the Christological, which bind the work together and specify the way in which Thomas articulates the union of God and humanity.     

Respect for other selves

Philosophers have mostly advocated that advance directives should bear the same authority, with regard to refusal of life-extending treatment, as a patient's contemporaneous consent or refusal. Such authors typically support this position through a theory of persistent personal identity. I agree that the loss of mental competence does not render someone a moral stranger to their prior goal but argue that equating advance direction with consent is to ignore the capacity of nonpersons to attribute and withhold moral value. A distinction should be drawn between advance directives that seek to pursue deeply held goals and those that express contempt for the mentally incompetent.     

论公民的尊重教育

尊重是对公民个体同属于“人类”共同体的基本属性和价值的肯定性态度和行为,是对公民人格和尊严的“认可”、“尊敬”与“重视”;“真实尊重”的形成有赖于真实平等的社会制度以及由此建立起来的真实平等的价值观念。在社会主义条件下,尊重与相互尊重不仅是制度对公民个体的道德诉求,是社会主义市场经济的平等交换关系在道德领域的现实要求,也是公民的基本权利和义务;大力提倡和加强公民尊重教育,将赋予公民个体强烈的责任感、义务感和权利感,进一步增强公民道德的内在基础,促进公民社会和谐人际关系与良好道德氛围的形成。     

Respect for Just Revenge

The paper considers acts of private (in the sense of individually motivated and extra‐legal) revenge, and draws attention to a special kind of judgement we may make of such acts. While endorsing the general view that an act of private revenge must be morally wrong, it maintains that under certain special conditions (which include its being just) it is susceptible of a rational respect from others which is based on its standing outside morality, as a choice by the revenger not to act morally but to obey other compelling motives. This thesis is tested against various objections, notably those which doubt the intelligibility or application of such non‐moral ‘respect,’ or would assimilate it to moral approval; and it is distinguished from various positions with which it might be confused, such as the ‘admirable immorality’ of Slote, or the Nietzschean critique of morality.     

Disability,Respect and Justice

Recent political philosophers have argued that criteria of social justice that defend distributing resources to individuals on the basis of the disadvantages of their natural endowments are disrespectful and disparaging. Clearly influenced by the social model of disability, Elizabeth Anderson and Thomas Pogge have recently defended criteria of social justice that distribute resources to people with disabilities on the basis of eliminating discrimination, not making up for so‐called natural disadvantage. I argue that it is implausible to suggest that just entitlements for people with disability can be secured solely by eliminating discrimination. Resources for people with disabilities must sometimes be justified on the grounds that some natural endowments pose disadvantages even in societies that do not discriminate. I argue further that there need be nothing at all disrespectful about this way of explaining disadvantage; nor have proponents of the social model of disability or political philosophers provided any compelling reasons for supposing that it is disrespectful. There is thus no motivation for Anderson's and Pogge's attempts to secure justice for people with disabilities by appealing solely to the imperative to eliminate discrimination.     

A Narrative Search for Respect

This article examines narratives of the self used by stigmatized people searching for respect on the streets of Oslo, Norway. The three narratives—“it was my own choice,” “I'm decent,” and “we're the same”—are embedded in conventional discourse. They are utilized in claims to be morally decent selves. Three different narratives—“I'm interesting,” “I'm smart,” and “I'm dangerous”—are embedded in the gangster discourse of a violent street subculture. They are utilized in order to appear as fascinating and competent. This ambivalent presentation of self challenges concepts such as “the code of the street” and “street culture.”