A brief (1 paragraph) explanation of the ethical dilemma

/in /by

(Discussion Post)

To prepare for this Discussion, consider Case 13.2, “How Safe Is Safe?” on pages 351–352 of Northouse (2016) and review the Albert, Reynolds, and Turan (2015), Lawton and Páez (2015), Hoover and Pepper (2015), and Gustafson (2013) articles provided in this week’s Learning Resources.

Post your application of ethical frameworks to the ethical dilemma posed in the case study. In your application, do the following:

  • Justify your proposed solution, and explain the reasoning you used to arrive at your solution.
  • Incorporate the justifications you provided in response to the Case 13.2.
  • Apply the ethical framework(s) outlined in the Learning Resources or in other scholarly literature that aligns with your reasoning. Explain how your reasoning aligns with those frameworks.

Be sure to support your work with a minimum of two specific citations from this week’s Learning Resources and one or more additional scholarly sources.

(Paper)

To prepare for this Assignment, think of a situation where a leadership team encountered a situation where things did not go well and they were faced with an ethical dilemma. Analyze what could have happened had they applied the appropriate decisions. Offer your solutions using an ethical framework.

Submit a 4-page analysis (excluding cover page and References section) of the ethical situation. Your analysis must include the following:

  • A brief (1 paragraph) explanation of the ethical dilemma
  • An explanation of the ethical framework that, if applied by the organization to make its decision, would have resolved the ethical dilemma, including support for your analysis from scholarly research
  • An examination of both the positive and negative consequences of the decision, including the trade-offs that the leadership of the organization made in making their decision

    In Defense of a Utilitarian Business Ethic

    ANDREW GUSTAFSON

    ABSTRACT

    In this article, I suggest and support a utilitarian approach to business ethics. Utilitarianism is already widely used as a business ethic approach, although it is not well developed in the literature. Utilitarianism pro- vides a guiding framework of decision making rooted in social benefit which helps direct business toward more ethical behavior. It is the basis for much of our discus- sion regarding the failures of Enron, Worldcom, and even the subprime mess and Wall Street Meltdown. In short, the negative social consequences are constantly referred to as proof of the wrongness of these actions and events, and the positive social consequences of bailouts and other plans are used as ethical support for those plans to right the wrongs. I believe the main cause of the neglect of the utilitarian approach is because of misguided criticisms. Here, I defend utilitarianism as a basis for business ethics against many criticisms found in the business ethics literature, showing that a business ethics approach relying on John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism supports

    Andrew Gustafson is an Associate Professor of Business Ethics and Society, College of Business Administration, Creighton University, Omaha, NE. E-mail: andrewgustafson @creighton.edu. http://www.andygustafson.net

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    Business and Society Review 118:3 325–360

    © 2013 Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK.

     

     

    principles like justice, is not biased against the minority, and is more reasonable than other views such as a Kantian view when dealing with workers and making other decisions in business. I also explain utilitarian moral motivation and use satisficing theory to attempt to defend utilitarian business ethics from questions raised regarding utilitarian calculus.

    1REVITALIZING A UTILITARIAN BUSINESS ETHIC FOR SOCIAL WELL-BEING

    Let us . . . find ourselves, our places and our duties insociety, and then, gathering courage from this newand broader understanding of life in all its relations, address ourselves seriously to the problem of making our- selves and our neighbors useful, prosperous and happy. Such is the supreme object of utilitarian economics.

    Phelps and Myrick (1922, p. 7)

    [T]he utilitarian standard is not the agent’s own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether; and if it might possibly be doubted whether a noble character is always the happier for its nobleness, there can be no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the world is in general is immensely a gainer by it.

    Mill (1998, ch. 2, para. 9, l. 4)

    Utilitarianism provides a vision of ethical behavior which holds the common interests of humanity as of utmost importance when we make a moral decision. Utilitarianism fits business well if we conceive of business as a means of transforming culture and society, and utilitarianism is the ethical perspective which most easily helps us to address the ethical relationship and responsi- bilities between business and society. Surely, nothing is more powerful than business itself in shaping our cities, our work environments, our playing environments, our values, desires, hopes, and imagination. Business provides great goods for society through goods and services, jobs, tax revenue, and many common outcomes, but it also has wide-ranging effects on a broad spec- trum of stakeholders. The utilitarian in business asks, how can

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    we do business in such a way that it contributes to the greater good? Drawing here on the utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill, here I will first put forward some key features of a utilitarian business ethic—that the right actions are the ones which contribute to the greatest good for the most—and then in the latter part of the article, respond to some of the typical criticisms of utilitarianism in the business ethics literature in hopes of displaying utilitari- anism’s promise as a guiding vision for ethical business behavior.

    Self-interested profit-maximization cost-benefit analysis is often labeled as “utilitarianism,” and that has often been the target of business ethicists, looking to get business to consider ethical inter- ests along with profit. These criticisms are useful and correct, so long as they are aimed at economic profit maximization, rather than the utilitarian ethics approach, but sometimes, the distinc- tion is not clearly drawn. Utilitarianism as an ethical theory is quite different than mere profit maximization, but the confusion is common. There is, actually, a severe gap in business ethics litera- ture regarding a utilitarian ethics approach to business ethics. Although there have been books in the field of business ethics written on Kantian business ethics (Bowie 1999), Social Contract business ethics (Donaldson and Dunfee 1997; Sacconi 2000), and Aristotelian business ethics (Hartman 1996; Morris 1997; Solomon 1993), no book has dealt with utilitarian ethics and business ethics per se. Although there has been some positive attention paid to the notion of “utilitarianism” as a basis for business ethics (Brady 1985; Elfstrom 1991; Snoeyenbos and Humber 2002; Starr 1983), mostly it has been critical (Audi 2005, 2007; Beauchamp and Bowie 2001; Bowie 1999; Bowie and Simon 1998; Desjardins 2011; Hartman 1996; McCracken and Shaw 1995; McGee 2008; McKay 2000; Velasquez 1995; Velasquez et al. 1989).

    Ironically, all this criticism comes while we continue to use greatest good or common good analysis for most of our societal ethical issues. Considering societal benefit and harm is usually the basis for much of our discussion regarding the ethical failures of Enron, Worldcom, and the subprime mess and recent Wall Street Meltdown. Taxcheating, welfare or insurance fraud, racism, gender discrimination and harassment in the workplace, under- mining trust, stealing from the company, dishonest bookkeeping, and nearly any unethical business practice we can imagine are argued against and considered wrong in part, at least, because of

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    the harm these activities do to the greater good. Utilitarianism in this sense is already widely used as an ethical appeal and busi- ness ethic approach, although it is seldom discussed in the lit- erature. The negative societal consequences (to investors, the market, homeowners, employees, the jobless, etc) are constantly referred to as proof of the wrongness of these actions and events, and the positive social consequences of bailouts and other plans are used as ethical support for those plans to right the wrongs. When we call on society to shared sacrifice, the reason given is almost always “for the greater good” which is to say, the greatest long-lasting happiness for the most—the prosperity of society into perpetuity. Yet, when discussed in business ethics litera- ture, utilitarianism is usually sketched, criticized, and then dismissed—usually because these “utilitarianisms” are quite dif- ferent than Mill’s classical utilitarianism. Here, I will attempt to provide a more intelligible view of how Mill’s classic utilitarianism can apply to business ethics and respond to a number of the key criticisms raised against utilitarianism in the business ethics literature, in hopes of bringing attention and support to the viability of a developed utilitarian business ethics.

    What Mill’s Utilitarianism Is not

    It is quite important from the start to realize that many views are criticized by the name “utilitarianism,” and we should first realize that the classical utilitarianism of Mill is not equivalent to a number of other theories referred to as utilitarianism—views which business ethicists are right to criticize. First, as mentioned, it is not mere profit maximization, which is from some business literature. Second, it is not preference utilitarianism—the view that the source of both morality and ethics in general is based upon subjective preference.2 (Rabinowicz and Österberg 1996). Third, it is not a “rational actor” model. (McCracken and Shaw 1995) The rational actor model “utilitarianism” is well defined by McCracken and Shaw as holding that (1) humans are rational, (2) rational behavior is characterized by preference or value maximi- zation, (3) businesses seek to be profit maximizing, (4) the moral good is utility, (so therefore) (5) ethical business practice consists of maximizing profits within a framework of enlightened, but not clearly defined, rules, rights, and obligations.

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    This “rational actor model” is ethically problematic, and McCracken and Shaw are right to point out that “[t]o analyze business decisions using as a model an individual solely moti- vated by the maximization of value or of profits, without regard to his or her own character, is totally unrealistic. It does not speak to the role of ‘Nobility,’ ‘Sacrifice,’ ‘Sportsmanship,’ ‘heroism,’ and the like—” (McCracken and Shaw 1995, p. 301). Mill’s utilitari- anism, fortunately, does address such concepts as heroism, nobil- ity, and sacrifice, as we will see. The point here is simply that Mill’s utilitarianism model is quite different from a simple profit maximization model or a simplistic cost-benefit model which is often referred to as “utilitarian” in the literature.

    Mill’s Utilitarianism

    It is important to be clear about what Mill’s classic utilitarianism entails. When we seek common ethical principles, we really seek a common vision of the good, because we want a common vision for making decisions which provide at least semi-universal guid- ance. Although no ethical theory is without its difficulties, what an ethical theory provides is some shared common starting points from which to work out ethical decisions—as an individual and as a community. There is not a shared understanding of application in all cases, but the community shares the common starting point for making their case. There is, we might say, a hermeneutics of ethics, whereby the meaning of an ethic for a particular situation involves interpretation and so, dispute. The Bible and church tradition are to Christians a shared starting point—and obviously, not all agrees on the application of that text/tradition—but there is a shared assumption about where we should meet to try to come to conclusions. There are hermeneu- tical differences of interpretation of Scripture, as there are of the utilitarian principle, but utilitarians at least share a common vision for trying to work out ethical answers rooted in a shared assumption that what we all seek ultimately is to attain the greatest happiness for the most.

    Three key aspects of Mill’s utilitarianism distinguish his ethics and so, a utilitarian business ethic: (1) it is consequentialist and has a shared goal of the common good at its heart; (2) it takes account of long-term consequences or the prosperity of society; (3)

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    it entails nurturing moral education in culture by developing social concern in individuals.

    First, Mill’s utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethical theory: Mill’s utilitarianism is concerned about the welfare of the many, rather than just the individual, as he says, “[the utilitarian] stan- dard is not the agents own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 9, l. 4). It is not mere egoism and, in fact, calls on an individual to sacrifice one’s own happiness on occasion, if it is for the greater common good. For Mill’s utilitarianism according to this “Greatest Happiness Principle”—“the ultimate end, with reference to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable . . . is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 10, l. 1). Greatest happiness might come by a wide distribution of hap- piness to the most, or in some cases, the interests of the many might be served actually by affording something to the minority (such as providing fair trial to all, even those who are apparently guilty—which maintains a happier society than one which does not provide fair trials (Sadam’s Iraq, Syria, North Korea, etc).3

    Utilitarianism fits business well, because business often thinks in terms of utility. However, utilitarianism is not concerned with the interest of the individual only, or even of the larger distribu- tive sum or aggregate of the happiness of individuals (Audi 2007). Rather, Mill’s utilitarianism is concerned with the happiness of humanity as a whole—his is a corporate narrative aimed at “cre- ating bonds between the individual and humanity at large” (Heydt 2006, p. 105). On this view, “[h]umanity begins to appear as a ‘corporate being’ rather than as a simple aggregate of individuals, when one begins to imagine it as having a destiny” (Heydt 2006, p. 105).4 The difficulty is trying to help people to start to think of social utility, not just personal or profit-maximization utility, and to realize that we must consider long-term social utility, not just social utility for this evening. This involves having a vision of the good of humanity in mind when making decisions. In the words of Mill, the utilitarian conceives of life this way:

    So long as they are co-operating, their ends are identified with those of others; there is at least a temporary feeling that the interests of others are their own interests. Not only does

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    all strengthening of social ties, and all healthy growth of society, give to each individual a stronger personal interest in practically consulting the welfare of others; it also leads him to identify his feelings more and more with their good, or at least with an ever greater degree of practical consideration for it. He comes, as though instinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being who of course pays regard to others. The good of others becomes to him a thing naturally and neces- sarily to be attended to, like any of the physical conditions of our existence. (Mill 1998, ch. 3, para. 1, l. 30)

    Such utilitarianism will not answer every single dilemma, but it does give direction in many situations. Mill believes humans have a fellow feeling toward other human beings, and that this feeling can be nurtured and trained as one develops a vision of oneself as a member of this society of humanity and as we integrate indi- viduals into a strong culture of concern for others (more of this on the succeeding paragraphs).

    Second, Mill’s utilitarianism pursues long-term benefit and so has rules of morality following from the Greatest Happiness Principle (GHP) which provide moral guidance.5 Mill says, “Whatever we adopt as the fundamental principle of morality [the GHP], we require subordinate principles to apply it by” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 24, l. 52), and he points out that such subordinate principles are both necessary for morality and ultimately grounded in the GHP. To those who think that we can have no intermediary principles and must always refer back to the GHP directly, Mill responds:

    It is a strange notion that the acknowledgement of a first principle (GHP) is inconsistent with the admission of second- ary ones . . . The proposition that happiness is the end and aim of morality, does not mean that no road ought to be laid down to that goal, or that persons going thither should not be advised to take one direction rather than another . . . Nobody argues that the art of navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the Nautical Almanack. Being rational creatures, they go to sea with it ready calculated, and all rational creatures go out upon the sea of life with their minds made up on the common questions of right and wrong. (Mill 1998, ch. 3, para. 24, l. 36)

    So for Mill, there are subordinate intermediate principles deriving from the GHP which are affirmed in light of their overall long-term

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    happiness-producing benefit. In holding to principles of justice and other such virtues, utilitarianism focuses on the long-term or cumulative benefit, not merely the local, short-term, or immediate benefit.6 Mill is like a stock buyer with a long-term view of things, who rides out the ups and downs of the market. A company which follows this utilitarianism will be concerned with fair treatment of employees, honest habits with customers and suppliers, and just policies because acting with justice, fairness, and honesty will, in the end, produce the greatest happiness for the many—through increased productivity, a strong reputation, and customer loyalty all leading to a positive outcome. Fortunately, we have history and experience to turn to, to help us discover best practices and establish values worth pursuing grounded in precedent: “During all that time mankind have been learning by experience the tendencies of actions; on which experience all the prudence, as well as all the morality of life, is dependent” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 24, l. 9). We have seen on Wall Street the negative conse- quences of not maintaining fairness, prudence, and honesty in the subprime meltdown, for example, and this is not news to us—we saw the same lessons in Enron, Worldcom, the savings and loan scandal, etc. The actions which led to the meltdown were committed in violation of principles which we know bring about societal stability and prosperity, and those acts were committed without regard to the long-term societal market consequences. Thinking we are an exception to the rule often gets us in trouble.

    Overall historic tendencies, not particular exceptions, guide the decision. Mill’s utilitarianism is concerned not with static results but with dynamic trends.7 When Mill says “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness,” he is looking for derivative rules of action which only usually or more often than not promote the benefit of the many. This means it can stick to a principle in the face of possible exceptional circumstances.8 The utilitarian sticks to his tried and true principles in the face of pressure to change course. If, in general, an action (i.e., telling the truth) tends to promote happiness, we should do that even if in this particular instance it does not produce happiness, or we do not see how it will—because telling the truth tends overall to produce benefits to the many as we have seen from previous empirical observations. We can have quite intelligent guesses as to what actions tend to

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    promote happiness for the many9—principles like “do not murder,” “do not cry wolf,” “do not lie,” and other such principles. These principles, by and large, tend to promote happiness for the many. Again, the utilitarian looks at decisions like a long-term investor looks at stock—a long-term investor does not sell when- ever the stock goes down and buy whenever it is going up—and a utilitarian does not reject the principles he knows from cumula- tive experiences from the past as it will provide the foundation of a happier society every time it becomes inconvenient or unclear if on this specific occasion the benefit will come.10

    Third, moral education toward a culture of ethical–social concern is essential (Gustafson 2009; Heydt 2006). Mill’s utilitari- anism relies on education and the development of social ties to undergird our moral motivation so that we will act according to the GHP. This is the sort of corporate culture construction which we achieve through strategized ethical training and integrity development, not unlike the model Sharpe-Paine calls the integrity approach (in contrast to the compliance approach) (Paine 1994). Throughout his Utilitarianism and On Liberty, we find Mill arguing that without proper socialization and moral education, people will not be enabled to pursue the GHP because they will be oblivious to it and incapable of desiring it. But fortunately, because humans have fellow feelings, these can be nurtured and trained toward a strong culture of social concern:

    [T]he smallest germs of the feeling are laid hold of an nour- ished by the contagion of sympathy and the influences of education; and a complete web of corroborative associations is woven round it, by the powerful agency of the external sanctions. This mode of conceiving ourselves and human life, as civilization goes on, is felt to be more and more natural. (Mill 1998, ch. 3, para. 1, l. 44)

    The first means of encouraging utilitarianism is not legal, but cultural: “that education and opinion, which have so vast a power over human character, should so use that power as to establish in the mind of every individual an indissoluble association between his own happiness and the good of the whole” (Mill, Utilitarian- ism, 2.18). This is exactly the job of us in business ethics and the job of any corporation which really wants to ensure moral

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    employees—to nurture this social sentiment, encourage the moral imagination so that our students or employees can realize the consequences of their acts on others, and to come to habitually think not in terms of immediate personal gain, but think of themselves in community. So, for example, Mill would say that training employees to be ethical should not simply be oriented around rules and enforcement but should center on nurturing a corporate culture which has implicit expectations of moral behav- ior and concern for others as human beings. Once they under- stand ethical behavior as “of course!—that’s just the way we do things around here,” then they have come to see ethics as a matter of course—expected without question; bloodstream beliefs as an esteemed businessman I know puts it.11

    When speaking of external sanctions, Mill recommends “laws and social arrangements should place the happiness, or . . . the interest of every individual, as nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the whole” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 18). This we attempt to do through taxation, through equal opportunity legis- lation, tax-incentives for innovations, federal sentencing guide- lines, Sarbanes–Oxley Act, etc—we try to provide incentives for people and companies to do what is in the public interest through external sanctions. These can of course also be positive incen- tives, such as awards or ethical responsibility lists published by organizations or magazines such as Business Ethics Magazine. However, we know that codes and rules alone do not change personal or corporate character—culture formation is essential.

    With these three principles in mind, we can better see the possibility of a utilitarian business ethic, and also, see how Mill can respond to typical criticisms of his position most commonly brought up in the business ethics literature.

    Common Criticisms and Responses

    One helpful way to understand the adequacy of a theory is to hear its responses to its critics—and there are plenty of opportunities with regard to this, as was mentioned, as most commentators on utilitarianism in the business ethics literature have had reserva- tions about utilizing utilitarianism. Here, I will provide five key typical criticisms of utilitarianism brought up in the business ethics literature and respond to each in turn. My goal is to initiate

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    further development of utilitarian business ethics in the field—not by criticizing critics, but by distinguishing Mill’s utilitarianism from other forms of thought which might be criticized by that label. Common criticisms of utilitarianism found in the business ethics literature include the following:

    1. The Convenience Objection: utilitarianism undermines prin- ciples such as justice and truth telling, which would make the keeping of contracts a matter of convenience at best.

    2. The Supererogatory Objection: utilitarianism leads to irratio- nal and futile conclusions which are unworkable and unten- able in the business place because it asks too much of us.

    3. The Majority-bias Objection. utilitarianism is biased against the minority viewpoint and so is unnecessarily blind both to the dignity of individuals and to innovation from dissenters.

    4. The Motivation Objection: utilitarianism fails to provide moral motivation for this social concern it requires.

    5. The Calculation Objection: utilitarianism is considered fatally flawed insofar as it cannot provide an adequate calculus system to do the utilitarian calculus, leaving it impotent to assist in making ethical business decisions.

    Here, I aim to show that one can, on the basis of Mill’s utilitari- anism, respond to these criticisms and that a robust and fruitful utilitarian theory can be quite able to help us develop a vision of business ethics.

    Convenience: Utilitarianism Has No Principles: Justice and Rights Go out the Window It is often said that utilitarianism cannot adequately provide an explanation for rights, duties, or justice because it will compro- mise these for expedient good of the greater happiness for the majority: “Perhaps the strongest criticism that can be made against a utilitarian approach is that it completely and totally ignores rights [of individuals]” (McGee 2008). Utilitarians are cari- catured at being willing to do anything, so long as the majority benefits. For example, it has been said that Oliver North’s decep- tive lying about the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980’s was a clear example of utilitarian reasoning:

    North’s method of justifying his acts of deception is a form of moral reasoning that is called ‘utilitarianism.’ Stripped down

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    to its essentials, utilitarianism is a moral principle that holds that the morally right course of action in any situation is the one that produces the greatest balance of benefits over harms for everyone affected. So long as a course of action produces maximum benefits for everyone, utilitarianism does not care whether the benefits are produced by lies, manipu- lation, or coercion. (Velasquez et al. 1989)

    Here, utilitarianism is characterized as justifying acts of deception through lies, manipulation, or coercion. If one considers happi- ness of the majority above all else, it is said, then a utilitarian will give up justice for expediency and will ignore principles and rights when it is beneficial to the majority. Hartman likewise claims that “[t]he determination always to perform whatever act, or even whatever sort of act, maximizes happiness will have unhappy consequences, not least as a result of the breakdown of rules and institutions that enable people to trust one another” (Hartman 1996, p. 46). This criticism actually makes the point for utilitari- anism! On Mill’s utilitarianism, if in fact an act would have unhappy consequences—including “the breakdown of rules and institutions that enable people to trust each other”—then a utili- tarian should not do that act. Lying and ignoring rights and otherwise undermining basic stabilizing foundations of society which make it a happy one are not in line with utilitarianism, but quite rejected by a utilitarian ethic.

    However, there is still an apparently difficult dilemma for the utilitarian here: either Mill remains committed to the principle of utility when possible exceptions arise, in which case he acknowl- edges that sometimes one morally ought to violate such alleged rights as liberty and freedom, or else the utilitarian remains com- mitted to these rights even when they violate the principle of utility. Mill addresses such concerns when he says, “We are told that an utilitarian will be apt to make his own particular case an exception to moral rules, and, when under temptation, will see an utility in the breach of a rule, greater than he will see in its observance” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 25, l. 4). His response is, first, to admit that utilitarianism can be misused as a rationalizing excuse for doing evil—but all moral creeds can be misused. Second, he points out that there are often “conflicting situations” and that “[t]here is no ethical creed which does not temper the

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    rigidity of its laws, by giving a certain latitude, under the moral responsibility of the agent, for accommodation to peculiarities of circumstances” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 25, l. 19). In the recent scenario where a choice had to be made to break previous prom- ises to united auto workers and help General Motors (GM) survive or fulfill those promises and let them go bankrupt, a great many people agreed with utilitarian thinking that in such a difficult situation, survival will bring about greater benefit than fulfilling promises to the union (New York Times 2005). However, GM made those promises in good faith (we trust) not realizing the extraor- dinary possibility of extinction was coming. These decisions are quite difficult, with conflicting sides, and as Mill says, “Though the application of the standard may be difficult, it is better than none at all: . . . only in these cases of conflict between secondary prin- ciples is it requisite that first principles should be appealed to” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 25, l. 28). In normal (nonextraordinary) situations, a utilitarian does not give up principles which support the well-being of society in the light of apparent short-term goals. In the literature, this is known as “rule utilitarianism” (Carson 1997; Starr 1983). A utilitarian would say that supporting higher pleasures of noble sentiments of fidelity and loyalty for the sake of the greater good would outweigh short-term benefits of breaking trust.12 Preserving rights, duties, and justice is essential to pro- viding the possibility for the greatest happiness for the many—and for maintaining trust in the markets.13 Mill says of justice, “Justice remains the appropriate name for certain social utilities which are vastly more important, and therefore more absolute and impera- tive, than any others are as a class” (Mill 1998, p. 107). Honest business dealings, acting in good faith, fair trials, equality before the law, civil rights, etc are all social utilities on Mill’s view because they provide for a happier society overall, despite short- term costs (of keeping this contract, despite its liability). We can think of many examples of companies which have sacrificed integ- rity and trust for short-term benefits, and in the end, when such companies as Enron or others collapse, it is impossible to say that their breaking of trust led to a greater benefit for the majority involved, much less that as a general rule breaking trust or tossing aside principles of integrity leads to greater happiness.14

    Mill’s utilitarianism sees that for society to maintain its happiness-producing capabilities long term, it must maintain

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    respect for certain values such as justice, fairness, and civil (society-granted) rights which require some to sacrifice for the greater good. Obviously, these are values which a corporation must preserve to maintain a positive healthy workplace. In addi- tion, we know now more than ever that market stability requires a great deal of trust on the part of investors, which in turn requires upright honest behavior on the part of companies.

    So, it is not as though the utilitarian regularly denies these values and principles for short-term expedient gain. To do so would be to undermine the most important values in society which ensure long-term happiness. Why is it wrong to break contracts? The utilitarian would argue that it is wrong in large part because breaking contracts tends to undermine faith in business as an institution, and this would undermine the happiness-producing capacity of our society at large. When can we? In extraordinary circumstances. It is obvious that GM’s deci- sion to not fulfill contracts with their workers was considered an extraordinary act—an anomaly, not one which forever under- mined trust in GM—because their workers made new contracts with GM and the financial institutions stepped up to loan to them once again after that extraordinary decision to break the contract. To say that utilitarians do not really stick to principles because in extraordinary circumstances they will sometimes make exceptions is like saying that the school superintendant does not care about the children’s education because he called off school due to inclement weather. Both require difficult judgment calls, and both, if done well, will be done in a principled and thoughtful manner. To characterize these extraordinary exceptions as random or capricious is quite untrue to classic utilitarianism.

    Supererogatory: Utilitarianism When Followed Leads to Futile Actions The first criticism we addressed is the concern that the utilitarian will not stick to the GHP always, whereas this second criticism is concerned that if the utilitarian does, it will result in absurdity. Utilitarianism asks us to act for the benefit of the many, but sometimes, such actions seem futile if others are not correspond- ingly cooperating. In short, it seems irrational to act on a rule which assumes others are acting likewise, if they are in fact not doing so. Hartman provides a great example in which your

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    department can finish the project due the next day if all 10 of you stay late, but everyone goes home at 5 except you. “Surely,” says Hartman, “you have no moral obligation to the organization to work alone all night if you know your effort will be futile” (Hartman 1996, p. 46). This is the principle Hartman later devel- ops as an “exit” principle—the notion that it is rational, at certain times, to exit previous agreements (Hartman 1996, p. 170). His point, as I understand it, is a good one: does not utilitarianism seem to lead to supererogatory acts and have no limit of obligation? Velasquez brings a similar criticism against utilitarianism when he says that a “standard utilitarian claim” is “that businesses and agents in general have the duty to provide for people’s basic wants right up to the point where the costs begin to outweigh the benefits . . . For example, so long as cor- porate assets could provide advertising, pure utilitarians would say that it would be wrong to use them for such corporate purposes” (Velasquez 1995, p. 873). Again, utilitarianism on this criticism leads to unrealistic expectations and obligations.

    In responding to Velasquez first: perhaps some models of thought would advocate the reallocation of funds as per Velasquez’ suggestion, but Mill’s utilitarianism does not need a company to cease to spend money on operations to increase the fulfillment of other people’s wants, for example, for the manager to give all their advertising budget to the local soup kitchen. The reasons are many. There are multiple promises and good faith obligations made to investors, stockholders, and other stakehold- ers such as employees and suppliers which would all be broken for the sake of soup, and randomly breaking such contracts in nonextraordinary circumstances would not be acceptable—a society where commitments are fulfilled, salaries are paid, jobs are maintained, tax revenues are produced, and investors are repaid, and the owners fiduciary interests are maintained will be a society happier than one where such fidelity and trust is absent (on the other hand, if the company was in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and made a corporate decision to divert special funds from advertising toward helping with the emergency, it might very well be considered acceptable). Second, the point of utilitarianism is not merely to give people what they want or to provide a communistic equality which brings all down to a common low level of means. Having concentrated wealth in

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    institutions such as corporations may lead to more efficient eco- nomic growth and so, help bring about prosperity to society. An argument could be made that it is more advantageous to the well-being and overall happiness of society for the company to advertise well and increase revenues and grow, provide more jobs and dividends and tax revenues for the local community, than for the soup kitchen to increase its budget.

    We might respond in three ways as utilitarians. First, if it is an extraordinary circumstance, and in fact the greater good is not served in staying, then we should not stay, unless an important socially beneficial principle is preserved. In effect, the utilitarian agrees with Hartman’s exit principle: “in a community in which some people are free riders—the usual state of affairs—it is not rational to want to want to be a contributor all the time . . . you ought to want to be the sort of person who contributes until others clearly show they will not; then you can reciprocate by withholding your contribution” (Hartman 1996, p. 184). Of course, in principle, one should always try to fulfill promises and obligations, be faithful, loyal, etc. Loyally staying to burn the midnight oil out of loyalty to the company is admirable, but if it really is impossible for you to do your work without the others present, then it may simply be absurd.

    Second, it seems that not being able to complete the goal of the group does not necessarily mean that one has no reason to complete one’s own responsibilities from a utilitarian viewpoint. Utilitarians who see that none of their neighbors recycle are not excused from recycling, despite the fact that their actions alone will not make much of a difference. With regard to this “staying late” example, a utilitarian may say that you do have an obligation—and your obligation is to stay relatively late, as late as it would have taken all of you to get finished, granted you can do your work without the input from the others. In other words, other people not doing their part does not mean you have 10 times as much responsibility, or all the responsibility, but it also does not mean that you are relieved from doing your part.

    Third, there are long-term benefits to the many which come from sticking to principle apart from the immediate short-term gain. We can easily see this in research and development depart- ments, where many ultimately fruitless projects are pursued in

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    hopes that some of them will come to fruition. In football practice, third stringers do all the same drills as the starters knowing they likely will not play Friday night in the game. The point is, the utilitarian does support practices which are rooted in principles that are thought to have long-term benefits, but these principles are always guided by the basic guidance of utility—what will bring about the greatest good in the long run.15 A utilitarian upholds certain principles because of a belief that maintaining the prin- ciples will produce a society in which happiness production is more possible and likely. This is exactly the very heart of integrity and trust which business depends on. If we do not act on good faith principles, then business cannot happen, and society becomes unable to provide basic happiness ultimately. In cultures of extreme corruption and no good faith trust, there is no capacity for business interaction. If a person is surrounded by lazy irre- sponsible coworkers, that in itself is no excuse to give up their own integrity and work ethic because we know a society in which people act with integrity will be a happier one.

    Majority Bias: Utilitarianism Is Biased in Favor of Majority, and So, Is Unfair to Minority Rights Utilitarianism is undeniably for the happiness of the majority. The greatest happiness is what we strive for in our ethical decisions. However, certain freedoms for the minority are always supported by Mill with utilitarian arguments. Another criticism often raised against utilitarianism is that it will regularly undermine people’s rights, particularly when they are in the minority.16 For example:

    A straightforwardly utilitarian rule consistently applied may violate people’s rights. Consider a rule that licenses discrimi- nation against the handicapped and thus saves all the money that would be spent in accommodating them. There is no evident algorithm for trading off rights and utility insofar as they are distinct, not least because there is not reason to suppose they are commensurable. (Hartman 1996, p. 46)

    Hartman is right to point out that the needs of handicapped and money are incommensurate goods. Yet, we constantly are put in situations where we must weigh them and make judgments, and we do—in light of a common good principle, much like the GHP. So, the choice is not either: pursue utility or help the disabled—

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    helping the good of the disabled is part of the utility as we make our judgment. We should not withhold money to the disabled simply because we love money. However, we would limit money spent on handicapped on the basis of justice, the rights and needs of others, and a utilitarian wants to pursue justice because a just society is more happiness productive than one which does not pursue justice as a general rule. We would weigh the needs of elementary education and highway maintenance, senior citizens, and military spending against the needs of the handicapped. Practically speaking, we unfortunately must set some financial limits on how much we will make provisions for the disabled, and that is why we, for example, do not demand that all buildings be retrofitted for handicapped access, but only public buildings of certain types. Doing such calculations is complicated but hardly without precedent or models. We do not simply write blank checks for funding the disabled. Mill obviously thinks preserving justice is essential to happiness, and it is likely that he would endorse helping the needy, supporting the less fortunate to a limited degree, and providing treatment to those who need it. A society which can help its disabled, resocialize its psychopaths, and bring its poor into the mainstream economy will be better off than one which ignores these minority needs.17

    Bowie seems to also claim that Mill ignores the rights of the minority when he highlights what he considers to be the “anti- utilitarian principle” in Kantian thought. This is the key point which goes against utilitarian thinking, according to Bowie. This principle of Kant’s which is incompatible with utilitarianism goes as follows:

    When a situation arises where it appears that the humanity of one set of stakeholders must be sacrificed for the humanity of another set of stakeholders, that decision cannot be made on the grounds that there is a greater number of stakeholders in one group than in another. (Bowie 1999, p. 90)

    Bowie is correct in saying that not only the interests of the major- ity should be considered. Utilitarianism is not simply for the greater number, it is for the greatest overall happiness of the greatest number, and Mill is clear that, in many cases, this requires the majority grant the individual in the minority rights which might not have any apparent immediate benefit to the

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    majority. One example he provides is security: “security no human being can possibly do without; on it we depend for all our immu- nity from evil, and for the whole value of all and every good,” (Mill 1998, ch. 5, para. 25, l. 13) and so, as it is such a basic necessity, and because without it basic happiness is impossible, society protects it for us as a right. “To have a right, then, is, I conceive, to have something which society ought to defend me in the pos- session of. If the objector goes on to ask why it ought, I can give him no other reason than general utility” (Mill 1998, ch. 5, para. 25, l. 1). In some cases, such as when a criminal, politician, or other person whose security is in danger is protected from angry protesters, society has police risk their lives for the security of a citizen. So, the reasons for protecting the rights of an individual or minority group are (1) a society which maintains rights of indi- vidual or minority will be happier than a society which does not provide such rights and (2) the pain to the individual or minority group outweighs the cost to the majority more often than not (if the individual does not get fair trial they get lynched. The majority pays for this with time/patience and some tax dollars, which, distributed across the public, are a small cost per person).

    So, with respect to Bowie’s point, Mill’s actually agrees that you should not ask that the humanity of one set of stakeholders be sacrificed for the humanity of another group solely on the grounds that there are more stakeholders in one group than another (Audi 2007). That would be to ignore the amount of happiness and quality of the happiness involved. Promoting indi- vidual liberties does contribute to the overall happiness capacity (“utility”) of society at large.

    But again and again, we find it claimed that utilitarianism itself is totalitarian and homogenous, tending to undermine individual liberty and creativity:

    [I]t is a good thing that utilitarianism cannot get off the ground. It is a good thing that we, and most particularly our political and economic institutions, respect a variety of con- ceptions of the good and a variety of kinds of life, rather than imposing a single one on all within the community. We rightly grant people autonomy in that sense. (Hartman 1996, p. 61)

    While some utilitarian models may quash variety and diversity, Mill clearly supports the principle of liberty and wants it because

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    he thinks a free society is a better pleasure-producing society (Gustafson 2009). Mill does think that providing protection for minority behaviors and activities does in fact directly contribute to the greater good of society. Mill would support diversity, affirma- tive action, and proactive support of women in traditionally male workplaces, and males in traditionally female workplaces. He sees diversity in general as a great happiness-producing asset to society. He brings this out most clearly in his On Liberty where he provides explicitly utilitarian arguments for supporting the liberty of individual dissent against the majority—because it is in the majority’s best interest to do so. Mill says that “the only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty, because by it there are as many possible independent centres of improvement as there are individuals” (Mill 1999, p. 117). For Mill, liberty is what provides opportunity for progress in society [or corporate culture], and homogeneity is much more dangerous, so individual liberty must be protected from the tyranny of the majority:

    the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation’ those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. (Mill 1999, p. 59)

    Progressive companies seek and promote innovative people who think outside the box, even if it goes against “the way we’ve always done things around here.” Respect for liberty and minority opinion is not contrary to but is actually founded upon the greater happiness principle, as Mill sees things. We also see the same sort of greater happiness argument used to support the individual’s right to try various experiments in living which go against the majority:

    As it is useful that while mankind are imperfect there should be different opinions, so is it that there should be different experiments of living: that free scope should be given to varieties of character, short of injury to others; and that the worth of different modes of life should be proved practically, when any one thinks fit to try them. (Mill 1999, p. 103)

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    The core starting points for establishing a society which promotes these experiments in living are justice, liberty, and fairness. Why do we start with these? Because those are the sentiments which will bring about a happier society or corporate culture, compared with those we have seen which have not valued justice, liberty, and fairness. While on the face of it, it might seem like liberty of the individual to resist the majority and the pleasure of the majority might be at odds, Mill in fact thinks that allowing great liberty will nurture a diversity which will enhance the strength and depth of society at large and produce a society which is best able to achieve high levels of happiness potential.

    We of course see this tension in the corporate environment—the tension between allowing freedom for creative solutions and main- taining order through cohesive unified policies. We know that too much restriction hampers creativity, and what Mill says of states applies just as well to the contemporary corporation:

    A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes—will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything, will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish. (Mill 1999, p. 166)

    When trying to find the balance between allowing freedom and yet maintaining order through some restrictions, in either case we tend to use utilitarian style arguments to support the policies we have to support or conversely restrict individual freedoms in the workplace.

    Motivation: Utilitarianism Is Irrational and Impractical Because We Have No Motivation to Obey the Greatest Happiness Principle In the workplace, we often hear about being a “team player,” but at times, my being a team player might not lead to much good for me but rather might provide more good to others who already seem to be doing better than me (like my superior). If utilitarian- ism asks me to sacrifice for “the team” (the greater happiness), then what exactly is my motivation for doing so? Bowie asks,

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    “What would motivate an individual to sacrifice his good for the public good even if those who gain are already better off . . . would not the less fortunate be extremely bitter at having to sacrifice even more for the benefit of the more fortunate?” (Bowie and Simon 1998, p. 51). Two questions are raised here—one about inequitable sacrifice, and one about motivation to be concerned about the public good.

    First, regarding apparent inequitable sacrifices, we can think of very practical examples where those who are less fortunate are sacrificing their good for the public good, and especially for those who are already better off. Consider these three examples: (1) our military is made up of a disproportionate share of lower income enlistees than of those who come from wealth, although the wealthy have more to lose quantitatively if our free country was overtaken or the markets severely disrupted by terrorism; (2) oftentimes, the wealthy get tax breaks that middle and lower income people never could get; and (3) people with middle and lower incomes pay a great deal of money to help put up stadiums, pay athletes and rock stars and others who are already better off financially. Although it might be argued that there may be a social injustice in these examples, there are arguments which seem to support these types of apparently inequitable situations: (1) the military provides income, training, and pension to the lower income enlistee than they could get otherwise; (2) the wealthy get tax breaks for investing in construction, job creation, rental housing, giving away money (Philanthropy), and other sorts of spending which—it is thought—help the majority. In other words, we use utilitarian thinking to provide such tax incentives to the wealthy because we see the long-term benefits of that spending for the economy that the majority benefits from. For example, the $100 Million Holland Performing Arts center in Omaha was pri- marily paid for by a private donor, and that donor undoubtedly got a tax break—and the City of Omaha got a first class perform- ing arts center; and (3) people are often willing to pay to contrib- ute to the good of someone more wealthy than they are if they see a tangible benefit such as being able to have a professional sports team or active concert venue in their city. So, it actually seems that in many cases, those less well off are motivated and willing to sacrifice their good for the good of the many, even if the many seem to be better off to begin with.

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    Second, the question of why someone would be concerned with the public good rather than their own selfish interests is important, and Mill deals with it a great deal in chapter 3 of Utilitarianism. One motivator is external sanctions—external pun- ishments which we suffer if we act against the majority interests. In business, examples of this would be the 1993 sentencing guidelines, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission man- dates, Occupational Safety and Health Administration regula- tions, public shame, community outcry, etc. The second motivator is internal, conscience nurtured by education or habitual asso- ciation, the process by where my happiness begins to be more and more closely aligned with that of the social good.

    Mill says,

    So long as they are co-operating, their ends are identified with those of others; there is at least a temporary feeling that the interests of others are their own interests. Not only does all strengthening of social ties, and all healthy growth of society, give to each individual a stronger personal interest in practically consulting the welfare of others; it also leads him to identify his feelings more and more with their good, or at least with an ever greater degree of practical consideration for it. He comes, as though instinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being who of course pays regard to others. The good of others becomes to him a thing naturally and neces- sarily to be attended to, like any of the physical conditions of our existence. (Mill 1998, p. 78)

    The GHP is the utilitarians’ guide for action, not the spring for moral motivation (Wilson 1982). The principle of the theory is not the motivation, obviously. Mill knows that motivation comes through habituation and socialization which are really a process of getting someone tied into a particular narrative about how they live in the world—who they are, what their relation is to others, etc. In business, as in the rest of life, most ethical decisions are made without theoretical analysis. Theory may play a background role, or an anchor for our convictions, but really, most of our moral acts are habitual-subconscious responses. So then, the question is: how do we instantiate right moral habitual-subconscious responses to situations? How do we make it so that we and our employees just as a matter of course nearly automatically do the

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    right thing? Somehow, we must create a community of ethical behavior, a community which nurtures this sort of conscientious- ness. Putting upright principles and value statements forward can provide some compass, and narratives of noble business practices can stimulate ethical motivation. However, a lot of a manager’s job is the long-term work of establishing and nurturing habits of ethical conduct and expectation in the day-to-day ways of doing business, demonstrated in the leadership of the firm but passed down through mentoring and example, and a clear, repeated, vision of how things should be done. External and internal sanction methods are discussed in business ethics literature as the “compli- ance based approach,” where you get obedience to corporate poli- cies through punishment versus the “integrity-based approach,” where you nurture a corporate culture of doing things the right way through management encouragement and reiteration of values and purpose (Paine 1994). Mill believes that habituating the conscience through socialization and education is the key to nurturing a strong social concern and moral sentiments in people. In this sense, he is quite like Aristotle who believes ethics is taught more through habit formation like basketball or piano playing, rather than through theory learning alone.

    Calculation: Utilitarian Calculation Is Not Possible Because We Cannot Determine Maximal Happiness The utilitarian principle seems clear: do what brings about the greatest happiness for the most. However, this is more easily said than done because it seems to leave us with an even more difficult question: how do we determine what the greatest happiness for the many is?—and how many? Who is the many? So, two ques- tions arise: (1) are the goods we are comparing even commensu- rate? and (2) how are we to measure them uniformly in terms of pleasure and pain?

    It is often said that utilitarians cannot provide a singular account of the good toward which all are supposed to strive because, in fact, there are multiple incongruous goods we are choosing between (DesJardins 2011, p. 38; Hartman 1996, p. 60; McKay 2000; Rawls 1971). As Audi comments, “is calling a tooth- ache twice as painful as a pin prick even fully clear in its meaning?” (Audi 2007, p. 596). This incommensurability problem comes up a lot in our decision making. We see it especially in

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    questions of Triple-Bottom-Line (TBL) accounting, and attempts to value environmental concerns according to the free market. If you try to measure (for example) societal good against environmental concerns against financial profit (TBL), it becomes difficult to do the comparative assessments of valuation for each of them against the others (Pava 2007). How do we weigh the value of the environment against job losses because of increased spending on environmental concerns? How do we weigh the value of an unclut- tered skyline against the need for affordable housing? However, for the utilitarian the fact that we have some disagreements about happiness does not necessarily derail utilitarianism. A lot is agreed upon regarding what happiness entails—and what will provide for a happier society. Most would consider a degree of liberty, private property rights, justice, fairness, kindness, moral imagination, education, etc essential to creating a happy society. We can certainly come to widespread agreement as to why certain countries do not provide for the happiness of their citizens, and agree on means by which happiness could be achieved. We do have debates of course about abortion, gun control, taxation, and so on, but there are general aims we agree on, which we use as the basis of our arguments for or against our positions. In the greater scheme of things, the debate about whether or not we should allow semiautomatic weapons is a micro issue. The reason we have debates about more-free versus less-free market is often because we have different ideas about economics, rather than because we have different ideas about happiness (although there are obviously disagreements about what will bring about the greatest happiness and what it is). Again, as the Bible is the starting point for understanding christianity for most christians (despite disagreement about interpretation), so to the GHP is the agreed starting point for the utilitarian (again, despite disagree- ment about interpretation of where that will bring us).

    A related important critique says utilitarianism does not provide a means for measuring pleasure or pain, or making difficult deci- sions. This seems especially acute as a problem as it is impossible to know the future results of present actions (Audi 2007, p. 596; Hardin 1988; MacNiven 1984). Mill’s response to the difficulty of knowing future outcomes would be along these lines I believe: we believe the world to have regular causes and effects, and for the future to resemble the past, and based on generalizations, we can

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    make extremely well-grounded guesses as to what our current actions will bring in terms of communal happiness production, and based on those estimates, we can make confident decisions about the pleasure production of our actions. Mill makes the following response to potential critics in Utilitarianism: ”People talk as if the commencement of this course of experience had hitherto been put off, and as if, at the moment when some man feels tempted to meddle with the property or life of another, he had to begin consid- ering for the first time whether murder and theft are injurious to human happiness” (Mill 1998, ch. 3, para. 24, l. 1). That we cannot know the future is not, for Mill, a significant fault of his theory, as the utilitarian’s directive is to aim toward what tends to bring about the greatest happiness for the most and subrules which generally tend toward the greatest happiness are the rules to follow.

    But even if we can define pleasure clearly enough and guess well at future outcomes of our present actions, there is still a question of how to measure outcomes at all. Beauchamp and Bowie, for example, ask, “How does a corporate public affairs officer decide how to distribute limited funds allocated for chari- table contributions? If a corporate social audit (an evaluation of the company’s acts of social responsibility) were attempted, how could the auditor measure and compare a corporation’s ethical assets and liabilities?” (Beauchamp and Bowie 2001, p. 23)

    First, as Beauchamp and Bowie point out, this might be a difficult problem for any theory, and if so, utilitarians may be no worse off than other theories would be in light of the question.18

    Secondly, there are audits done of this sort of thing all the time at corporate foundations, so it is not as though we have no reason to believe such audits are possible. They happen.

    But as a utilitarian, one approach is to argue that if one cannot show an auditor that absolute maximal happiness was not calcu- lable, perhaps a satisfactory happiness was, drawing from the work on Happiness Economics and economic work of Herbert Simon regarding “satisficing” may also provide a means of answering this objection (Simon 1947). On this model, instead of achieving the maximum result, one aims for a satisfying result—one which will provide happiness, if not maximal happiness (Byron 2004; Slote 1985, 1989).19 In many cases, it seems that it would be more rational to achieve a satisfying result resulting in actual happiness, rather than not being satisfied until the optimal result occurs.20

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    The fact that we are not omniscient should not in itself count against our ethical theory. Utilitarians may, in certain cases where many good options are available, do the best they can to ensure a satisfactory choice and leave it at that, particularly when we do not know various outcomes. People who sit around all evening until after the restaurants close trying to analyze which restaurant experience would bring the greatest pleasure for the majority are not fulfilling the greatest utility. Stock analysts who take too long to analyze stock might lose their opportunities, and no utility is served there either. There is a balance which must be maintained, or the real utility of the decision may be lost. As the old saying goes, one bird in hand is better than two in the bush.21 So with regard to Bowie’s example of deciding how to distribute charity money, it seems that we could show the moral auditor that we acted in good faith and responsibly on the utilitarian principle. We might have decided to give to the project which we thought would help the most people, or to the five charities which together would help the most people, or to the five neediest charities, or the five best run charities (based on reports from agencies who know this sort of thing), or we might have decided that in light of our inability to make a clear distinction of one above another, we split our charity giving equally among the many. I do not think any of these decisions could be considered substantially worse than the others. Auditors in general realize that there are various ways to keep track of records, but as long as you are following the basic goals and principles, and not “cooking the books,” there is a spectrum of means of bookkeeping which are considered acceptable and upright. In the same way, an ethical auditing can take into account that there are multiple good things to be done, multiple ways to generally accomplish the goal— and the important thing is that one is generally acting on behalf of the interest of the many.

    How Mill’s Utilitarianism Is Unique

    When this defense of Mill is presented, Aristotelians tend to say that this sounds a lot like Aristotle, and sometimes Kantians say it sounds like Kant. Mill clearly has some similarities to both but is clearly different as well. Of course, Mill’s utilitarianism is dif- ferent from egoism. First, for Mill, the greater happiness of the many is the goal, whereas for the egoist, the only thing that

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    matters is my personal happiness. On Mill’s view, I should act to bring about the greatest happiness. Mill’s utilitarianism is dif- ferent from Kant for at least three reasons. First, Kant thinks that instincts guide us toward happiness, and reason tells us not what will make us happy but what we must do (Kant 2002). In short, ethics is not about happiness for us or anyone else. However then, the second point of difference here is that Mill’s theory does not depend on a concept of a universal reason held in common by all rational beings. Rather, Mill’s utilitarian direc- tive, if ultimately rooted in common desires—as a perusal of chapter 5 of Utilitarianism, will show. Third, while Kant’s ethics is rooted in the commands of reason understood by the autono- mous individual, Mill’s view of ethics is fundamentally group centered and others centered. Mill thinks that Kant’s categorical imperative—that one must only act on such a maxim as one could make a universal law—is at root a directive based on happiness because Mill thinks that we must in such a situation consider the outcome of acting on the maxim to make the judg- ment (Mill 1998, ch. 1, para. 4, l. 34). How do we decide which laws should be made universal? By taking the greater good or happiness into account (says Mill). Mill’s utilitarianism is quite like Aristotle’s virtue ethics in many respects, including the fact that some pleasures are higher than others, that moral educa- tion involves habituation of sentiments, that politics and poetics play important roles in developing moral feelings to help us act ethically. However, Mill is different from Aristotle in that Mill is social, not merely an enlightened egoist, as Aristotle tends to be. Second, Mill does not rely on Greek cultural values. Third, Mill makes a place for the importance of sympathy for others, a topic not so central to the Greeks.

    CONCLUSION

    I hope that the following points have been made sufficiently clear in this article:

    1. Insofar as principles of justice, fairness, honesty, and integ- rity, as general rules, provide a foundation for a happier community than a community without these principles, they have a secure basis in utilitarianism.

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    2. Insofar as utilitarianism does not require supererogatory (unlimited) altruistic behavior to the point of overgenerosity without limits, it provides a basis for thoughtfully consider- ing personal obligations to others, to duties, and to virtues.

    3. Insofar as utilitarianism sees diversity and support of indi- vidual liberty to be the basis of a happier community than one which would not support liberty, utilitarianism supports the concerns of minority viewpoints and liberties.

    4. Insofar as utilitarianism can consider the relative worth of individuals and also provide a basis for valuing all individu- als universally with dignity as well, utilitarianism provides an ethic for workplace management which really makes practical sense in decision making.

    5. Insofar as utilitarianism provides a vision of a cohesive social community as the basis of all decision making, it provides a real vision of the importance of an ethical corporate culture as the foundation of ethical behavior in the workplace.

    6. Insofar as utilitarianism provides a basic starting point and framework for determining right action across individual interests, it provides a useful ethical foundation for business to make sound ethical decisions while making economic sense.

    Here, in the course of responding to many typical criticisms of utilitarianism, I have argued that Mill’s utilitarianism can support principles of justice and fairness and can support personal duties and obligations; it does not repress minorities, does not destroy individuality, and I addressed the question of treating people as a means to an end. Further, I have tried to explain how that satisficing theory may be utilized to respond to criticisms that utilitarianism is unable to provide a method of calculating great- est pleasure for the greatest number. These responses are meant as an initial foray into mostly unexplored ethical territory. I hope that work will continue to bring Mill’s utilitarianism to bear on practical business ethics issues.22

    NOTES

    1. Many thanks to the anonymous reviewers and editor of BSR, as well as Pat Werhane’s class at Darden who provided many thoughtful

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    responses to this article when I did a seminar on Mill’s utilitarianism there, and Pat Werhane, as well as the reviewers of this article for the SBE conference a few years back.

    2. I am not going to spend time in this article making these arguments to distinguish Mill from preference utilitarianism, but I would simply point to Mill’s discussion of competent judges (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 8, l. 1) which seems to assume a broadly universal understanding among human- ity in general to be able to distinguish higher from lower pleasures.

    3. Audi (2007) provides a nice argument about this question of dis- tribution in his “Can Utilitarianism Be Distributive?”

    4. It should be noted that Mill does not expect us to actually think of that transcendent idea “humanity” when we act ethically toward someone: “it is a misapprehension of the utilitarian mode of thought, to conceive it as implying that people should fix their minds upon so wide a generality as the world, or society at large. The great majority of good actions are intended, not for the benefit of the world, but for that of individuals, of which the good of the world is made up” (Mill 1998, ch. 3, para. 19, l. 23).

    5. Of course there is a long discussion of venerable voices between “rule utilitarianism” and “act utilitarianism.” I am here merely pointing out that Mill himself suggests that we refer to intermediate rules to follow as rules of thumb when pursuing the greatest happiness. I myself find act utilitarianism unsustainable in practice or textually.

    6. This has direct implications for our moral behavior. My moral imagination enables me to think about how my actions affect others; my noble sentiments make me ashamed to be selfish and prompt me to live for higher principles and as I nurture my moral feelings, I find it easier to be thoughtful, considerate, and decent toward others. Lower capaci- ties, like eating, are not evil—they are simply not something “to die for.” We must eat, but one who only lives only to eat will eventually lose their capacity for the higher pleasures, and this will lead to a net decrease in pleasure experience. But what is worse, as one loses ones higher capaci- ties, society as a whole becomes less and less capable of producing as much happiness. Mill is ultimately optimistic about humans: “a beast’s pleasures do not satisfy a human being’s conceptions of happiness. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 4, l. 10). Of course, some humans live at an animal level of existence, but their happiness capacities are greatly diminished, as though they were sick or only half alive.

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    7. I thank an anonymous reviewer for giving me that phrase for what I was thinking here.

    8. With regard to exceptions, Mill says, “It is not the fault of any creed, but of the complicated nature of human affairs, that rules of conduct cannot be so framed as to require o exceptions, and that hardly any kind of action can safely be laid down as either always obligatory or always condemnable. There is no ethical creed which does not temper the rigidity of its laws . . . for accommodation to peculiarities of circum- stances” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 25, l. 9).

    9. Mill seems quite clear that one does not need to do utilitarian calculus for each and every action, but instead, we can rely on basic principles which we derive from seeing previous happiness results. As Mill says, “there has been ample time, namely, the whole past duration of the human species. During all that time mankind have been learning by experience the tendencies of actions; on which experience all the prudence, as well as all the morality of life, is dependent” (Mill 1998, ch. 2, para. 24, l. 5). To act as though we have no means of believing that the future will be like the past is akin to Hume’s skeptic which even Hume says we should ignore by playing a nice game of backgammon;—any reasonable person relies on sensibly construed expectations about the results of particular types of actions.

    10. Yet, the utilitarian is capable of exceptions. One can imagine disobeying laws in a Nazi regime, for example, or lying to a psychopath in order to save a life. Such exceptions could be counted as such if they were obviously done for the greater good.

    11. Bob Bates, former executive at Lincoln Financial. 12. This utilitarian response invokes rule utilitarianism, the view that

    obeying certain rules is what we should do in a given situation—rules like “do not cry wolf” or “do not break promises” which, when followed, tend to make society a place more capable of producing happiness. However, Hartman criticizes this position, saying that rule utilitarianism is no better than act utilitarianism, “On the contrary, where it does differ from act utilitarianism, it may impose an obligation to do something futile because, although the result of everyone’s doing it would be good, not everyone will, and the good result will not happen” (Hartman 1996, p. 46).

    13. In Utilitarianism, Mill says, “Justice remains the appropriate name for certain social utilities which are vastly more important and therefore more absolute and imperative, than any others are ” (Mill 1998, ch. 5, para. 38, l. 11). Justice is sought because a society which is just will be

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    able to produce the most pleasure for its citizens. Mill says we will always seek a justice respecting society which provides rights (private property, liberty) and expects duties from people, such as the responsibility of the wealthy to pay more taxes than the less fortunate, because we know that these bring about a happier society. We preserve the right to a fair trial because by and large such a rule establishes a degree of order and fairness which then provide the greatest benefit to the many in the end. We are willing to sacrifice to preserve these principles because ultimately, we know that society will be better for respecting these than it would neglecting them.

    14. My favorite class examples for the utilitarian argument for pre- serving principle is the movie Blackhawk Down in which the marines have a pledge to their men: “never leave a man behind” which they fulfill regardless of the danger to those attempting the rescue. The reason that the pledge is kept, despite risking the loss of more lives, is that the morale of the marine community in Mogadishu depended on that pledge being kept, despite its costs. It brought about greater happiness produc- tion than not sustaining it.

    15. Mill, for example, suggests what he calls “experiments in living” where people try new and innovative ways of living in the world, not because he thinks that every one of those experiments will turn out to be a viable way to live, but because constant innovation and the provocation of the status quo are of overall value to society. (Mill 1999, p.103).

    16. Bowie, for example, has claimed that utilitarians do not make distinctions between desires, and that if we had a majority racist society, “the intense desires of the racist majority would count more than the more passive desires of the oppressed”—especially if they were intense, Bowie says. Bentham does not distinguish desires, but I believe Mill’s higher–lower pleasure distinction is clearly meant to differentiate desires. I am not going to spend time here developing arguments that racist desires correspond to lower pleasures while desires like justice, fairness, and kindness are higher, but I think that the argument could be made quite easily in response to Bowie.

    17. As for minority rights in particular, it should be noted that Mill does support the right of the minority over against the majority in his book, On Liberty, and he does support individual liberty on the basis that preserving liberty for minority opinions in society actually is beneficial to the majority: “But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion still more than

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    those who hold it” (Mill 1999, p. 59). Really, these sorts of criticisms are rooted in the broader criticism of Mill that his concern for the greater good does not coincide well with his concern for individual liberties and rights, particularly of minorities. However, Mill argues that a society which does provide individual liberties, supports the minority, allows dissenting opinions, etc will be a stronger society more able to produce happiness. Mill’s entire argument in On Liberty is that the principle of liberty and freedom of dissent and minority concerns must be preserved on the basis of utilitarian pleasure. This is clear from chapter 2 of On Liberty.

    18. It is hard to imagine an ethical auditor measuring if one has achieved perfect balance of the virtues of generosity, prudence, courage, modesty, kindness, honesty, etc when one is faced with deciding toward which of the many charities to give. It is hard to know how a Kantian would answer when asked what the specific maxim was he acted upon which he could consider universal when he chose to donate to United Way over Salvation Army.

    19. Since writing this section, I have discovered Michael Slote’s chapter “satisficing consequentialism” in Common Sense Morality and Consequentialism, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985) 35–59. It provides some thoughtful common sense means of appropriating satisficing theory to utilitarianism as well. His Beyond Maximizing (Harvard University Press, 1989) also develops some of this line of thought.

    20. We know of this problem in many work situations where a per- fectionist has difficulties finishing a project because there is always “just one more thing to adjust” to make the project better. In such cases, we realize that it is better (and will bring about more happiness) to achieve the closer-at-hand satisfying result rather than perpetually put off the maximal result.

    21. It seems that this is how we often make decisions in business. We want to open a new operation in town A, B, or C, and hire manager 1, 2, or 3 to run operations. We find that A or B make the most sense for various economic and other reasons, and managers 2 and 3 seem to be the best qualified and most dependable. What then is the right decision? A2, A3, B2, or B3? Is the utilitarian stuck? No. I think that at this point, one can just make a decision, and any of these are fine. We have eliminated a lot of options using utilitarian reasoning. We have narrowed it to a pool of satisfying decisions, and any will do. Economists and those in business know better than anyone that it is difficult to determine exact

    357ANDREW GUSTAFSON

     

     

    future outcomes—but this hardly keeps us from making good guesses based on previous experience. And we have to work with vagueness. Consider Friedman’s shareholder theory: we want to maximize share- holder value—but what is our target shareholder? The one who sells this evening? Next year? 2 years? 5 Years? 20 Years? The one who never sells? The policies which we would enact to ensure highest yield tonight would be quite different from those used to aim for highest yields in 20 years. Yet, we cannot aim at either of these exclusively. We just have to gener- ally aim to keep the stock strong and generally healthy. In the same way, as utilitarians, we try to provide a satisfactory outcome which benefits society as best as we can with our knowledge at hand.

    22. Mill’s utilitarianism applied to business ethics really brings us to a broader conception of what business ethics is about. It is, on a utilitarian view, a question of what sort of world and people do want to become, in short, what world and what lives will bring about opportunity for the most pleasure capacity.

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    Audi, R. 2007. “Can utilitarianism be distributive? Maximization and distribution as criteria in managerial decisions,” Business Ethics Quar- terly 17(4): 593–611.

    Beauchamp, T., and Bowie, N. 2001. Ethical Theory and Business, 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

    Bowie, N. 1999. Business Ethics: A Kantian Approach. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

    Bowie, N., and Simon, R. 1998. The Individual and the Political Order. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Brady, F. N. 1985. “A defense of utilitarian policy processes in corporate and public management,” Journal of Business Ethics 4(1): 23–30.

    Byron, M. 2004. Satisficing and Maximizing: Moral Theorists on Practical Reason. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Carson, T. L. 1997. “Brandt on utilitarianism and the foundations of ethics,” Business Ethics Quarterly 7(1): 87–100.

    Desjardins, J. 2011. Introduction to Business Ethics. New York: McGraw- Hill.

    Donaldson, T., and Dunfee, T. W. 1997. Ties That Bind: A Social Contracts Approach to Business Ethics. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press.

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    Elfstrom, G. 1991. Moral Issues and Multinational Corporations. New York: St. Martins Press.

    Gustafson, A. 2009. “J.S. Mill’s communal utilitarian self: A critique of gray, anschutz, and woolf’s radically individual interpretations,” Inter- national Philosophical Quarterly 49(2): 173–184.

    Hardin, R. 1988. Morality Within the Limits of Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Hartman, E. 1996. Organizational Ethics and the Good Life. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Heydt, C. 2006. Rethinking Mill’s Ethics: Character and Aesthetic Educa- tion. New York: Continuum Press.

    Kant, I. 2002. Critique of Practical Reason. Cambridge, MA: Dover Publishing.

    MacNiven, D. 1984. Bradley’s critiques of utilitarian and Kantian ethics idealistic studies: An interdisciplinary. Journal of Philosophy 14(1): 67–83.

    McCracken, J., and Shaw, B. 1995. Virtue ethics and contractarianism: Towards a reconciliation. Business Ethics Quarterly 5(2): 297–312.

    Mcgee, R. W. 2008. “Applying Ethics to insider trading,” Journal of Busi- ness Ethics 77(2): 205–217.

    Mckay, R. B. 2000. “Consequential Utilitarianism: Addressing ethical deficiencies in the municipal landfill siting process,” Journal of Busi- ness Ethics 26(4): 289–306.

    Mill, J. S. 1998. Utilitarianism. Edited by R. Crisp. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Mill, J. S. 1999. On Liberty. Edited by E. Alexander. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press.

    Morris, T. 1997. If Aristotle Ran General Motors. New York: Henry Holt & Co.

    New York Times. 2005. “Company’s Smoking Ban Means Off-Hours, Too,” Feb. 8.

    Paine, L. S. 1994. “Managing for organizational integrity,” Harvard Busi- ness Review 72(2): 106–117.

    Pava, M. 2007. “A response to getting to the bottom of ‘tripple bottom line’,” Business Ethics Quarterly 17(1): 105–110.

    Phelps, F. W., and Myrick, J. B. 1922. Utilitarian Economics: A Series of 50 Studies in Utilitarianism. Seattle WA: The School of Utilitarian Economics.

    Rabinowicz, W., and Österberg, J. 1996. “Value based on preferences: On two interpretations of preference utilitarianism,” Economics and Phi- losophy 12(1): 1–27.

    Rawls, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Boston: Harvard University Press. Sacconi, L. 2000. Contract of the Firm: Economics, Ethics, and

    Organisation. New York: Springer. Simon, H. 1947. Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making

    Processes in Administrative Organization, 4th ed. New York, NY: The Free Press.

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    Slote, M. 1985. Common Sense Morality and Consequentialism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

    Slote, M. 1989. Beyond Maximizing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Snoeyenbos, M., and Humber, J. 2002. “Utilitarianism and business ethics,”in R. E. Frederick, eds, A Companion to Business Ethics. Cam- bridge: Blackwell, pp. 17–29.

    Solomon, R. 1993. Ethics and Excellence: Cooperation and Integrity in Business. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Starr, W. C. 1983. “Codes of ethics—towards a rule-utilitarian Justifica- tion,” Journal of Business Ethics 2(2): 99–106.

    Velasquez, M. 1995. International business ethics: The aluminum com- panies in Jamaica. Business Ethics Quarterly 5(4): 865–882.

    Velasquez, M., Andre, C., Thomas Shanks, S. J., and Meyer, M. J. 1989. “Calculating consequences: The utilitarian approach to ethics,” Issues in Ethics 2(1). http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/ calculating.html, accessed July 23, 2013.

    Wilson, F. 1982. “Mill’s proof that happiness is the criterion of morality,” Journal of Business Ethics 1(1): 59–72.

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Symposium

/in /by

Discussion 1

To ensure that your initial post starts its own unique thread, do not  reply to this post. Instead, please click the “Reply” link above this  post.

Please read the general discussion requirements above, as well as the  announcements explaining the discussion requirements and answering the  most frequently asked questions. If you are still unsure about how to  proceed with the discussion, please reply to one of those announcements  or contact your instructor.

Please carefully read and think about the entire prompt before  composing your first post. This discussion will require you to have  carefully read Chapter 4 of the textbook, as well as the assigned  portions of Immanuel Kant’s (2008) Groundwork for the Metaphysics of  Morals.

Think of someone real or fictional whom some people regard as a  “hero” for helping others, stopping something bad or evil, and so forth,  even though by doing so they violated what would normally be considered  a moral rule (focus on morality; don’t simply think of someone who  broke the law). For example, they may have lied, broken a promise,  stolen, harmed someone innocent, or even murdered, but done so with good  intentions. (Be sure to clearly explain both sides of this example –  what seems good and what seems morally questionable about the action.)

Try to think of any example that we would either all be familiar  with, or something we can easily look up (in other words, don’t just  make something up or describe something generic). Think of characters in  movies, TV shows, or books, people in the news, historical figures,  etc. Please don’t use an example that someone else has already used!

1. Engage with the text:

Once you have thought of your example, evaluate what they did  according to Kant’s Categorical Imperative. First, explain the  Categorical Imperative. Is what the person did moral, or immoral,  according to the Categorical Imperative? (You may focus on either  formulation.)

2. Reflect on yourself:

Do you agree with this evaluation of the action?

If you think Kant would regard it as immoral and you agree, how would  you explain to the person in your own words why what they did was wrong  despite the good intentions and effects? If you don’t agree, and think  that what they did was morally right, how would you respond to the  question, “what if everyone did that?”

If you think Kant would regard it as moral, explain whether you agree  or disagree, and consider how you would respond to someone who  disagrees.

Discussion 2

 

Your initial discussion thread is due on Day 3 (Thursday) and you  have until Day 7 (Monday) to respond to your classmates. Your grade will  reflect both the quality of your initial post and the depth of your  responses. Refer to the Discussion Forum Grading Rubric under the  Settings icon above for guidance on how your discussion will be  evaluated.

Week 3 Symposium [WLOs: 2, 3] [CLOs: 3, 4, 5]

If you are having trouble starting this video, please access it here (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site..
Video transcript can be accessed herePreview the document.

In the Ancient Greek world (the world of Socrates, Plato, and  Aristotle, often regarded as the birthplace of philosophy) a “symposium”  was a banquet held after a meal, an “after party” of sorts that usually  included drinking, dancing, recitals and engaging conversations on the  topics of the day.

For our purposes in this course, the Symposium discussions will not  involve dancing, recitals or a banquet, but they will provide food for  thought on current ethical issues and direct application of the ethical  theory discussed in each of these weeks.

It is almost impossible these days to turn on the news or log onto  social media without encountering a controversy that cries out for  ethical discussion. For these Symposium discussions, your instructor  will choose a topic of current ethical interest and a resource  associated with it for you to read or watch. Your task is to consider  how the ethical theory of the week might be used to examine, understand  or evaluate the issue.

This week, you will consider how deontology applies to a controversy,  dilemma, event, or scenario selected by your instructor. It is a chance  for you to discuss together the ethical issues and questions that it  raises, your own response to those, and whether that aligns with or does  not align with a deontological approach. The aim is not to simply  assert your own view or to denigrate other views, but to identify,  evaluate, and discuss the moral reasoning involved in addressing the  chosen issue.

Your posts should remain focused on the ethical considerations, and  at some point in your contribution you must specifically address the way  someone with a deontological view would approach this issue by  explaining and evaluating that approach.

If you have a position, you should strive to provide reasons in defense of that position.

When responding to peers, you should strive to first understand the  reasons they are offering before challenging or critiquing those  reasons. One good way of doing this is by summarizing their argument  before offering a critique or evaluation.

 

o ensure that your initial post starts its own unique thread, do not  reply to this post. Instead, please click the “Reply” link above this  post.

Please read the description above and/or watch the video explaining  the symposium and its requirements. If you are still unsure about how to  proceed with the discussion, please contact your instructor.

This week, we will consider how deontology applies to immigration.

Please familiarize yourself with the basic immigration laws in the  United States. What are the duties of someone wanting to come into the  this country? What are the duties of the United States regarding illegal  immigration? Should these laws be changed based upon the categorical  imperative? Why/why not?

Your approach to this symposium discussion can be a bit more  open-ended than the main discussion, remembering that our main goal is  to work together to identify the main ethical questions and  considerations, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the reasons for  different positions one might hold, and come to a better understanding  of deontological theory.

3 Utilitarianism: Making the World a Better Place

Jupiterimages/Creatas/Thinkstock

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

• Explain the basic idea of the principle of utility or the greatest happiness principle.

• Explain consequentialist moral theory and what makes utilitarianism a form of consequentialism.

• Identify utilitarian moral arguments.

• Construct a utilitarian moral argument that applies to a concrete moral problem.

• Identify common misconceptions about utilitarianism and explain why they are incorrect.

• Explain the notions of impartiality, objectivity, and adaptability as they relate to utilitarianism.

• Explain the general objections to utilitarianism.

• Describe rule utilitarianism and explain how it differs from act utilitarianism.

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Create all the happiness you are able to create; remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you,—will invite you to add something to the pleasure of others,—or to diminish something of their pains. And for every grain of enjoyment you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find a harvest in your own bosom,—while every sorrow which you pluck out from the thoughts and feelings of a fellow creature shall be replaced by beautiful flowers of peace and joy in the sanctuary of your soul.

—Jeremy Bentham

3.1 Introduction to Utilitarianism In Chapter 1, we discussed what morality is in a general sense and how to approach moral problems. In Chapter 2, we examined some challenges to the idea that our common moral values and beliefs are objective and unconditional. We considered whether they are simply a reflection of the beliefs of a certain culture or individuals. Or maybe they are mere conven- tions designed to maintain social order and prevent people—especially society’s stronger members—from pursuing their own interests at the expense of others, but which we would be better off defying if possible. Each of these views is quite common, yet we questioned whether they are as plausible as they might appear to be. There are a number of reasons to doubt that they can adequately make sense of the role morality plays in our individual and collective lives or whether they are rationally consistent views.

This does not mean that these views are necessarily wrong, of course. However, it gives us a compelling reason to closely examine the ways that philosophers have tried to provide an objective account of what morality is and how we should distinguish right from wrong . One of the most common and familiar of these theories is utilitarianism. In its most general sense, utilitarianism is the theory that morally right actions, laws, or policies are those whose consequences have the greatest positive value and least negative value compared to available alternatives.

Example Scenarios Before exploring utilitarianism in detail, consider the following moral scenarios:

1. Amber is in a long-term relationship that lately has not been going well. She has struck up a friendship with an attractive, funny, and caring coworker, and one day he tells her that he would like to start seeing her outside of work. She knows that if she starts seeing him she would be cheating on her boyfriend, but she is tempted by the proposition and wonders whether it would be wrong to do so.

2. Charlie and Davy, 8-year-old and 5-year-old brothers, were out shopping with their mother. Shopping trips almost inevitably involve them begging for a toy, but their mother always says no. On this trip, however, they were particularly well behaved and didn’t say a word when they passed the toy aisle. Impressed and pleased, their mother, on a whim, decided to buy them a small toy to share. When they got home,

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Section 3.1 Introduction to Utilitarianism

Charlie didn’t want share the toy with his brother. His mother wonders how she can explain to Charlie that sharing is the right thing to do.

3. Rachel leads the marketing team for a children’s clothing company. Her bosses want to pursue a new, edgier marketing strategy that involves putting their female child models into more sexually suggestive outfits and poses. Rachel worries that this borders on exploitation of the models, promotes an inappropriate sexualization of children, and could be demeaning to women in general. Her bosses dismiss these concerns and make it clear that if she refuses to pursue the strategy, she will be let go and replaced with someone who will. The job market has been unforgiving lately, and Rachel is a single mother raising three kids, so she wonders whether the proposed marketing strategy is wrong after all—and even if it is, whether she has a responsibility to refuse to go along with it.

4. For 3 years Bill and Jodi have been saving up for a vacation to Tahiti. They both work hard, rarely take time off, and desperately need an extended time of rest and relax- ation. They have finally saved enough to take time off work, fly to Tahiti, and spend several weeks relaxing on the beach. However, as they are booking their vacation, they learn that a devastating tornado has swept through Oklahoma, wrecking sev- eral towns and leaving their inhabitants homeless and desperate. They consider the amount of money they have saved up for their vacation and wonder whether they ought to use it to help the tornado victims instead.

In each of these cases, there is the question of which choice would be moral, but there is also the question of why one choice would be morally better than another. In other words, differ- ent people might agree that a certain response is morally right or wrong, but they may have different reasons for coming to that conclusion.

Let’s consider a few possible answers, along with their reasons:

Case 1:

• Amber shouldn’t cheat on her boyfriend because he is bound to find out, and when he does, it will really hurt him.

• Amber shouldn’t cheat on her boyfriend because he is bound to find out, and when he does, he might become angry and physically harm her.

• Amber should start dating this new guy because it will make her much happier than she is now.

Case 2:

• Charlie should share the toy with Davy because it will make Davy happy, and there will be two happy kids rather than just one.

• Charlie should share the toy with Davy so that when Davy has something Charlie wants, he’ll be more likely to share it.

• Charlie should share the toy with Davy because if he does not, he will be punished.

Case 3:

• Rachel should refuse to pursue the marketing strategy because it is harmful to the models, other children, and women.

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• Rachel should accept the marketing strategy because it will allow her to continue to provide for her children.

• Rachel should accept the marketing strategy because it will likely lead to increased profits for the company as well as a raise and promotion for herself.

Case 4:

• Bill and Jodi should spend their time and money helping the tornado victims rather than going to Tahiti, because the good they could do for the ravaged communities is much greater than the pleasure they would receive from basking in the sun for a few weeks.

• Bill and Jodi should spend their time and money helping the tornado victims rather than going to Tahiti, because if they don’t, they will be plagued with guilt throughout their vacation.

• Bill and Jodi should spend their time and money going to Tahiti, because in doing so they will be able to work more efficiently when they return, which will result in greater income and thus greater resources to help future victims of natural disasters.

One thing to notice about each of the reasons provided for the best decision is that it appeals to the results of one choice or another. What will be the outcome of pursuing a relationship, sharing a toy, pursuing a certain marketing strategy, or spending one’s time and money in a certain way? In other words, what are the consequences of the different available options?

You might be thinking that there are a number of choices that don’t simply appeal to conse- quences, such as the idea that it is simply wrong to betray someone’s trust, that we should not be selfish or greedy, that we should never sexually objectify children, that we should maintain our integrity, or that we should always strive to be compassionate toward people in need. These reasons appeal to considerations that are independent of the results of different actions—considerations such as our rights and duties or important virtues that we ought to cultivate and exercise.

Utilitarians will usually recognize the importance of most of these other reasons. But for the utilitarian, what is most fundamental and essential to morality are the consequences of our actions and, in particular, whether the overall positive consequences outweigh the negative ones.

Elements of a Utilitarian Theory To flesh out this idea, let’s review an important point from Chapter 1.

If we regard human actions as consisting of three aspects, then the main difference between the major moral theories has to do with which aspect the theory takes to be fundamental when it comes to moral reasoning and moral value. The three aspects of human action are:

1. The nature and character of the person performing the action. 2. The nature of the action itself. 3. The consequences of the action.

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The three moral theories can be distinguished in this way:

1. Virtue ethics focuses on the nature and character of the person performing the action.

2. Deontological ethics focuses on the action itself. 3. Consequentialist ethics focuses on the consequences of the action.

When we think about the reasons mentioned above for considering certain actions or policies as right or wrong, we note that they appeal to the positive or negative consequences, outcomes, or results of each case. The form of moral reasoning that appeals to consequences, results, or outcomes in determining whether some- thing is right or wrong is called consequen- tialist ethics (or consequentialism), and utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory.

Naturally, there are many different conse- quences to our actions, and not all of them will be valuable or morally significant. A consequentialist view will specify which of the consequences are most important when it comes to morality. For instance, some- one might be fond of polka dots and favor actions or policies that bring more polka dots into our world, but that would be an absurd basis on which to judge the moral value of someone’s actions. Or more real- istically, someone might favor people with lighter skin tones and hold that actions or policies that favor those with lighter skin over those with darker skin are best, which most people today also regard as an absurd principle even if it once had defenders.

To avoid these kinds of problems, the con- sequentialist must isolate from among the various outcomes those that will serve as the standard for moral evaluation. Polka dots and skin color cannot serve as this kind of standard—but what can? Whatever it is will have to be, like polka dots and skin color, identifiable. That is, we must be able to recognize and indicate it in a way that oth- ers can recognize as well. But unlike polka dots and skin color, it also has to be intrinsi- cally valuable (more on this in a moment).

The Basic Features of Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is a consequentialist ap- proach to moral reasoning. This approach holds that actions are morally right if they result in the best consequences relative to other possible actions. If an action results in worse consequences than another avail- able action, then it is morally wrong.

The utilitarian theory identifies the best consequences as those with the greatest overall utility.

Utility: Happiness or Well-Being When we talk about utility, we mean some measure of well-being. This is usually happiness, which is often also defined in terms of pleasure and the absence of suffering.

Utilitarianism: The Greatest Happiness for the Greatest Number Right actions: actions that result in the greatest overall happiness when compared with the results of alternative actions.

Wrong actions: actions that are performed when another action would have resulted in a greater overall balance of happiness and unhappiness.

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Section 3.1 Introduction to Utilitarianism

Moreover, if we think back to the earlier scenarios and consider the reasons given for the different responses, they all compared results in terms of how much good or bad each action would produce. If we are going to distinguish between more or less of something, whatever we are comparing has to be measurable. So when we are distinguishing between “more of something good” or “less of something good,” we have to be able to quantify and compare dif- ferent amounts of “something good.”

Finally, there are countless things that people find “good” or “bad,” and comparing them might seem like comparing apples to oranges. It’s not enough to quantify the results of our actions; we must be able to reduce good or bad things to a common intrinsic value. Intrinsic value is the value that something has in itself, as opposed to instrumental value, which is value that something has because it brings about something good or prevents something bad. And this intrinsic value must be a common feature of the outcomes we wish to compare so as to pro- vide a standard for the comparison.

Can we identify a standard for comparing consequences that meets these criteria? Utilitar- ians identify this standard to be something called utility (hence the name utilitarianism). On this basis, the utilitarian maintains that we should act in ways that result in the most utility compared to the alternatives. But what, exactly, is utility, and does it satisfy the characteristics just described? To see how utilitarians have tried to answer this question, let’s turn to a bit of history; in particular, Jeremy Bentham’s and John Stuart Mill’s claims that utility—the ulti- mate value by which we compare the outcomes of actions—is happiness or, more specifically, pleasure and the absence of pain.

Bentham’s Utilitarianism Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), a British philoso- pher and the founder of utilitarianism, offered a view of value known as hedonism, which means that we whittle down all value to happiness or unhappiness, all happiness to pleasure (good) and the absence of pain (bad), and unhappiness to pain and the absence of pleasure. Doing so, he main- tained, would give us the needed basis for distin- guishing good from bad consequences. Every action or policy produces a certain amount of pleasure and pain among the various individuals affected by it, so pleasure and pain would serve as the common value. If all values reduce to pleasure and pain, and if there are no more basic goods than pleasure and no more basic bads than pain, then pleasure is intrinsically good and pain is intrinsically bad.

Pleasure and pain, Bentham thought, can be iden- tified and measured (like we measure flour for baking). Thus, if we add up all the pleasure that’s

Photos.com/Thinkstock Jeremy Bentham was the founder of utilitarianism.

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Common Standards

We have said that to meaningfully compare the value of different consequences, we have to find some kind of standard or unit of measurement common to all of the outcomes.

There is an old fairy tale that illustrates this principle:

A man and his wife have one possession, an old milking cow. Times are hard, and they decide that they have no choice but to sell the cow so they can have some money for food. As the man is leading the cow toward the market to sell, he passes by a peasant carrying a pair of chickens. “Say, that’s a fine cow you have there,” says the peasant. “I don’t suppose you would like to trade your one cow for two whole chickens.” The man thinks to himself, “Two is more than one, as everyone knows. This is a deal that can’t be passed up!” He quickly agrees and leaves the cow with the peasant, taking the two chickens instead. By and by he meets a woman selling loaves of bread, who offers him three loaves of bread in exchange for the two chickens. Again the man reasons, “Three is more than two, as everyone knows. This woman must not be very clever to be willing to take only two chickens in exchange for three loaves of bread!” So he makes the exchange and continues on his way. A while later, he comes across an old beggar with four beans spread on a blanket. “What say you exchange those three loaves of bread for these four beans?” suggests the beggar. The man thinks to himself, “It’s no wonder that he’s a beggar if he doesn’t even realize that four is more than three! I have never had such luck!” Just before he arrives home with his beans, he passes by a young boy playing with some rocks. The young boy spots the beans and offers the man five pebbles in exchange for the four beans. Quickly agreeing, the man runs home and excitedly proclaims to his wife, “I set off with just a single cow, and instead of selling it in the market, I traded that for two chickens, which then fetched me three loaves of bread, for which I then got four beans, and now I have five pebbles! You have, indeed, the cleverest husband in the world.”

(A particularly amusing version of this tale is the poem “Smart” from Shel Silverstein’s 1974 book, Where the Sidewalk Ends, which can be found here: https://www.marketplace.org /2009/04/27/life/poetry-project/poem-smart-shel-silverstein).

What is wrong with this person’s reasoning? Clearly, he failed to realize that quantity isn’t everything: Just because a decision will result in a larger quantity of things doesn’t make that decision a good one. How should he have compared, say, four beans with three loaves of bread? Some common standard would have to be invoked according to which the four beans would be considered more, less, or equal to the three loaves. Without that common standard, the decision comes down to a matter of sheer numbers, which in this case proved to be ridiculously foolish, no matter how clever the man took himself to be.

Similarly, when people disagree about whether certain actions or policies would have better results than the alternatives, is there a common standard of moral value according to which such disagreements could be resolved? If there are not, what implications might this have for a utilitarian approach to these kinds of decisions?

produced by an action and subtract the pain, we can calculate a certain value for every sit- uation that would result from the available choices. The action that produces the greatest overall value is the morally right action. This form of moral reasoning is called hedonistic utilitarianism.

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https://www.marketplace.org/2009/04/27/life/poetry-project/poem-smart-shel-silverstein
https://www.marketplace.org/2009/04/27/life/poetry-project/poem-smart-shel-silverstein

 

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Section 3.1 Introduction to Utilitarianism

Many moral disputes involve dilemmas over how we should balance the positive and nega- tive results of actions or policies. The ability to resolve them in an objective way, if we are to follow Bentham’s procedure, depends on how well we’re able to identify and measure the overall pain and pleasure that are produced, assuming that pain and pleasure are to serve as our basic standard, as Bentham proposed. As we will see later, utilitarians following Bentham came to question this assumption about pain and pleasure, but the core idea underlying utili- tarianism remains the same:

Determine how much pleasure (or other positive value) minus pain (or other negative value) will result from the available actions spread across all the people affected by the actions and do that which produces the greatest overall good.

Mill’s Utilitarianism While Bentham was the founder of utilitarianism and set out its basic form, those who followed in his footsteps would modify and refine the theory. Per- haps the most well-known and influential of these was another 19th-century Englishman, John Stuart Mill. In his 1861 text, Utilitarianism, Mill adopted Bentham’s ideas and tried to communicate and defend them in a way that was simple and straight- forward and addressed the most common criticisms made of utilitarianism.

Read the sections “The Definition of Utilitarianism,” “The Greatest Happiness Principle,” and “Summary of the Utilitarian View” and come back to this point.

Mill begins with a definition of morality that clearly sets out the utilitarian account of the dif- ference between right and wrong actions.

The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals “utility” or the “greatest happiness principle” holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure. (Mill, 1861/2001, p. 7)

The first question we should consider when we read this definition is “Why suppose that hap- piness, defined in terms of pleasure and the absence of pain, should be the standard of value when distinguishing right from wrong?” Mill answers this by offering a general theory of life, which is his primary justification for the utilitarian theory of morality. It reads: “Pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends; and . . . all desirable things . . . are desirable either for pleasure inherent in themselves or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain” (Mill, 1861/2001, p. 7).

Photos.com/Thinkstock John Stuart Mill, utilitarian philosopher.

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In other words, Mill argues that when we consider what we value, desire, or aim at, we find that it is either pleasurable in itself or it leads to pleasure or to the prevention of pain. Gaining pleasure and avoiding pain is the ultimate purpose of everything we do, according to Mill. You are reading this text, ultimately, because of pleasure or pain. Reading this text may not bring you pleasure immediately, the way that reading a gripping novel, an amusing comic strip, or a friend’s birth announcement might do. And it may even be painful at times, perhaps because you find it confusing, boring, or problematic. Still, you’re doing so for a certain reason, such as to fulfill a course requirement.

In turn, there may be many reasons why you are taking the course, and if we go far enough along the road of considering why you’re doing so, eventually it’s the prospect of pleasure and relief from pain that drives you (so Mill says). The same goes for when you go to church, get married, raise your kids, help a neighbor, vote for a certain candidate, or tie your shoes. Basically, when we ask the question “Why did you do that?,” the answer always comes down to gaining pleasure or avoiding pain. So ultimately, on Mill’s account, that’s what happiness is: The more pleasure and less pain we have in our lives, the happier we are, and we all want happiness more than anything else.

If this is true, then it may seem that we have that common, intrinsically valuable feature of the consequences of our actions that we need to measure different outcomes and distinguish between right and wrong. As we have discussed in the previous chapters, there are countless ideas about what is good and worthwhile, what happiness is, and so on. But according to Mill, despite the differences we might have on such matters, everything comes down to pleasure and pain, and we don’t pursue pleasure and avoid pain for the sake of anything else. Thus, it follows that by determining the amount of overall happiness (pleasure minus pain) that results from our actions, we can determine which consequences are best, and thus which actions are objectively moral. To put it another way, Mill thinks that the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain unites us in spite of our differences and can serve as the basis of a general, objective morality that can apply to all people.

On reading this account, many readers will no doubt protest, “Sure, a lot of what I do is for the sake of pleasure or avoiding pain, but not everything. Often I sacrifice my own pleasure or will- ingly take on pain for the sake of others.” For instance, parents often sacrifice personal plea- sures for the sake of their kids without a single thought given to the pleasure they might gain later. Great historical figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, or Jesus are known for having willingly endured tremendous suffering for the sake of a greater cause. Does this undermine the utilitarian account of moral action by challenging Mill’s claim that happiness is the ulti- mate aim of our actions?

Perhaps this is so if we suppose that it’s only our own happiness that matters to us, but this isn’t what Mill means. Mill recognizes that we can often be motivated by the prospect of greater happiness (i.e., greater pleasure or less pain) overall. In other words, he argues that happiness itself can motivate our choices. This can be our own happiness, but it can just as well be the happiness of others. Indeed, this is exactly what we would expect if the utilitarian account of morality were true.

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Section 3.1 Introduction to Utilitarianism

Remember that utilitarianism holds that if we are to live morally, we should be choos- ing the actions with the best overall out- comes. If the “best outcomes” means those that contain greatest overall happiness compared with the outcomes of alterna- tive actions, then we would expect that the kinds of actions that we call noble or praiseworthy are motivated by this aspira- tion toward the happiness of all, even when that requires the sacrifice of one’s personal happiness.

Therefore, Mill thinks that the example of self-sacrifice supports his account, rather than undermines it. Happiness—whether our own or that of others—is the ultimate end of our actions, and thus it is the feature of consequences by which we compare the moral value of actions. This leads us to the original version of the utilitarian principle of morality:

Do that which results in the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Ethics FYI

John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill was born in 1806 into a philosophical family. His father, James Mill, was a philosopher and a friend and disciple of Jeremy Bentham. James Mill and Bentham were dissatisfied with the educational system of the time and wanted to reform it so that children were raised and educated according to strict utilitarian principles.

John Stuart became a kind of experiment in such an education, and he became a child prodigy: He was helping his father edit a history of India at age 3; had read half of Plato by age 6; was fluent in several languages; and knew advanced mathematics, science, and history by the time he was a teenager.

But at age 20, as he was editing one of Bentham’s works, he had a nervous breakdown from working so hard on it. By his own account, John Stuart emerged from this condition partly by reading the poetry of William Wordsworth, and this experience led him to depart in an important way from Bentham’s theory, as described in Going Deeper: Higher and Lower Pleasures. Afterward, Mill became notable not just as a philosopher but as an educator and politician, and he was an influential early advocate for women’s rights.

You can read more of his own compelling and illuminating autobiography here: https://www.utilitarianism.com/millauto.

Going Deeper: Higher and Lower Pleasures

Jeremy Bentham maintained that all pleasures and pains were equal in value and the only question is how much pleasure and pain is produced from each action. This led some critics to complain that, on the utilitarian view, a world with more pleasure is superior to a world with less pleasure, regardless of where that pleasure comes from. Does this entail that utilitarianism promotes a life of animalistic indulgence as superior to one that pursues more noble and distinctively human endeavors? John Stuart Mill did not think so, defending his position by drawing a distinction between “higher” and “lower” pleasures. See Going Deeper: Higher and Lower Pleasures at the end of this chapter for more.

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https://www.utilitarianism.com/millauto

 

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Section 3.2 Putting Utilitarianism Into Practice

3.2 Putting Utilitarianism Into Practice To review, utilitarianism maintains that morality is a matter of striving to make the world a better place by making choices that bring about the greatest overall happiness. This is a com- mon and familiar form of reasoning in everyday life. For example, if a child shares a toy with his brother, two children will enjoy playing with it rather than just one, resulting in more overall enjoyment (and avoiding the unhappiness of the child who wouldn’t get to play with it), and so we teach children to share with others. We are often compelled to help those in need even if it means a sacrifice on our part, because we recognize that our sacrifice pales in comparison to the benefits to those in need. This might involve donating time and money, but it might be something as simple as giving up one’s seat on the bus to an elderly or disabled person.

Moreover, we find this kind of reasoning invoked in politics, business, and science. Think about how many political arguments appeal to the prosperity and well-being of the majority of citi-

zens as the reason to be for or against cer- tain policies. Much of science and medicine proceeds with the aim of bettering our lives and the world, and we find people question- ing the value of scientific research when its utility isn’t as apparent. In economics, especially in capitalist societies, utilitarian approaches often assume that individuals and businesses will pursue their own suc- cess and profit and that we need certain rules and regulations to ensure that this will benefit society as a whole.

As we will see shortly, the familiarity of utilitarian reasoning and its conformity to many of our intuitions of what morality is ultimately all about are among its greatest

strengths. Still, it’s not the only form of moral reasoning we encounter or employ (which will become apparent in later chapters), so it’s helpful to clarify more precisely what distinguishes a utilitarian moral argument and correct some common misconceptions.

How Can I Recognize or Construct a Utilitarian Moral Argument? Typically, an argument that says “This is the right thing to do because it will lead to good results” is a utilitarian argument. So is one that says “This is wrong because it will bring about bad results.” This isn’t always the case, since other ways of thinking about ethics often appeal to the value of the consequences. The difference is that for the utilitarian, the appeal to the good or bad results is the primary or overriding reason for regarding some action, law, or policy as right or wrong. Moreover, we should consider whether the argument is taking into consideration the good or bad results overall among all those affected (rather than the good or bad results for an individual or a particular group). This involves comparing the positive and negative utility of alternative actions and determining what the overall balance is among those alternatives.

Going Deeper: The Trolley Problem

What if you could save five lives in a way that results in the death of a single person? If the overall consequences were the same, would it matter if you were intentionally harming that person or not? This problem is raised by the philosopher Philippa Foot (2002c) in her famous “trolley problem.” See Going Deeper: The Trolley Problem at the end of this chapter for more.

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Section 3.2 Putting Utilitarianism Into Practice

When we encounter these arguments in real life, people will usually appeal to positive and/ or negative consequences as the reason for or against an action or policy, but often they won’t carefully compare the positive consequences with the negative ones, or vice versa. This is what we, as people who care about the reasons for certain actions and policies, might have to fill in.

Examples From Political Debates In the following examples, we can see utilitarian reasoning at work in justifying a certain action or policy (in red) by appealing to the overall balance of good or bad consequences (in blue).

“Same-sex couples should be allowed to marry because it makes them happy and doesn’t hurt anyone else.”

This argument looks first at the happiness gained by same-sex couples if they are allowed to marry and assumes that the only reason they should not be allowed to marry is if the negative consequences outweigh that happiness. If they don’t, then according to the utilitarian, there is no reason not to allow them to marry.

“All nations need to work together to combat climate change; otherwise, the devastation will be severe and far-reaching.”

In this example, the argument does not appeal directly to any particular consequences like happiness or pleasure; we need to fill in those details. The implication is that according to some standard that we all share, climate change will have severely negative consequences, so nations have an obligation to minimize those negative consequences.

Examples From Everyday Life “I should make sure that the lights are turned off before I leave my home to conserve energy.”

Someone reasoning in this way might only be concerned with her electric bill, but she might also be thinking of the impact that her actions have on the community, nation, or planet. Either way, the reasoning behind turning off the lights is similar: If I turn off the lights, I’m contrib- uting to the overall reduction of my electrical bill, even if this particular instance won’t make much of an impact on my monthly statement. Likewise, if I turn off the lights, I’m contributing to the overall reduction of climate change, even if this particular instance won’t make much of an impact.

In both cases the idea is that if I’m to contribute to the best overall consequences, I should do X. Utilitarianism maintains that we have an obligation to choose those actions that contribute to the best world overall, so if turning off the lights contributes to the reduction of global warm- ing (even if the contribution is minimal), then I have an obligation to do so (unless leaving the lights on has positive consequences that outweigh this contribution).

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Section 3.2 Putting Utilitarianism Into Practice

“Don’t cheat on your boyfriend, because it will really hurt him if he finds out.”

The reasoning might be that the potential pain the boyfriend might experience if he finds out outweighs the pleasures gained through cheating.

“Share that toy with your brother so that when he has something you want, he’ll share with you.”

We might give this instruction to encourage a child to look beyond the immediate satisfaction he could enjoy by hogging a toy and consider the fact that, in the long run, both children will be happier if they share their toys.

Examples From Science, Medicine, the Military, and Business The following statements offer a sampling of reasons frequently given for or against various actions and policies in other areas of life that, when considered as the primary, overriding argument, would characteristically represent utilitarian moral reasoning. It’s important to note that there are many other considerations regarding the consequences of various pos- sible actions that may need to be examined, and including them might lead some utilitarians to disagree with these conclusions. Therefore, these statements do not necessarily represent what all utilitarians would think, and a full utilitarian defense of certain actions or policies would need to be more drawn out.

Moreover, as we said before, those who are not utilitarians will often use reasoning that appeals to the best outcomes, the difference being that these reasons aren’t decisive as they are for the utilitarian; as you read these, you may think about nonutilitarian reasons and considerations that seem important. With that in mind, think about how the kinds of argu- ments offered here embody the sort of moral reasoning defended by Bentham, Mill, and other utilitarians.

“Genetically modifying crops and animals will allow farmers to produce more food on less land, with less expense, and using fewer toxic pesticides, fertilizers, and antibiotics.”

“Genetically modifying crops and animals will introduce more problems into the food system than it would alleviate.”

“If we perform medical experiments on animals, it can lead to medical breakthroughs that would benefit millions of people.”

“The suffering caused to animals as a result of cosmetic testing outweighs the pleasure that people will gain from wearing those cosmetics, especially when there are alternative means of testing that have similar benefits with less suffering.”

“Using drones to take out the families of terrorists will demoralize the terrorists and force them to surrender more quickly, thereby saving many more lives.”

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Section 3.3 Common Misconceptions

“Using drones to take out the families of terrorists will inspire others to join the terrorists’ cause, thereby prolonging the conflict even further.”

“By outsourcing labor to other countries, a business can earn a greater profit and provide jobs to people in countries that are much poorer than we are in America.”

“Outsourcing labor to other countries results in loss of jobs and tax revenue at home and tends to provide significant benefits only to those who are already wealthy.”

3.3 Common Misconceptions Now that we have a better sense of how utilitarian reasoning works, let’s address two com- mon misconceptions about utilitarianism.

Misconception 1: The Good of the Individual Doesn’t Matter Does utilitarianism maintain that an individual’s good is less important than that of the majority? Not quite. First, a crucial feature of utilitarianism is an emphasis on equal consid- eration: Any particular person’s happiness or suffering is no more important or less impor- tant than that of anyone else; both are to be counted equally. Everyone experiences happiness and suffering, so the crucial question is how much there is overall, not whose it is.

However, when we are considering all the people affected by an action and how they are affected, we might find that the experiences of a particular individual are outweighed by those of others, whether another individual or a larger group. Again, it’s not that the others matter more; rather, when everyone’s experiences are counted equally and added up, the numbers often work out in favor of the majority.

It’s similar to the way we think of money. All dollar bills have equal value, but if one action results in 10 dollar bills gained and 1 lost, and another action results in 1 dollar bill gained but 10 lost, then that first action is better from a financial standpoint. But we don’t believe that the dollar bill we lost is “less valuable” than any of the others.

In similar fashion, if Action A results in happiness for 10 people and unhappiness for 1 person, and Action B results in happiness for 1 person and unhappiness for 10 people, then Action A will usually be the right choice.

But is this always the case? This brings us to the second misconception.

Misconception 2: The Majority Always Rules Does utilitarianism always require that we sacrifice the good of the individual or minority for that of the majority? No. While it’s true that this is sometimes the case (and can be a source of worry about utilitarianism), moral choices are not always a “majority rules” kind of matter.

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Section 3.4 Strengths of Utilitarianism

Remember that we’re concerned with the greatest happiness (and least suffering) overall. There might be situations in which an action brings a relatively trivial amount of pleasure to a large number of peo- ple but a great deal of suffering to a few. It might be the case that the suffering of the individual or minority is so great that it outweighs the value of the happiness gained by the majority.

For example, the practice of slavery might have been advantageous to the White majority, but overall the tremendous suffering experienced by Black people outweighed those advantages, even though Black people were in the minority. The only way to justify slavery, then, would have been to accord less weight or no weight at all to the experiences of Black peo- ple, violating the principle of equal consideration.

In modern times, farm laborers and factory work- ers in America and other countries often have to work in wretched conditions for little pay so that the majority of others can obtain cheaper food and merchandise. This raises the question of whether the pleasure the majority might experience from inexpensive food, gadgets, toys, and so on outweighs the suffering experienced by those on whose labor these items depend. Or, to take a positive example, members of a community may sacrifice a portion of their time, money, and possessions to help a family devastated by illness or a disaster, recognizing that the small sacrifice of many is far outweighed by the great benefit to that one family.

As we will see in later chapters, some would argue that the reasons to oppose slavery, pay a little extra for products produced in humane conditions, or help a neighbor in need are not primarily utilitarian but reflect other forms of ethical reasoning. Be that as it may, the impor- tant point here is that when utilitarians say we ought to aim at the greatest happiness, they insist that the interests and experiences of all should be counted equally, which may lead to the judgment that the happiness or suffering of the minority outweighs the happiness or suf- fering of the majority.

3.4 Strengths of Utilitarianism Few people would object to Jeremy Bentham’s admonition at the beginning of the chapter to strive to bring about as much happiness and remove as much misery as we can. More- over, since the earliest days of recorded human history, philosophers, cultures, and religions have accorded a central place to human happiness and well-being. It’s hard to deny the

DuxX/iStock/Thinkstock A common misconception regarding utilitarianism is that the majority always rules, but this is not the case. For instance, even though the majority might benefit slightly from cheaper berries, that does not necessarily justify the larger amount of suffering experienced by mistreated or underpaid laborers.

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Section 3.4 Strengths of Utilitarianism

corresponding idea that a world with more happiness is better than a world with less. Three other features of the utilitarian approach to moral reasoning are often touted as important strengths of this approach; namely, its impartiality, its affinity with scientific objectivity, and its adaptability.

Impartiality As we have already discussed, there are many accounts of what happiness and well- being actually mean, and these differences have led to discord, oppression, and vio- lence. More generally, cultures and societ- ies have clashed for ages over ideas about how people should live, what kinds of things are required or prohibited, and so on. This brings us to a notable strength of utilitarian- ism: its impartiality. That is, utilitarianism offers us an account of morality that does not give preference to the beliefs, values, or interests of any particular individual or group when it comes to moral judgments or decisions; rather, these judgments and deci- sions are based on something common to all.

Mill (1861/2001), for instance, attempts to reconcile religious views of morality with secular ones by proposing that “if it be a true belief that God desires, above all things, the happiness of his creatures, and that this was his purpose in their creation, utility is not only not a godless doctrine, but more profoundly religious than any other” (p. 22). Mill’s thought is that utilitar- ian theory expresses a standard of conduct that is common to all religions as well as to those without religious convictions and that is common to all cultures and societies more generally; namely, that we should do what we can to increase happiness and minimize suffering in the world.

This holds particular attraction to us today. We live in a world that is increasingly globalized, in which confrontation between cultures around the world, diversity within particular soci- eties, and awareness of different belief systems is greater than ever before. It is ever more incumbent on us to seek a way to reconcile these differences and find solutions to problems that appeal to all. Or, more modestly, we should strive to find ways forward that, even if they don’t appeal to everyone, are not simply attempts to foist the ideals of one culture or belief system on another but can be justified independently of particular customs, belief systems, or points of view.

As we saw in Chapter 2, a stance of relativism about moral value cannot adequately address the dilemmas that arise in a world in which increasing contact between different value sys- tems call for concrete decisions about which ends and values should prevail when regulating our common life. Utilitarianism endeavors to articulate a standard by which we can distin- guish right from wrong and just from unjust without favoring one set of religious or cultural convictions over another.

Rawpixel/iStock/Thinkstock One of the strengths of utilitarianism is that it is impartial; it attempts to be independent of individual or cultural beliefs.

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Section 3.4 Strengths of Utilitarianism

Objectivity This endeavor aligns utilitarianism with another common contemporary ideal; namely, its objectivity, or more specifically, its conformity to scientific rationality. As we know from debates over evolution, climate change, genetically modified foods, and similar controversial issues, not everyone agrees with the conclusions of mainstream scientific research. But even those who contest the findings of the majority of the scientific community on such issues typically try to defend their views in conformity with scientific standards, suggesting that such standards have a special kind of authority when it comes to justifying claims about what is or is not the case. This is partially because modern science employs certain procedures of investigation that are aimed at eliminating bias and prejudice.

Utilitarianism aims to mirror scientific objectivity by offering a theory of morality grounded in empirical observation (e.g., how much happiness and suffering is produced or eliminated by an action) and governed by an objective procedure (e.g., maximize happiness or minimize suffering). This can ground claims that a moral judgment is objectively true or false regardless of what others believe. For example, in a utilitarian view an action may be objectively right if that action in fact results in the greatest overall good, even if someone makes a different judgment. Following such a procedure can be an important way to ensure that our ethical judgments are based on evidence and good critical thinking, rather than merely expressing personal attitudes, cultural biases, and the like.

The attractiveness of this possibility is not hard to appreciate. When we consider the conflicts that cause the most strife in our contemporary world (as well as those throughout history that have led to suffering, death, destruction, and impeded progress), we can see how biases toward one’s own kind (race, religion, gender, social status, etc.) and prejudices in favor of one’s own form of life (including the rules and standards by which it is governed) play a cen- tral role. A theory of moral judgment that aims to reduce or eliminate such biases and preju- dices would hold great attraction in our contemporary world, and by basing its approach to moral questions on the approach of the natural sciences, utilitarianism makes a strong claim to be an effective way of achieving that aim.

Moreover, biases and prejudices toward one’s own kind aren’t restricted to differences among humans: Utilitarians are especially noteworthy for extending the scope of our ethical con- cern to other animals, as we will see in detail in a later chapter. Animals experience pleasure and pain, form relationships, and are capable of flourishing or suffering. If (as the utilitarian would say) the standard for how we ought to live involves maximizing positive experiences and minimizing negative ones regardless of who experiences them, then we have reason to care about the experiences of nonhuman animals and accord them equal weight to our own when determining the optimal action.

Adaptability One final attraction to note is utilitarianism’s adaptability: Utilitarianism seems to allow us to adapt our moral judgments to particular circumstances in a way that a more rigid system of moral rules would not. For example, most of us recognize a general moral duty not to lie. However, there are circumstances in which lying may seem to some people to be the morally right thing to do.

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Suppose, for instance, that you are a Christian living in Europe during the time of Nazi activ- ity and knew that the Nazis were rounding up Jewish people for torture and extermination in concentration camps. Your Jewish friend and his family are hiding in a secret room in your house, and some Nazi soldiers knock on your door asking if you know where any Jews might be hiding. If you told them the truth, your friends would be sent off to one of those barbaric concentration camps.

Most people would say that the right thing to do in such a circumstance is to tell the soldiers no to protect your friends from such horrors, even though it would involving lying. The utili- tarian can say that even though lying normally leads to bad consequences, in this case it would lead to better consequences than telling the truth and thus would be the right thing to do. In more general terms, the utilitarian can say that no two circumstances are exactly the same, and thus no rule or moral standard will necessarily apply in all cases. Basing morality on the consequences of an action allows us to judge each circumstance on a case-by-case basis.

In short, utilitarianism holds strong appeal, especially in the contemporary world in which we have to make decisions and set policies that affect people with different religious and cultural views; place trust in the standards of empirical, scientific rationality; and are often forced to make difficult choices that require flexibility in how we judge particular circumstances.

Does this show that utilitarianism provides the best account of how we ought to live and the decisions we should be making, whether as individuals or as a society? Many philosophers have said no, and we now turn to examine a few of their main reasons.

3.5 Objections to Utilitarianism For all the strengths of the utilitarian approach to moral reasoning, there are several signifi- cant objections that need to be considered before determining whether it is the best way to approach or justify responses to moral problems.

General Objections We can start by looking back at the conditions a consequentialist theory like utilitarianism must satisfy that we introduced at the beginning of the chapter. If we’re going to distinguish right and wrong actions in terms of their consequences in the way utilitarianism does, we will need to identify what it is about the consequences of our actions that matter morally. What- ever this is must be measurable so as to allow for meaningful comparison, must be a common feature of the different outcomes we’re comparing, and must be intrinsically valuable. Many critics of utilitarianism object that it does not or cannot satisfy one or more of these condi- tions. Let’s look at a few examples.

Start with the most familiar form of utilitarianism—that morally right actions produce the most happiness and least suffering relative to the alternatives. The questions that need to be addressed include the following:

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1. What are happiness and suffering? 2. Can we objectively identify and measure happiness and suffering? 3. Why are these the most important things? Are they intrinsically valuable, and if so,

are they the only things that are intrinsically valuable?

The difficulty with question 1 is that people provide very different answers to it, if they can provide an answer at all (many people are unsure of what these terms actually mean). As we remember from a previous discussion, when we’re considering the amount of happiness that results from an action, especially one that affects many people, we need to be able to make meaningful comparisons with the amount of happiness that results from alternative actions—which means the comparison has to be about the same thing in multiple cases. But if happiness means one thing to one person and another thing to another person, are we capable of making that kind of comparison? Let’s call this the problem of pluralism about happiness.

If we can provide an account of happiness that is based on something common to all of the different views, this could be seen as a strength of the utilitarian theory. This is why Bentham and Mill defined happiness as “pleasure and the absence of pain.” If we are to suppose that for all the variation in people’s views about happiness, everyone ultimately desires pleasure and the absence of pain for its own sake rather than for the sake of anything else, then we can solve the problem of pluralism about happiness. But were Bentham and Mill right?

We might worry that the same problem of pluralism that pertains to happiness pertains to pleasure as well. Even Mill believed that there were different kinds of pleasure, some of them inherently higher than others. What’s more, some would argue that pleasure is always con- nected with a particular kind of activity, and it’s not clear that we can isolate from those activi- ties some common feeling or experience that is the same no matter where we find it. Is the pleasure associated with sexual activity the same kind of experience as the pleasure associ- ated with watching a disturbing but well-made movie, and is either of these the same as the pleasure some people associate with mowing the lawn, watching their child’s piano recital, or figuring out a solution to a difficult problem at work? Even though we might associate the term pleasure with such a diversity of experiences, it’s not clear that this term refers to a feel- ing or emotion that is common to all of them.

Even less clear is how we should measure the quantity of pleasure. Is it measured in terms of how intense it is, how long it lasts, or some other factor? How do we determine what these quantities will be among all of the people affected by an action?

Even if we could isolate some common feeling or emotion to determine how pleasure should be measured, it’s not clear that this would represent the intrinsically valuable feature of con- sequences that the utilitarian needs. Intuitively, the mere fact that someone finds a certain kind of pleasure good does not mean it actually is good. We need only consider the pleasure of a rapist or pedophile or the pleasure that someone gets from torturing animals to question whether pleasure is always good, or we may even, with Mill, suppose that simple or “swine- like” pleasures are not as valuable as those associated with our higher faculties.

We may express this by saying that “desired doesn’t mean desirable.” In other words, the fact that someone happens to desire something does not make it worthy of desire; that is, good.

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Indeed, many have argued that when we consider the values and goods that we rec- ognize as deeply important to human life, it would be a mistake to reduce them to any single quality or characteristic, much less to pleasure and pain.

For reasons like this, many philosophers (including some utilitarians) have concluded that “happiness” is too varied or pluralistic to allow for meaningful comparison of the value of different consequences. Defining happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain does not solve this problem; indeed, it makes the problem more difficult. Now, you might be thinking, Why not just leave it up to the individual to determine what happiness means and compare how much happiness— however each person defines it—is brought about by the action? This is an attractive option that some utilitarian philosophers have favored, choosing to use the term pref- erences rather than happiness to identify what should be maximized by our actions (for which reason such a view is often called preference utilitarianism; Singer, 2011).

However, preference utilitarianism is open to the kind of worry just described: The mere fact that people have certain prefer- ences does not make those preferences good. If the majority of people in a commu- nity prefer the subjugation of a certain race or religion, would that be enough to justify laws that enforced this subjugation? Or should those preferences be disregarded or accorded less weight? If so, on what basis do we make this judgment, if the ultimate stan- dard for moral judgment is people’s prefer- ences themselves?

Moreover, critics might say that basing our standard of conduct on preferences excludes from consideration the good of those who cannot have preferences. Consider young babies; people with severe mental impairments; and most animals, plants, and nonliving things—none of these can be said to have preferences in the way intended by preference utilitarianism, but we frequently speak of them as having dignity or value in themselves, independent of anyone’s feelings or preferences.

Going Deeper: Desired Versus Desirable

Is the fact that people desire something enough to show that it is desirable, as Mill claimed about happiness? Or to put it differently, do some things have value in themselves independent of whether people happen to value them? This is an ancient question, and one of the earliest and most famous versions was raised by the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato in a dialogue called the Euthyphro. See Going Deeper: Desired Versus Desirable at the end of the chapter for more.

Preference Utilitarianism

Recall that Jeremy Bentham initially proposed that utility meant happiness, which he further defined as pleasure and the absence of pain. John Stuart Mill accepted this basic idea but distinguished between higher and lower pleasures on the basis of what most people would prefer if they had experience of both kinds of pleasure. Some utilitarians have taken this further by maintaining that people’s preferences themselves should be what moral actions ought to bring about as much as possible. The result is a view called preference utilitarianism. This is the idea that morally right actions are those that allow as many preferences to be satisfied as possible.

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If we ought to be maximizing preferences, what should we say when people’s prefer- ences involve the degradation or destruc- tion of beings that don’t have preferences? What if a person would prefer to use a work of art as a doormat, a group of people’s preference for a shopping mall requires the destruction of an ancient forest, or a person would prefer not to have the burden of an unwanted baby or an incapacitated parent? Since works of art, ancient forests, babies, and incapacitated adults cannot have pref- erences (or at least preferences like those of normal human adults), it may seem that preference utilitarianism commits us to the view that their good is less worthy of con- sideration, a conclusion that strikes some critics as disturbing and wrong.

We’ve considered the objection that there is no single, unitary feature by which we can eval- uate the relative value of different consequences because the proposed candidates either cannot be objectively identified and measured (as in the case of pleasure or happiness) or are not obviously valuable in themselves (as in the case of mere preferences or personal conceptions of happiness). Utilitarians and other consequentialists have offered a wide vari- ety of alternative ways to characterize the best consequences of our actions, and indeed few contemporary philosophers follow Mill and Bentham in maintaining that pleasure, or even happiness, is the exclusive good that we should seek to bring about. However, if there is no well-defined and justified account of the best consequences, reasoning that proceeds along the lines of maximizing utility may lead to conclusions about our moral responsibilities that appear, intuitively, to be wrong. In particular, this approach may seem to neglect or under- mine certain core features of our moral lives; namely, respect for persons and the irreducible plurality of values.

Respect for Persons Earlier in the chapter, we noted that an attractive feature of utilitarianism is that it doesn’t designate certain specific actions as always right or always wrong but allows for some flex- ibility, depending on the outcomes of the actions. Thus, an action like lying, which is normally wrong, might be right when it’s done to save someone from much greater suffering, as in the case of lying to a Nazi soldier in order to save your Jewish friend.

However, while this flexibility can be an attraction, it can also be a possible weakness. Con- sider a case in which following utilitarian reasoning may justify something that, to many peo- ple, would seem wrong.

Aletopus/iStock/Thinkstock Some critics of preference utilitarianism object that it fails to consider the good of entities that don’t have preferences, such as the environment.

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Suppose five people are brought to a hospital with a life-threatening condition, and each requires an immediate transplant of a different organ to survive (one needs a kidney, another needs a lung, etc.). If they don’t receive their transplant soon, they will die. There’s not enough time to wait for any donated organs to come in, and the hospital doesn’t have anything on hand, so if the hospital doesn’t locate five healthy replacement organs in the next few hours, five people will die.

It just so happens that Sally has come in to have a broken arm fixed. The doctor knows of the situation with the five people, and after running Sally’s vitals, he concludes that Sally’s organs would serve perfectly to save the lives of the five people. If he harvests Sally’s organs, he could save the five lives, but Sally would die. But suppose the doctor is a committed utilitarian and reasons that “five lives saved and one life lost is a better outcome than one life saved and five lives lost.” In other words, he reasons that the best overall happiness would result from killing Sally, taking her organs, and saving the lives of the five people.

If it’s true that killing Sally to save the five lives results in more overall happiness than not kill- ing Sally and allowing them to die, does this mean that the doctor’s actions are morally right? Most people would say no. However, if we are to simply consider which outcome contains the greatest happiness for the greatest number, then what would stop us from saying yes?

This particular scenario might seem far-fetched, but the general sort of dilemma it describes is not. Many ethical dilemmas involve choices between ordinary moral standards and the greater good, including cases in which achieving the greater good requires us to harm or even end someone’s life. If this raises a problem for utilitarianism, how might we specify what that problem is?

One response might be to say that while killing Sally to harvest her organs would save lives, it goes against morality. The thought might be that morality involves respecting certain rules like “don’t kill an innocent person,” and since killing Sally would violate that rule, doing so is wrong even if leads to a greater overall outcome.

However, we must remember that utilitarianism is an account of what morality and moral reasoning actually is. One cannot simply object that utilitarianism fails to respect moral rules, because utilitarians claim that an account of morality centered on consequences is superior to one centered on rules. Rather, we might indicate what is troubling about a case like Sally’s by suggesting that utilitarianism fails to respect the value of individual persons.

Earlier in the chapter, we considered the worry that by making happiness the standard of moral action, we undermine the sacrifice of happiness displayed by many people we admire, such as Gandhi or Jesus. The utilitarian response emphasized that it’s not any particular indi- vidual’s happiness that matters but the happiness overall, which is why we admire the sacri- fice of figures like Gandhi and Jesus.

However, when we consider the difference between Sally, on the one hand, and Gandhi and Jesus on the other, an important distinction emerges: The sacrifice of people like Gandhi and Jesus was voluntary, whereas Sally’s sacrifice was not. Some critics of utilitarianism maintain that morality requires us to always respect the dignity and autonomy of individual persons and that this overrides the value of good consequences when the two come in conflict.

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To take another example, suppose that a military unit is in a battle and a grenade lands in the middle of a group of soldiers. Jesse sees the grenade and immediately throws himself on top of it, shielding the other soldiers from the blast while sacrificing his own life. We would consider this to be an act of the highest valor and honor, and Jesse would be remembered and esteemed long after. Suppose, however, that Jesse is standing next to Drew. Jesse has a wife and four kids, while Drew has no family. Drew is also a bit of a liability at times—clumsy, not terribly bright, and rather unreliable—while Jesse is a model soldier with great prospects in the military. When the grenade lands, Jesse reaches over and throws Drew on top of the gre- nade, which again shields the other soldiers but kills Drew. Would we honor Jesse for this act the same way we would if he had thrown himself on the grenade? After all, the outcome was the same in both cases—one person died, and the rest survived. Indeed, it was probably better in the case where Jesse sacrificed Drew instead of himself, given the broader circumstances.

Most people would not honor Jesse for this deed but instead maintain that he did something terribly wrong or cowardly. But if it’s not the consequences that account for this difference in judgment, what does account for it? Again, many would suppose that Jesse fails to respect the value of Drew as an individual person, particularly Drew’s right to choose for himself whether to sacrifice his life in this way. In similar fashion, some have argued that by fixating on the consequences alone, utilitarianism does not adequately respect the rights, dignity, and value of individual persons themselves.

The worry, in other words, is that in the utilitarian view, moral value has to do with something about a person—how much happiness or suffering he or she experiences, how many prefer- ences he or she is able to satisfy, and so on. The person himself or herself does not have value except as a source of these experiences and qualities, either as the one experiencing them or the one producing them. This stands in contrast to systems of morality, like the one we will consider in Chapter 4, that consider the individual to have a special value or dignity indepen- dent of any characteristics, experiences, or potential to contribute to the overall good.

Irreducible Plurality of Values One way of expressing the objection to the utilitarian view that we just considered is by claim- ing that the value of human life itself is incommensurable with the value of pleasure, happi- ness, or whatever other basic unit of utility that we identify. That is, the value of human life cannot be measured in a way that’s comparable to some quantity of overall pleasure or hap- piness, because they are irreducibly different kinds of value. In similar fashion, some critics of utilitarianism have maintained that there are many sources of value that humans recognize that provide meaning and purpose to our lives and place moral demands on us (Taylor, 1985). None of these can be reduced to any of the others for the purposes of objective measurement or calculation, and respecting these values isn’t simply a matter of trying to bring about as much or as little of something as one can.

Some of these values may include relationships like friendships, families, and communal ties; arenas of human excellence like crafts, the arts, knowledge, invention, and discovery; per- sonal qualities like virtue, honor, and integrity; aesthetic values like beauty; and the many values related to religion and spirituality. While it’s true that many of these provide pleasure

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and happiness, for most people that’s not the source of their value, as if they would no longer be valuable if they no longer gave pleasure or made people happy. Similarly, according to many people, the value these things have doesn’t lie in the fact that people happen to find them valuable; rather, they would insist that people find them valuable because they have value. Therefore, to reduce them to one common value in a way that would allow for objective calculation and comparison of consequences would be to greatly misconstrue how we under- stand the value of these features of our lives and the world.

To be sure, we frequently have to weigh these values against each other and against pleasure, suffering, and the like. These are often agonizing decisions that bring in questions of identity, purpose, meaning, authority, and many others—questions to which we often lack clear answers and in some cases suspect there are no absolute, objective answers. Therefore, such questions stand in contrast to the kinds of questions and dilemmas that are faced in science and mathe- matics, where we assume that with enough effort and ingenuity, we can find an objective answer.

If we recall from our earlier discussion, a strength of utilitarianism is that it aims to bring to morality a similar kind of objectivity and neutrality of judgment that characterizes the natural sciences, where certain procedures help eliminate and overcome bias and prejudice. And surely some of the values and goods that we have been identifying as supposedly irreducible, like one’s ties to a community or those associated with religious and cultural traditions, have been and continue to be sources of bias and prejudice, not to mention oppression and subjugation.

This presents us with some difficult questions that cut to the heart of the basic question of ethics: How should one live? To see how this might make a difference to our moral decision making, consider an ordinary case in which someone must decide what to do with a sudden increase in income (perhaps she has been given a substantial raise or received a significant inheritance). Suppose she had been living comfortably before this windfall. What would be the moral thing to do with the extra money?

One option might be to consider only one’s own needs and desires. One might use the money to pay off debts, buy a bigger house and nicer cars, go on vacation, throw a lavish party, and so on. Another option would be to benefit people and causes one cares about: Establish a fund for one’s kids’ college educations; donate to one’s church or a local homeless shelter or clinic; or donate to an art museum or college, a favored political candidate, or an organization that sup- ports causes one believes in like the National Rifle Association, Planned Parenthood, or Doc- tors Without Borders. Or one might do extensive research to determine how this money might best be used to eliminate poverty, cure diseases, or promote justice and spend the money to support that goal regardless of whether it benefits oneself or someone one knows personally.

Most people would be inclined to say that some combination of all of these would be a legitimate way to make use of the extra money. But would that be the case if one was to reason in terms of utilitarian morality? It’s certainly not clear if any of the uses that primarily benefit oneself would be morally justified. Clearly, the money one uses to buy a bigger house or throw a party would not contribute to the greatest overall good when compared to the suffering that the same amount of money could alleviate. But matters become even more difficult when we compare using the money to alleviate suffering to using the money to benefit the arts or to send one’s kids to college. Or what if we were to determine that while giving money to a local homeless shelter will help alleviate suffering in one’s own community, giving the same amount money to

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Section 3.6 Varieties of Utilitarianism

an orphanage or aid organization on the other side of the world would have similar outcomes for a much greater number of people? Would we be morally obliged to opt for the latter?

This is the conclusion that some utilitarians have defended on the grounds of strict equality and impartiality, which we noted earlier as a strength of utilitarianism. In Bentham’s formula, “everybody [is] to count for one, nobody for more than one” (as cited in Mill, 1861/2001, p. 62), to which Mill (1861/2001) himself adds, “as between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent specta- tor” (p. 17). More recently, the utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer (1972) has argued that

it makes no moral difference whether the person I can help is a neighbor’s child ten yards from me or a Bengali whose name I shall never know, ten thou- sand miles away. . . . If we accept any principle of impartiality, universaliz- ability, equality, or whatever, we cannot discriminate against someone merely because he is far away from us (or we are far away from him). (pp. 231–232)

The claim seems to be that when we consider our moral responsibilities, we must adopt a point of view in which we leave aside anything particular about ourselves—our interests, desires, relationships, and so on—and assume the role of a spectator that objectively measures the good and bad results from different actions and calculates which action will have the overall optimal outcome. If, from this point of view, we judge that giving a certain amount of money to an aid organization in India or Rwanda will eliminate more suffering overall than giving that money to an aid organization in our own community, then that’s the moral choice. And if the suffering alleviated by this action outweighs the happiness generated from giving to an art gallery or sending one’s child to college, then again, one’s moral obligation is to do the first.

Some people find this to be an attraction of utilitarianism, while others find it disturbing or dehumanizing. Part of being human, a critic may argue, is having an identity constituted in part by commitments and relationships that we nurture and support, producing and enjoying the arts, gaining knowledge and understanding for its own sake rather than its usefulness, and much else besides. Does utilitarianism end up reducing this picture of humans as having complexity and depth to a picture of humans as calculating machines?

3.6 Varieties of Utilitarianism It should be emphasized that utilitarians have addressed such worries in various ways, some- times by arguing that these problems do not actually follow from utilitarian theory, some- times by modifying utilitarian theory in ways that avoid them, and sometimes by arguing that these implications of utilitarian theory are not problems with the theory but problems with our assumptions about what a moral theory should conclude or imply. Examining these responses would take us beyond the scope of this chapter. Suffice it to say that utilitarianism, and consequentialism more broadly, is a theory of morality with many variations that have emerged as defenders of its basic form—identifying moral action with bringing about the best outcomes—have sought to address and meet the kinds of objections we have been dis- cussing, as well as others we were unable to cover. Here is a brief sampling of some of these variations:

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• Some philosophers have distinguished between a standard of right action and a guide to action, maintaining that while utilitarianism represents the correct stan- dard by which to distinguish right from wrong, it shouldn’t be the guide that we use when making decisions. Indeed, some have gone so far as to argue that we are more likely to bring about a better world when most people don’t accept or act on utilitar- ian principles (Sidgwick, 1907).

• Many philosophers propose a variety of values other than utility as that which we should be aim to bring about, such as justice, virtue, or a simple and irreducible property of goodness (Moore, 1903/1993).

• Some utilitarians maintain that the standard of right action should be the actual consequences produced by our actions, while others hold that it should be the expected or foreseen consequences that make actions right. If someone acts in a way that he reasonably expects to have the best results but actually does not, we could still regard his action as morally right if it’s just the expected consequences that mat- ter. However, if the actual consequences matter, his action would be morally wrong (though we may think we shouldn’t blame the person for that).

• Utilitarians often disagree on how far-reaching the consequences for which we are responsible should be. Does moral responsibility pertain only to the immedi- ate effects of one’s action, to effects that are far-off and remote, or somewhere in between?

So as we can see, there are many ways in which we might refine and revise the theory, espe- cially in light of problems that are raised. However, there is one final variation that is promi- nent and influential enough to be worth highlighting as we close out this chapter.

Rule Utilitarianism One of the objections against utilitarian- ism is that it would seem to permit or even demand actions and policies that appear to be unjust, such as the subjugation and oppression of minorities, the sacrifice of innocent lives for the sake of the greater good, or some other action or policy that intuitively seems wrong even if it is for the sake of the greater good. Some utilitarians agreed that this is a problem worth taking seriously and have responded by forming a distinction between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism.

Act utilitarianism, which is the form that we have been considering throughout the chapter, maintains that our moral respon- sibility is to do those particular acts that produce the greatest overall good for the greatest number, given the available alternatives in each circumstance. Rule utilitarianism, by con- trast, proposes that we should do those acts that produce the greatest good when followed

Rule Versus Act Utilitarianism

An important distinction within the utilitarian approach to moral reasoning is between act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Here is the basic difference:

Act utilitarianism: the morally right action is the one that leads to the greatest happiness for the greatest number in each particular circumstance.

Rule utilitarianism: the morally right action is the one that would lead to the greatest happiness for the greatest number when followed as a general rule.

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as a general rule. In other words, instead of asking which action here and now would have the best consequences, we should be considering which rules society should adopt to maximize overall utility. If everyone would be better off by adopting a particular rule than by not adopt- ing it, then our moral responsibility is to act in accordance with that rule.

Consider, by way of example, certain actions taken in war. Suppose that we go to war to overthrow a brutal regime that engages in torture, kills innocent civilians, has no respect for political authorities or boundaries, and so on, and that stopping these atrocities is the reason we are going to war. Suppose further that the quickest, most efficient means of achiev- ing victory—the means that minimize casualties, damage, and costs—is by engaging in some of those very activities that we are striving against, such as torture and targeting innocent civilians.

For the act utilitarian, if torturing a person or killing an innocent civilian here and now is the best way to ensure fewer people are tortured and killed in the future, then that’s the morally right thing to do. But for the rule utilitarian, the fact that we are trying to prevent these things shows that a world without torture or the killing of innocents would be best, and so we ought to follow the rule that prohibits them; that is, we shouldn’t do them ourselves (Brandt, 1972).

While rule utilitarianism may help address problems like the ones we discussed, it has not been widely endorsed. Part of the reason, critics argue, is that it undermines the essence of utilitarianism itself, which is to aim at doing the most good and bringing about the best conse- quences through one’s actions. Rule utilitarianism limits us to those actions that would have the best results if everyone acted accordingly, but of course, not everyone does act accordingly. What we are left with is a standard of action that is motivated by the aim to bring about the best consequences but that often requires us to deliberately act contrary to that aim. Because of this, some philosophers have argued that rule utilitarianism is not really utilitarianism at all (Smart, 1956).

If that is the case, what kind of moral view would it be? That will be the subject of our next chapter, which focuses on deontological or rule-based theories of morality.

Going Deeper

Did something in this chapter catch your interest? Want to get a little more in depth with some of the theory, or learn about how it can be applied? Check out these features at the end of the chapter.

The Trolley Problem

Higher and Lower Pleasures

Desired Versus Desirable

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Conclusion & Summary

Conclusion & Summary It is important to reiterate at this point that utilitarianism is probably the most familiar and widespread form of moral reasoning that we find today, at least in the West. The idea that our fundamental moral obligation is to bring about the most good in the world is quite attractive. Utilitarianism’s attempt to base the notion of “the good” on factors that can be empirically observed and measured independently of personal values, culture, religion, and the like holds great appeal. It fits nicely into a contemporary world increasingly reliant on such indepen- dent forms of evaluation to bridge cultural gaps as the world continues to shrink and as tradi- tional sources of meaning, value, and standards of conduct have less sway.

The impartiality and equality at utilitarianism’s core reflect the key values of modern West- ern societies, values that are catching on in the rest of the world. At the same time, there are questions as to whether utilitarianism does justice to the broader range of values than those at its core, like pleasure, happiness, personal desire, impartiality, and equality. There is also the related question of whether it adequately reflects what it means to be human, and thus whether it adequately addresses the fundamental ethical question of how one should live. While utilitarianism may ultimately be able to answer those challenging questions, the questions compel us to consider alternative ways of thinking about ethics. The first of these speaks to that intuition that motivates rule utilitarianism—the idea that certain kinds of actions are simply required or prohibited, regardless of circumstances or outcomes. It is to such deontological approaches to ethics that we now turn.

Key Terms act utilitarianism The branch of utili- tarianism that holds that the morally right action is the one that produces the greatest overall utility in each particular circumstance.

adaptability A feature of a moral theory that allows for variation in moral judgments depending on the specific features of each circumstance.

equal consideration The principle that each particular individual’s happiness, suf- fering, preferences, welfare, or other inter- ests should be accorded equal weight when determining the best outcomes of an action; that is, no one’s interests should figure more or less than anyone else’s.

hedonism The view that pleasure is the most basic positive value, and pain is the most basic negative value.

hedonistic utilitarianism The form of utilitarianism that identifies utility as plea- sure and the absence of pain or suffering.

impartiality The attitude or disposition that does not give preference to the beliefs, values, or interests of any particular individ- ual or group when making moral judgments or decisions.

instrumental value Also called “extrinsic value,” this is the value that something has insofar as it produces occurrences of posi- tive value or prevents occurrences of nega- tive value.

intrinsic value The value that something has in itself, regardless of what it produces or prevents.

preference utilitarianism The form of utilitarianism that identifies utility as the satisfaction of individual preferences.

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rule utilitarianism The branch of utili- tarianism that holds that the morally right action is the one that would lead to the greatest happiness for the greatest number when followed as a general rule.

utilitarianism A consequentialist ethi- cal theory that holds that morally right actions, laws, or policies are those whose

consequences contain the greatest positive value and least negative value compared to the consequences of available alternatives.

utility A measure of well-being and the ultimate standard of value in utilitarianism. This is often defined as happiness, pleasure, and the absence of suffering, or the satisfac- tion of preferences.

Additional Resources Hooker, B. (2015). Rule consequentialism. In E. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved

from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism-rule

International Society for Utilitarian Studies, Philip Schofield (Law/University College of London). http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/news/isus

Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (2015). Consequentialism. In E. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism

Utilitarianism Resources (http://www.utilitarianism.com). A large collection of resources and texts related to utilitarianism.

Further Reading

Anthologies Darwall, S. (Ed.). (2003). Consequentialism. Oxford: Blackwell.

Glover, J. (Ed.). (1990). Utilitarianism and its critics. New York: Prentice Hall.

Pettit, P. (Ed.). (1993). Consequentialism. Aldershot, UK: Dartmouth.

Scheffler, S., 1982. (Ed.). (1988). Consequentialism and its critics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sen, A., and Williams, B. (Eds.). (1982). Utilitarianism and beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Articles Foot, P. (1985). Utilitarianism and the virtues. Mind, 94, 196–209.

Pettit, P. (1997). The consequentialist perspective. In M. Baron, P. Pettit, & M. Slote (Eds.), Three methods of ethics (pp. 92–174). Oxford: Blackwell.

Smart, J. J. C. (1973). An outline of a system of utilitarian ethics. In J. J. C. Smart & B. Williams (Eds.), Utilitarian- ism: For and against (pp. 3–74). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Williams, B. (1973). A critique of utilitarianism. In J. J. C. Smart & B. Williams (Eds.), Utilitarianism: For and against (pp. 77–150). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Williams, B. (1981). Persons, character, and morality. In Moral luck (pp. 1–19). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism-rule
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/news/isus
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism
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Chapter 2: What Utilitarianism Is, from Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill (1863) A PASSING remark is all that needs be given to the ignorant blunder of supposing that those who stand up for utility as the test of right and wrong, use the term in that restricted and merely colloquial sense in which utility is opposed to pleasure. An apology is due to the phil- osophical opponents of utilitarianism, for even the momentary appearance of confounding them with any one capable of so absurd a misconception; which is the more extraordinary, inasmuch as the contrary accusation, of referring everything to pleasure, and that too in its grossest form, is another of the common charges against utilitarianism: and, as has been pointedly remarked by an able writer, the same sort of persons, and often the very same per- sons, denounce the theory “as impracticably dry when the word utility precedes the word pleasure, and as too practicably voluptuous when the word pleasure precedes the word util- ity.” Those who know anything about the matter are aware that every writer, from Epicurus to Bentham, who maintained the theory of utility, meant by it, not something to be contradistin- guished from pleasure, but pleasure itself, together with exemption from pain; and instead of opposing the useful to the agreeable or the ornamental, have always declared that the useful means these, among other things. Yet the common herd, including the herd of writers, not only in newspapers and periodicals, but in books of weight and pretension, are perpetually falling into this shallow mistake. Having caught up the word utilitarian, while knowing noth- ing whatever about it but its sound, they habitually express by it the rejection, or the neglect, of pleasure in some of its forms; of beauty, of ornament, or of amusement. Nor is the term thus ignorantly misapplied solely in disparagement, but occasionally in compliment; as though it implied superiority to frivolity and the mere pleasures of the moment. And this perverted use is the only one in which the word is popularly known, and the one from which the new gen- eration are acquiring their sole notion of its meaning. Those who introduced the word, but who had for many years discontinued it as a distinctive appellation, may well feel themselves called upon to resume it, if by doing so they can hope to contribute anything towards rescuing it from this utter degradation.

The Definition of Utilitarianism The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Princi- ple, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain, and the privation of pleasure. To give a clear view of the moral standard set up by the theory, much more requires to be said; in particular, what things it includes in the ideas of pain and pleasure; and to what extent this is left an open question. But these supplementary explanations do not affect the theory of life on which this theory of morality is grounded—namely, that pleasure, and freedom from pain, are the only things desirable as ends; and that all desirable things (which are as numerous in the utilitarian as in

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any other scheme) are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain.

Higher and Lower Pleasures Now, such a theory of life excites in many minds, and among them in some of the most esti- mable in feeling and purpose, inveterate dislike. To suppose that life has (as they express it) no higher end than pleasure—no better and nobler object of desire and pursuit—they desig- nate as utterly mean and grovelling; as a doctrine worthy only of swine, to whom the follow- ers of Epicurus were, at a very early period, contemptuously likened; and modern holders of the doctrine are occasionally made the subject of equally polite comparisons by its German, French, and English assailants.

When thus attacked, the Epicureans have always answered, that it is not they, but their accus- ers, who represent human nature in a degrading light; since the accusation supposes human beings to be capable of no pleasures except those of which swine are capable. If this supposi- tion were true, the charge could not be gainsaid, but would then be no longer an imputation; for if the sources of pleasure were precisely the same to human beings and to swine, the rule of life which is good enough for the one would be good enough for the other. The comparison of the Epicurean life to that of beasts is felt as degrading, precisely because a beast’s pleasures do not satisfy a human being’s conceptions of happiness. Human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their gratification. I do not, indeed, consider the Epicureans to have been by any means faultless in drawing out their scheme of conse- quences from the utilitarian principle. To do this in any sufficient manner, many Stoic, as well as Christian elements require to be included. But there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation. It must be admitted, however, that utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness, etc., of the former—that is, in their circumstantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature. And on all these points utilitarians have fully proved their case; but they might have taken the other, and, as it may be called, higher ground, with entire consistency. It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognise the fact, that some kinds of pleasure are more desir- able and more valuable than others. It would be absurd that while, in estimating all other things, quality is considered as well as quantity, the estimation of pleasures should be sup- posed to depend on quantity alone.

If I am asked, what I mean by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity

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of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account.

Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying, both, do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast’s pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs. They would not resign what they possess more than he for the most complete satisfaction of all the desires which they have in common with him. If they ever fancy they would, it is only in cases of unhappiness so extreme, that to escape from it they would exchange their lot for almost any other, however undesirable in their own eyes. A being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable probably of more acute suffering, and certainly accessible to it at more points, than one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence. We may give what explanation we please of this unwillingness; we may attribute it to pride, a name which is given indiscriminately to some of the most and to some of the least estimable feelings of which mankind are capable: we may refer it to the love of liberty and personal independence, an appeal to which was with the Stoics one of the most effective means for the inculcation of it; to the love of power, or to the love of excitement, both of which do really enter into and contribute to it: but its most appropriate appellation is a sense of dig- nity, which all human beings possess in one form or other, and in some, though by no means in exact, proportion to their higher faculties, and which is so essential a part of the happiness of those in whom it is strong, that nothing which conflicts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an object of desire to them.

Whoever supposes that this preference takes place at a sacrifice of happiness—that the supe- rior being, in anything like equal circumstances, is not happier than the inferior—confounds the two very different ideas, of happiness, and content. It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bear- able; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfec- tions, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify. It is bet- ter to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.

It may be objected, that many who are capable of the higher pleasures, occasionally, under the influence of temptation, postpone them to the lower. But this is quite compatible with a full appreciation of the intrinsic superiority of the higher. Men often, from infirmity of character, make their election for the nearer good, though they know it to be the less valuable; and this no less when the choice is between two bodily pleasures, than when it is between bodily and

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mental. They pursue sensual indulgences to the injury of health, though perfectly aware that health is the greater good.

It may be further objected, that many who begin with youthful enthusiasm for everything noble, as they advance in years sink into indolence and selfishness. But I do not believe that those who undergo this very common change, voluntarily choose the lower description of pleasures in preference to the higher. I believe that before they devote themselves exclusively to the one, they have already become incapable of the other. Capacity for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance; and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if the occupations to which their position in life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown them, are not favourable to keeping that higher capacity in exercise. Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportu- nity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access, or the only ones which they are any longer capable of enjoying. It may be questioned whether any one who has remained equally susceptible to both classes of pleasures, ever knowingly and calmly preferred the lower; though many, in all ages, have broken down in an ineffectual attempt to combine both.

From this verdict of the only competent judges, I apprehend there can be no appeal. On a question which is the best worth having of two pleasures, or which of two modes of existence is the most grateful to the feelings, apart from its moral attributes and from its consequences, the judgment of those who are qualified by knowledge of both, or, if they differ, that of the majority among them, must be admitted as final. And there needs be the less hesitation to accept this judgment respecting the quality of pleasures, since there is no other tribunal to be referred to even on the question of quantity. What means are there of determining which is the acutest of two pains, or the intensest of two pleasurable sensations, except the general suffrage of those who are familiar with both? Neither pains nor pleasures are homogeneous, and pain is always heterogeneous with pleasure. What is there to decide whether a particular pleasure is worth purchasing at the cost of a particular pain, except the feelings and judg- ment of the experienced? When, therefore, those feelings and judgment declare the pleasures derived from the higher faculties to be preferable in kind, apart from the question of intensity, to those of which the animal nature, disjoined from the higher faculties, is suspectible, they are entitled on this subject to the same regard.

The Greatest Happiness Principle I have dwelt on this point, as being a necessary part of a perfectly just conception of Utility or Happiness, considered as the directive rule of human conduct. But it is by no means an indis- pensable condition to the acceptance of the utilitarian standard; for that standard is not the agent’s own greatest happiness, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether; and if it may possibly be doubted whether a noble character is always the happier for its nobleness, there can be no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the world in general is immensely a gainer by it. Utilitarianism, therefore, could only attain its end by the general cultivation of nobleness of character, even if each individual were only benefited by the nobleness of others,

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and his own, so far as happiness is concerned, were a sheer deduction from the benefit. But the bare enunciation of such an absurdity as this last, renders refutation superfluous.

Summary of the Utilitarian View According to the Greatest Happiness Principle, as above explained, the ultimate end, with ref- erence to and for the sake of which all other things are desirable (whether we are considering our own good or that of other people), is an existence exempt as far as possible from pain, and as rich as possible in enjoyments, both in point of quantity and quality; the test of quality, and the rule for measuring it against quantity, being the preference felt by those who in their opportunities of experience, to which must be added their habits of self-consciousness and self-observation, are best furnished with the means of comparison. This, being, according to the utilitarian opinion, the end of human action, is necessarily also the standard of morality; which may accordingly be defined,

the rules and precepts for human conduct, by the observance of which an exis- tence such as has been described might be, to the greatest extent possible, secured to all mankind; and not to them only, but, so far as the nature of things admits, to the whole sentient creation.

Objection and Replies

Objection 1: Happiness Is Unattainable Against this doctrine, however, arises another class of objectors, who say that happiness, in any form, cannot be the rational purpose of human life and action; because, in the first place, it is unattainable: and they contemptuously ask, what right hast thou to be happy? a question which Mr. Carlyle clenches by the addition, What right, a short time ago, hadst thou even to be? Next, they say, that men can do without happiness; that all noble human beings have felt this, and could not have become noble but by learning the lesson of Entsagen, or renuncia- tion; which lesson, thoroughly learnt and submitted to, they affirm to be the beginning and necessary condition of all virtue.

The first of these objections would go to the root of the matter were it well founded; for if no happiness is to be had at all by human beings, the attainment of it cannot be the end of morality, or of any rational conduct. Though, even in that case, something might still be said for the utilitarian theory; since utility includes not solely the pursuit of happiness, but the prevention or mitigation of unhappiness; and if the former aim be chimerical, there will be all the greater scope and more imperative need for the latter, so long at least as mankind think fit to live, and do not take refuge in the simultaneous act of suicide recommended under cer- tain conditions by Novalis. When, however, it is thus positively asserted to be impossible that human life should be happy, the assertion, if not something like a verbal quibble, is at least an exaggeration. If by happiness be meant a continuity of highly pleasurable excitement, it is evident enough that this is impossible. A state of exalted pleasure lasts only moments, or in some cases, and with some intermissions, hours or days, and is the occasional brilliant flash

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of enjoyment, not its permanent and steady flame. Of this the philosophers who have taught that happiness is the end of life were as fully aware as those who taunt them. The happiness which they meant was not a life of rapture; but moments of such, in an existence made up of few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing. A life thus composed, to those who have been fortunate enough to obtain it, has always appeared worthy of the name of happiness. And such an exis- tence is even now the lot of many, during some considerable portion of their lives. The pres- ent wretched education, and wretched social arrangements, are the only real hindrance to its being attainable by almost all.

The objectors perhaps may doubt whether human beings, if taught to consider happiness as the end of life, would be satisfied with such a moderate share of it. But great numbers of mankind have been satisfied with much less. The main constituents of a satisfied life appear to be two, either of which by itself is often found sufficient for the purpose: tranquillity, and excitement. With much tranquillity, many find that they can be content with very little plea- sure: with much excitement, many can reconcile themselves to a considerable quantity of pain. There is assuredly no inherent impossibility in enabling even the mass of mankind to unite both; since the two are so far from being incompatible that they are in natural alli- ance, the prolongation of either being a preparation for, and exciting a wish for, the other. It is only those in whom indolence amounts to a vice, that do not desire excitement after an interval of repose: it is only those in whom the need of excitement is a disease, that feel the tranquillity which follows excitement dull and insipid, instead of pleasurable in direct proportion to the excitement which preceded it. When people who are tolerably fortunate in their outward lot do not find in life sufficient enjoyment to make it valuable to them, the cause generally is, caring for nobody but themselves. To those who have neither public nor private affections, the excitements of life are much curtailed, and in any case dwindle in value as the time approaches when all selfish interests must be terminated by death: while those who leave after them objects of personal affection, and especially those who have also culti- vated a fellow-feeling with the collective interests of mankind, retain as lively an interest in life on the eve of death as in the vigour of youth and health. Next to selfishness, the principal cause which makes life unsatisfactory is want of mental cultivation. A cultivated mind—I do not mean that of a philosopher, but any mind to which the fountains of knowledge have been opened, and which has been taught, in any tolerable degree, to exercise its faculties—finds sources of inexhaustible interest in all that surrounds it; in the objects of nature, the achieve- ments of art, the imaginations of poetry, the incidents of history, the ways of mankind, past and present, and their prospects in the future. It is possible, indeed, to become indifferent to all this, and that too without having exhausted a thousandth part of it; but only when one has had from the beginning no moral or human interest in these things, and has sought in them only the gratification of curiosity.

Now there is absolutely no reason in the nature of things why an amount of mental culture sufficient to give an intelligent interest in these objects of contemplation, should not be the inheritance of every one born in a civilised country. As little is there an inherent necessity that any human being should be a selfish egotist, devoid of every feeling or care but those which centre in his own miserable individuality. Something far superior to this is sufficiently

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common even now, to give ample earnest of what the human species may be made. Genuine private affections and a sincere interest in the public good, are possible, though in unequal degrees, to every rightly brought up human being. In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, every one who has this moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, he will not fail to find this enviable existence, if he escape the positive evils of life, the great sources of physi- cal and mental suffering—such as indigence, disease, and the unkindness, worthlessness, or premature loss of objects of affection. The main stress of the problem lies, therefore, in the contest with these calamities, from which it is a rare good fortune entirely to escape; which, as things now are, cannot be obviated, and often cannot be in any material degree mitigated. Yet no one whose opinion deserves a moment’s consideration can doubt that most of the great positive evils of the world are in themselves removable, and will, if human affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced within narrow limits. Poverty, in any sense implying suffering, may be completely extinguished by the wisdom of society, combined with the good sense and providence of individuals. Even that most intractable of enemies, disease, may be indefinitely reduced in dimensions by good physical and moral education, and proper control of noxious influences; while the progress of science holds out a promise for the future of still more direct conquests over this detestable foe. And every advance in that direction relieves us from some, not only of the chances which cut short our own lives, but, what concerns us still more, which deprive us of those in whom our happiness is wrapt up. As for vicissitudes of fortune, and other disappointments connected with worldly circumstances, these are principally the effect either of gross imprudence, of ill-regulated desires, or of bad or imperfect social institutions.

All the grand sources, in short, of human suffering are in a great degree, many of them almost entirely, conquerable by human care and effort; and though their removal is grievously slow—though a long succession of generations will perish in the breach before the conquest is completed, and this world becomes all that, if will and knowledge were not wanting, it might easily be made—yet every mind sufficiently intelligent and generous to bear a part, however small and unconspicuous, in the endeavour, will draw a noble enjoyment from the contest itself, which he would not for any bribe in the form of selfish indulgence consent to be without.

Objection 2: People Can Do Without Happiness And this leads to the true estimation of what is said by the objectors concerning the possibil- ity, and the obligation, of learning to do without happiness. Unquestionably it is possible to do without happiness; it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind, even in those parts of our present world which are least deep in barbarism; and it often has to be done voluntarily by the hero or the martyr, for the sake of something which he prizes more than his individual happiness. But this something, what is it, unless the happiness of others or some of the requisites of happiness? It is noble to be capable of resigning entirely one’s own portion of happiness, or chances of it: but, after all, this self-sacrifice must be for some end; it is not its own end; and if we are told that its end is not happiness, but virtue, which is better than happiness, I ask, would the sacrifice be made if the hero or martyr did not believe that it

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would earn for others immunity from similar sacrifices? Would it be made if he thought that his renunciation of happiness for himself would produce no fruit for any of his fellow crea- tures, but to make their lot like his, and place them also in the condition of persons who have renounced happiness? All honour to those who can abnegate for themselves the personal enjoyment of life, when by such renunciation they contribute worthily to increase the amount of happiness in the world; but he who does it, or professes to do it, for any other purpose, is no more deserving of admiration than the ascetic mounted on his pillar. He may be an inspiriting proof of what men can do, but assuredly not an example of what they should.

Though it is only in a very imperfect state of the world’s arrangements that any one can best serve the happiness of others by the absolute sacrifice of his own, yet so long as the world is in that imperfect state, I fully acknowledge that the readiness to make such a sacrifice is the highest virtue which can be found in man. I will add, that in this condition the world, para- doxical as the assertion may be, the conscious ability to do without happiness gives the best prospect of realising, such happiness as is attainable. For nothing except that consciousness can raise a person above the chances of life, by making him feel that, let fate and fortune do their worst, they have not power to subdue him: which, once felt, frees him from excess of anxiety concerning the evils of life, and enables him, like many a Stoic in the worst times of the Roman Empire, to cultivate in tranquillity the sources of satisfaction accessible to him, without concerning himself about the uncertainty of their duration, any more than about their inevitable end.

Meanwhile, let utilitarians never cease to claim the morality of self devotion as a possession which belongs by as good a right to them, as either to the Stoic or to the Transcendentalist. The utilitarian morality does recognise in human beings the power of sacrificing their own greatest good for the good of others. It only refuses to admit that the sacrifice is itself a good. A sacrifice which does not increase, or tend to increase, the sum total of happiness, it consid- ers as wasted. The only self-renunciation which it applauds, is devotion to the happiness, or to some of the means of happiness, of others; either of mankind collectively, or of individuals within the limits imposed by the collective interests of mankind.

I must again repeat, what the assailants of utilitarianism seldom have the justice to acknowl- edge, that the happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct, is not the agent’s own happiness, but that of all concerned. As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator. In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as you would be done by, and to love your neighbour as yourself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality. As the means of making the nearest approach to this ideal, utility would enjoin, first, that laws and social arrangements should place the happi- ness, or (as speaking practically it may be called) the interest, of every individual, as nearly as possible in harmony with the interest of the whole; and secondly, that education and opinion, which have so vast a power over human character, should so use that power as to establish in the mind of every individual an indissoluble association between his own happiness and the good of the whole; especially between his own happiness and the practice of such modes of conduct, negative and positive, as regard for the universal happiness prescribes; so that not only he may be unable to conceive the possibility of happiness to himself, consistently with

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conduct opposed to the general good, but also that a direct impulse to promote the general good may be in every individual one of the habitual motives of action, and the sentiments con- nected therewith may fill a large and prominent place in every human being’s sentient exis- tence. If the, impugners of the utilitarian morality represented it to their own minds in this its, true character, I know not what recommendation possessed by any other morality they could possibly affirm to be wanting to it; what more beautiful or more exalted developments of human nature any other ethical system can be supposed to foster, or what springs of action, not accessible to the utilitarian, such systems rely on for giving effect to their mandates.

Objection 3: The Standard Is Too High The objectors to utilitarianism cannot always be charged with representing it in a discredit- able light. On the contrary, those among them who entertain anything like a just idea of its disinterested character, sometimes find fault with its standard as being too high for humanity. They say it is exacting too much to require that people shall always act from the inducement of promoting the general interests of society. But this is to mistake the very meaning of a standard of morals, and confound the rule of action with the motive of it. It is the business of ethics to tell us what are our duties, or by what test we may know them; but no system of eth- ics requires that the sole motive of all we do shall be a feeling of duty; on the contrary, ninety- nine hundredths of all our actions are done from other motives, and rightly so done, if the rule of duty does not condemn them. It is the more unjust to utilitarianism that this particular misapprehension should be made a ground of objection to it, inasmuch as utilitarian moral- ists have gone beyond almost all others in affirming that the motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much with the worth of the agent. He who saves a fellow creature from drowning does what is morally right, whether his motive be duty, or the hope of being paid for his trouble; he who betrays the friend that trusts him, is guilty of a crime, even if his object be to serve another friend to whom he is under greater obligations.

But to speak only of actions done from the motive of duty, and in direct obedience to prin- ciple: it is a misapprehension of the utilitarian mode of thought, to conceive it as implying that people should fix their minds upon so wide a generality as the world, or society at large. The great majority of good actions are intended not for the benefit of the world, but for that of individuals, of which the good of the world is made up; and the thoughts of the most virtu- ous man need not on these occasions travel beyond the particular persons concerned, except so far as is necessary to assure himself that in benefiting them he is not violating the rights, that is, the legitimate and authorised expectations, of any one else. The multiplication of hap- piness is, according to the utilitarian ethics, the object of virtue: the occasions on which any person (except one in a thousand) has it in his power to do this on an extended scale, in other words to be a public benefactor, are but exceptional; and on these occasions alone is he called on to consider public utility; in every other case, private utility, the interest or happiness of some few persons, is all he has to attend to. Those alone the influence of whose actions extends to society in general, need concern themselves habitually about large an object. In the case of abstinences indeed—of things which people forbear to do from moral considerations, though the consequences in the particular case might be beneficial—it would be unworthy of an intelligent agent not to be consciously aware that the action is of a class which, if practised generally, would be generally injurious, and that this is the ground of the obligation to abstain

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from it. The amount of regard for the public interest implied in this recognition, is no greater than is demanded by every system of morals, for they all enjoin to abstain from whatever is manifestly pernicious to society.

Objection 4: Undermines the Importance of Good Character The same considerations dispose of another reproach against the doctrine of utility, founded on a still grosser misconception of the purpose of a standard of morality, and of the very meaning of the words right and wrong. It is often affirmed that utilitarianism renders men cold and unsympathising; that it chills their moral feelings towards individuals; that it makes them regard only the dry and hard consideration of the consequences of actions, not taking into their moral estimate the qualities from which those actions emanate. If the assertion means that they do not allow their judgment respecting the rightness or wrongness of an action to be influenced by their opinion of the qualities of the person who does it, this is a complaint not against utilitarianism, but against having any standard of morality at all; for certainly no known ethical standard decides an action to be good or bad because it is done by a good or a bad man, still less because done by an amiable, a brave, or a benevolent man, or the contrary. These considerations are relevant, not to the estimation of actions, but of persons; and there is nothing in the utilitarian theory inconsistent with the fact that there are other things which interest us in persons besides the rightness and wrongness of their actions. The Stoics, indeed, with the paradoxical misuse of language which was part of their system, and by which they strove to raise themselves above all concern about anything but virtue, were fond of saying that he who has that has everything; that he, and only he, is rich, is beautiful, is a king. But no claim of this description is made for the virtuous man by the utilitarian doctrine. Utilitarians are quite aware that there are other desirable possessions and qualities besides virtue, and are perfectly willing to allow to all of them their full worth. They are also aware that a right action does not necessarily indicate a virtuous character, and that actions which are blamable, often proceed from qualities entitled to praise. When this is apparent in any particular case, it modifies their estimation, not certainly of the act, but of the agent. I grant that they are, notwithstanding, of opinion, that in the long run the best proof of a good character is good actions; and resolutely refuse to consider any mental disposition as good, of which the predominant tendency is to produce bad conduct. This makes them unpopular with many people; but it is an unpopularity which they must share with every one who regards the distinction between right and wrong in a serious light; and the reproach is not one which a conscientious utilitarian need be anxious to repel.

If no more be meant by the objection than that many utilitarians look on the morality of actions, as measured by the utilitarian standard, with too exclusive a regard, and do not lay sufficient stress upon the other beauties of character which go towards making a human being lovable or admirable, this may be admitted. Utilitarians who have cultivated their moral feelings, but not their sympathies nor their artistic perceptions, do fall into this mistake; and so do all other moralists under the same conditions. What can be said in excuse for other moralists is equally available for them, namely, that, if there is to be any error, it is better that it should be on that side. As a matter of fact, we may affirm that among utilitarians as among adherents of other systems, there is every imaginable degree of rigidity and of laxity in the application of their standard: some are even puritanically rigorous, while others are as indulgent as can

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possibly be desired by sinner or by sentimentalist. But on the whole, a doctrine which brings prominently forward the interest that mankind have in the repression and prevention of con- duct which violates the moral law, is likely to be inferior to no other in turning the sanctions of opinion again such violations. It is true, the question, What does violate the moral law? is one on which those who recognise different standards of morality are likely now and then to differ. But difference of opinion on moral questions was not first introduced into the world by utilitarianism, while that doctrine does supply, if not always an easy, at all events a tangible and intelligible mode of deciding such differences.

It may not be superfluous to notice a few more of the common misapprehensions of utilitar- ian ethics, even those which are so obvious and gross that it might appear impossible for any person of candour and intelligence to fall into them; since persons, even of considerable mental endowments, often give themselves so little trouble to understand the bearings of any opinion against which they entertain a prejudice, and men are in general so little conscious of this voluntary ignorance as a defect, that the vulgarest misunderstandings of ethical doc- trines are continually met with in the deliberate writings of persons of the greatest preten- sions both to high principle and to philosophy.

Objection 5: Utilitarianism Is Godless We not uncommonly hear the doctrine of utility inveighed against as a godless doctrine. If it be necessary to say anything at all against so mere an assumption, we may say that the ques- tion depends upon what idea we have formed of the moral character of the Deity. If it be a true belief that God desires, above all things, the happiness of his creatures, and that this was his purpose in their creation, utility is not only not a godless doctrine, but more profoundly religious than any other. If it be meant that utilitarianism does not recognise the revealed will of God as the supreme law of morals, I answer, that a utilitarian who believes in the perfect goodness and wisdom of God, necessarily believes that whatever God has thought fit to reveal on the subject of morals, must fulfil the requirements of utility in a supreme degree. But oth- ers besides utilitarians have been of opinion that the Christian revelation was intended, and is fitted, to inform the hearts and minds of mankind with a spirit which should enable them to find for themselves what is right, and incline them to do it when found, rather than to tell them, except in a very general way, what it is; and that we need a doctrine of ethics, carefully followed out, to interpret to us the will God. Whether this opinion is correct or not, it is super- fluous here to discuss; since whatever aid religion, either natural or revealed, can afford to ethical investigation, is as open to the utilitarian moralist as to any other. He can use it as the testimony of God to the usefulness or hurtfulness of any given course of action, by as good a right as others can use it for the indication of a transcendental law, having no connection with usefulness or with happiness.

Objection 6: It’s Mere Expediency Again, Utility is often summarily stigmatised as an immoral doctrine by giving it the name of Expediency, and taking advantage of the popular use of that term to contrast it with Principle. But the Expedient, in the sense in which it is opposed to the Right, generally means that which is expedient for the particular interest of the agent himself; as when a minister sacrifices the

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interests of his country to keep himself in place. When it means anything better than this, it means that which is expedient for some immediate object, some temporary purpose, but which violates a rule whose observance is expedient in a much higher degree. The Expedient, in this sense, instead of being the same thing with the useful, is a branch of the hurtful. Thus, it would often be expedient, for the purpose of getting over some momentary embarrassment, or attaining some object immediately useful to ourselves or others, to tell a lie. But inasmuch as the cultivation in ourselves of a sensitive feeling on the subject of veracity, is one of the most useful, and the enfeeblement of that feeling one of the most hurtful, things to which our conduct can be instrumental; and inasmuch as any, even unintentional, deviation from truth, does that much towards weakening the trustworthiness of human assertion, which is not only the principal support of all present social well-being, but the insufficiency of which does more than any one thing that can be named to keep back civilisation, virtue, everything on which human happiness on the largest scale depends; we feel that the violation, for a present advan- tage, of a rule of such transcendant expediency, is not expedient, and that he who, for the sake of a convenience to himself or to some other individual, does what depends on him to deprive mankind of the good, and inflict upon them the evil, involved in the greater or less reliance which they can place in each other’s word, acts the part of one of their worst enemies. Yet that even this rule, sacred as it is, admits of possible exceptions, is acknowledged by all moralists; the chief of which is when the withholding of some fact (as of information from a malefactor, or of bad news from a person dangerously ill) would save an individual (especially an individ- ual other than oneself) from great and unmerited evil, and when the withholding can only be effected by denial. But in order that the exception may not extend itself beyond the need, and may have the least possible effect in weakening reliance on veracity, it ought to be recognised, and, if possible, its limits defined; and if the principle of utility is good for anything, it must be good for weighing these conflicting utilities against one another, and marking out the region within which one or the other preponderates.

Objection 7: Cannot Calculate Consequences Again, defenders of utility often find themselves called upon to reply to such objections as this—that there is not time, previous to action, for calculating and weighing the effects of any line of conduct on the general happiness. This is exactly as if any one were to say that it is impossible to guide our conduct by Christianity, because there is not time, on every occa- sion on which anything has to be done, to read through the Old and New Testaments. The answer to the objection is, that there has been ample time, namely, the whole past duration of the human species. During all that time, mankind have been learning by experience the tendencies of actions; on which experience all the prudence, as well as all the morality of life, are dependent. People talk as if the commencement of this course of experience had hitherto been put off, and as if, at the moment when some man feels tempted to meddle with the prop- erty or life of another, he had to begin considering for the first time whether murder and theft are injurious to human happiness. Even then I do not think that he would find the question very puzzling; but, at all events, the matter is now done to his hand.

It is truly a whimsical supposition that, if mankind were agreed in considering utility to be the test of morality, they would remain without any agreement as to what is useful, and would take no measures for having their notions on the subject taught to the young, and enforced

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by law and opinion. There is no difficulty in proving any ethical standard whatever to work ill, if we suppose universal idiocy to be conjoined with it; but on any hypothesis short of that, mankind must by this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the effects of some actions on their happiness; and the beliefs which have thus come down are the rules of morality for the multitude, and for the philosopher until he has succeeded in finding better. That philosophers might easily do this, even now, on many subjects; that the received code of ethics is by no means of divine right; and that mankind have still much to learn as to the effects of actions on the general happiness, I admit, or rather, earnestly maintain. The corollaries from the prin- ciple of utility, like the precepts of every practical art, admit of indefinite improvement, and, in a progressive state of the human mind, their improvement is perpetually going on.

But to consider the rules of morality as improvable, is one thing; to pass over the intermedi- ate generalisations entirely, and endeavour to test each individual action directly by the first principle, is another. It is a strange notion that the acknowledgment of a first principle is inconsistent with the admission of secondary ones. To inform a traveller respecting the place of his. ultimate destination, is not to forbid the use of landmarks and direction-posts on the way. The proposition that happiness is the end and aim of morality, does not mean that no road ought to be laid down to that goal, or that persons going thither should not be advised to take one direction rather than another. Men really ought to leave off talking a kind of non- sense on this subject, which they would neither talk nor listen to on other matters of practical concernment. Nobody argues that the art of navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the Nautical Almanack. Being rational creatures, they go to sea with it ready calculated; and all rational creatures go out upon the sea of life with their minds made up on the common questions of right and wrong, as well as on many of the far more difficult questions of wise and foolish. And this, as long as foresight is a human quality, it is to be presumed they will continue to do. Whatever we adopt as the fundamental principle of morality, we require subordinate principles to apply it by; the impossibility of doing without them, being common to all systems, can afford no argument against any one in particular; but gravely to argue as if no such secondary principles could be had, and as if mankind had remained till now, and always must remain, without drawing any general conclusions from the experience of human life, is as high a pitch, I think, as absurdity has ever reached in philo- sophical controversy.

Objection 8: Too Easily Allows for Exceptions The remainder of the stock arguments against utilitarianism mostly consist in laying to its charge the common infirmities of human nature, and the general difficulties which embarrass conscientious persons in shaping their course through life. We are told that a utilitarian will be apt to make his own particular case an exception to moral rules, and, when under temptation, will see a utility in the breach of a rule, greater than he will see in its observance. But is utility the only creed which is able to furnish us with excuses for evil doing, and means of cheating our own conscience? They are afforded in abundance by all doctrines which recognise as a fact in morals the existence of conflicting considerations; which all doctrines do, that have been believed by sane persons. It is not the fault of any creed, but of the complicated nature of human affairs, that rules of conduct cannot be so framed as to require no exceptions, and that hardly any kind of action can safely be laid down as either always obligatory or always

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condemnable. There is no ethical creed which does not temper the rigidity of its laws, by giv- ing a certain latitude, under the moral responsibility of the agent, for accommodation to pecu- liarities of circumstances; and under every creed, at the opening thus made, self-deception and dishonest casuistry get in. There exists no moral system under which there do not arise unequivocal cases of conflicting obligation. These are the real difficulties, the knotty points both in the theory of ethics, and in the conscientious guidance of personal conduct. They are overcome practically, with greater or with less success, according to the intellect and virtue of the individual; but it can hardly be pretended that any one will be the less qualified for dealing with them, from possessing an ultimate standard to which conflicting rights and duties can be referred. If utility is the ultimate source of moral obligations, utility may be invoked to decide between them when their demands are incompatible. Though the application of the standard may be difficult, it is better than none at all: while in other systems, the moral laws all claim- ing independent authority, there is no common umpire entitled to interfere between them; their claims to precedence one over another rest on little better than sophistry, and unless determined, as they generally are, by the unacknowledged influence of considerations of util- ity, afford a free scope for the action of personal desires and partialities. We must remember that only in these cases of conflict between secondary principles is it requisite that first prin- ciples should be appealed to. There is no case of moral obligation in which some secondary principle is not involved; and if only one, there can seldom be any real doubt which one it is, in the mind of any person by whom the principle itself is recognised.

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Going Deeper

The Trolley Problem What if you could save five lives in a way that results in the death of a single person? If the overall consequences were the same, would it matter if you were intentionally harming that person or not? This problem is raised by the philosopher Philippa Foot (2002c) in her famous “trolley problem.”

Consider the following scenario:

Imagine that you are a standing next to a railroad track, and a runaway train is careening down the track. In the path of the train are five workers (let’s suppose they cannot escape the path of the train; perhaps they are in the middle of a long, narrow bridge high above a ravine). You know that if the train continues on its path, it will certainly kill those five workers.

However, you see that there is a sidetrack, and on the sidetrack is a single worker. Let’s also suppose that you know that if the train goes onto the sidetrack, that single worker would be killed.

As it happens, you are standing next to a lever that can send the train onto the sidetrack. Therefore, you are faced with a decision: to pull the lever and send the train to the sidetrack, killing the one worker but sparing the five, or do nothing and allow the train to continue on its course, killing the five workers.

What would a utilitarian say is the right action here? Do you agree with that?

Now consider this slight variation:

Instead of standing next to a lever that can switch the train to another track, you are standing on a bridge overlooking the track, and next to you is a very large man (think someone the size of an NFL lineman). He’s leaning precariously over the railing such that barely a push would send him over the railing and onto the tracks. Let’s suppose that he’s large enough to stop the train, thus sparing the five workers, but his own life will be lost. Let’s also suppose that you aren’t large enough to stop the train, so it would do no good to throw yourself over.

Should you push the large man over the bridge?

Again, consider:

What would a utilitarian say is the right action here? Do you agree with that?

Did you provide a different answer to the second scenario than you did to the first for either question? If so, what accounts for that difference? If not, why do you think many people would want to give different answers to the two?

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Higher and Lower Pleasures We have been examining how Bentham and Mill arrived at the basic formulation of the utili- tarian moral theory. Later, we will consider some objections to this account, but there was one important criticism that Mill addressed immediately after defining the utilitarian standard of morality: that utilitarianism is a “doctrine worthy of swine.” Read the section “Higher and Lower Pleasures” and return here.

Recall that Bentham’s hedonistic view maintained that pleasure is the only component of happiness and pain is the only component of unhappiness, and on this Mill concurred. Ben- tham also insisted that there was no difference between different kinds of pleasure or pain, only differences of amount. “Quantity of pleasure being equal,” Bentham said, “push-pin is as good as poetry” (as cited in Mill, 1974, p. 123).

Push-pin was a child’s game, providing simple amusement but certainly not invoking deeper and more sophisticated human intellectual and emotional capacities that are invoked by read- ing good poetry. We can think of this as the difference between the pleasure of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and the pleasure of listening to Beethoven or the Beatles. While a child might gain a lot of pleasure from the first and have no interest in the second, surely by the time we are adults we appreciate that there is something better about Beethoven or the Beatles, such that it’s a greater kind of pleasure than that of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

However, Bentham insisted that ultimately there is no real difference of this sort: While there might be different amounts of pleasure gained from a child’s amusement versus a more sophisticated kind of amusement, there is no difference in the pleasure itself. If an adult gains pleasure from listening to “Mary Had a Little Lamb” or playing push-pin, there’s no reason to suppose this is any different than the same amount of pleasure gained from listening to Beethoven or the Beatles or reading poetry. Pleasure is pleasure, and the only question left to ask is, how much?

This claim led critics to complain that utilitarianism is a doctrine worthy of swine. What did they mean? First, think of what might be swine-like (or animal-like) behavior—that is, the things that people do that are similar to animals. For example, we might see people gorging themselves on food and drink and think of a pig greedily devouring everything in front of it, or we might think of people who seem to live for sexual gratification and recall dogs in the middle of a park sniffing each other and then . . . well, you can fill in the details. Such behavior seems to undermine the fact that we humans are capable of much more than pigs and dogs.

Similarly, think of what we mean when we say of another person, “She was capable of so much, but she wasted her talent on her wild ways.” In other words, some people have the potential to do remarkable things, but instead of realizing that potential, they squander it by indulging in activities that people without such capacities could do. We have this sense that if someone has a certain potential for something great, it’s a shame when that person doesn’t realize that potential. Just as we could say this about someone who has a very specific talent (comparing her with people who don’t have that talent), we could also say this about the human race itself (comparing it with animals that don’t have our human capacities).

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Animals, by nature, pursue pleasure and avoid pain, and so do humans; but we pursue much more than that. So when critics characterized utilitarianism as a doctrine worthy of swine, they meant that by making pleasure and the avoidance of pain the ultimate end of our actions, utilitarianism tries to reduce everything worth pursuing to the things that make us no different than other animals. Indeed, those base, swine-like pleasures are easier to come by, and we can enjoy more of them if we disregard the more complex and difficult pursuits that we praise as the pinnacles of human achievement. If our ultimate end was simply to maximize pleasure, utilitarianism would seem to encourage us to indulge in basic and more carnal forms of pleasure seeking at the expense of ones we might normally consider more noble, worthy, and indeed, more human.

GAB Archive/Contributor/Getty Images; World History Archive/SuperStock Consider these two people. Whose life contained more raw pleasure? And whose life do we consider more admirable?

For Mill, this was a serious objection, not just because of the intellectual challenges it raised but also on a personal level. After all, it was his experience of the sublime qualities of poetry (a distinctively human achievement that no swine could ever produce or appreciate) that brought him out of a state of despair he experienced in his early adult years. (See John Stuart Mill for more information.)

Mill responded to this challenge by maintaining that we should be concerned not just with the quantity of pleasure produced by our actions but the quality. In other words, he disagreed with Bentham’s claim that all pleasures are essentially the same and wanted to vindicate the sense that, for adults at least, reading poetry or listening to Beethoven and the Beatles pro- vided a higher kind of pleasure than playing push-pin or listening to “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

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How does he make this distinction? By looking at what people actually desire: “Of two plea- sures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desir- able pleasure” (Mill, 1861/2001, p. 8).

For example, if you go to a liquor store, you will find dozens of kinds of beer, ranging from cheap, frat-party brands to expensive ones brewed in Belgian abbeys, and everything in between. Speaking strictly of the taste of the beer (not the effects of the alcohol), for many people the pleasure of tasting a beautifully crafted Belgian beer is incomparable to the plea- sure of tasting a watery light beer, and tasting more of those cheaper ones won’t somehow make them equal.

Or to take another example, think of the difference between the pleasures of a casual sexual relationship and a sexual relationship that involves deep connection and love. Those who have experienced the physical and emotional pleasures associated with a deep, long-lasting relationship often say that they would never trade it for the more frequent but shallower pleasures of many casual relationships. In Mill’s view, this would indicate that the sexual plea- sures associated with deeper relationships are of a higher quality than those associated with shallower relationships, and this is a difference in kind (higher and lower), not just amount (more or less). As Mill (1861/2001) puts it in a memorable line, “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied” (p. 10).

Mill argues that by drawing this distinction between higher and lower pleasures, he can show that utilitarianism does not reduce humans to the level of animals when it regards plea- sure and the avoidance of pain as the standard of action. While it’s true, in a sense, that both humans and animals pursue pleasure and avoid pain, human pleasure, especially the kind that invokes our distinctly human capacities like intellect and depth of emotion, is (or can be) of such a different kind compared to animal pleasure that there is no comparison when considering what should factor into the utilitarian calculation of the best consequences and thus of moral action.

The success of Mill’s argument depends, of course, on whether this distinction allows us to continue to use pleasure and pain as objective standards of measurement in the way we described previously. Bentham’s view that all pleasures are equal allowed him to reduce everything of value to a single, common currency, providing for a neat and tidy comparison of the values of various possible outcomes. By adding in the distinction between higher and lower pleasures, has Mill complicated the utilitarian calculus to the point that we can no lon- ger make such objective evaluations?

Desired Versus Desirable Is the fact that people desire something enough to show that it is desirable, as Mill claimed about happiness? Or to put it differently, do some things have value in themselves indepen- dent of whether people happen to value them? This is an ancient question, and one of the

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earliest and most famous versions was raised by the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato in a dialogue called the Euthyphro.

In this dialogue, Socrates engages in debate with a man named Euthyphro, who regarded him- self as an authority on religious matters. Socrates challenges him to define what it means to be pious or holy, and Euthyphro answers by defining the pious or holy as that which the gods love. To this Socrates responds by asking, “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” (Plato, 1997d, 10a). In other words, one might consider certain things like giving to the poor, performing acts of worship and sacrifice, and refraining from acts of dishonesty or violence to be marks of piety and holiness. Why? Euthy- phro answers that the gods love these sorts of things. But Socrates asks whether the mere fact that the gods love them is what makes them good, or whether the gods love them because they are good in themselves.

Why is this important? If the first is the case—if the only reason we call something good (or in Plato’s terms, pious) is because the gods happen to favor it—goodness seems arbitrary. If the gods happened to favor murder, rape, theft, and so on, then those should be considered “good.” But for many people this seems false: These kinds of things seem intrinsically wrong, and if someone were to claim that this is what the gods favor, we would have reason to either reject this person’s claim or reject the gods. Either way, we would be drawing on a standard of goodness that is independent of what the gods favor, or at least what we think the gods favor, so the mere fact that something is (or is thought to be) loved by the gods is not what makes it holy.

Now, Plato was writing for a culture that believed in many gods, and the stories about those gods portrayed them as having significantly greater powers than humans but also as suscepti- ble to many of the same vices and flaws as humans, such as lust, greed, envy, ill-temperedness, and so on. This contrasts with the God of the major monotheistic religions (Judaism, Chris- tianity, and Islam), whose adherents believe to be without such flaws. Nevertheless, Plato’s challenge is still relevant: If God has supposedly commanded something, is that enough to make it right? Or do we have independent standards by which to evaluate whether we should believe that God really did command this thing or whether we should be following this God’s commandments at all?

Our topic, however, isn’t theology but ethics. For our purposes, the fact that Plato’s and Socrates’s gods were much more humanlike in their character and temperament brings this discussion of the relationship between piety and the love of the gods much closer to our own question of whether “desired” is the same thing as “desirable.” Again, Socrates ques- tioned whether the mere fact that the gods loved something made it good. Bringing this to the human level, we might ask whether the mere fact that someone desires something makes it desirable, if by desirable we mean “worthy of desire” or simply “good.” If we believe that we, like Plato’s gods, are susceptible to all kinds of vices and flaws, then could it be the case that we desire things that are not actually good? If so, how do we determine what is actually good or desirable?

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Child Development chapter summary

/in /by

this assignment is due in 10 hours….. must have done within 10 hours…..

Child Development chapter summary

Use the attachment book and do Chapter 4 Summary

Choose one way to respond to the chapter from the following list. You must choose a different response type for each reading response:

A.  Outline the chapter.   I expect to see not just titles/subtitles but short descriptions to help you organize and understand the material.  Please show the big ideas, medium sized ideas, and small ideas.  Your may use Roman Numerals or bullet points.  Please see me if you have questions.  Here is what a sample outline should look like:

I.  Understanding How And Why

A.  The Need for Science:  to understand how and why all people change over time.

1.   The Scientific Method

2.  Begins with Curiosity

B.  Describe at least 3 concepts and the understanding that you now have based on your own childhood experiences or from your experiences as a caregiver.

C.  Choose 6 questions from the “What Have you Learned” section throughout each chapter.  Type the question and your response. 

D.  What do you value and appreciate from this chapter? What concept/idea could you personally apply as a parent or teacher?  What concept/idea is still unclear or fuzzy?

CHAPTER 4 summary only

The Developing Person

Through Childhood and Adolescence

 

 

 

ELEVENTH EDITION

The Developing Person

Through Childhood and Adolescence

Kathleen Stassen Berger Bronx Community College City University of New York

 

 

Vice President, Social Sciences and High School: Charles Linsmeier Director of Content and Assessment, Social Sciences: Shani Fisher Executive Program Manager: Christine Cardone Developmental Editor: Andrea Musick Page Assistant Editor: Melissa Rostek Executive Marketing Manager: Katherine Nurre Marketing Assistant: Morgan Ratner Director of Media Editorial, Social Sciences: Noel Hohnstine Senior Media Editor: Laura Burden Assistant Media Editor: Nik Toner Director, Content Management Enhancement: Tracey Kuehn Managing Editor: Lisa Kinne Senior Content Project Manager: Peter Jacoby Senior Project Manager: Andrea Stefanowicz, Lumina Datamatics, Inc. Media Producer: Joseph Tomasso Senior Workflow Supervisor: Susan Wein Photo Editor: Sheena Goldstein Photo Researcher: Candice Cheesman Director of Design, Content Management: Diana Blume Cover and Interior Design: Lumina Datamatics, Inc. Art Manager: Matthew McAdams Illustrations: Lumina Datamatics, Charles Yuen Composition: Lumina Datamatics, Inc. Cover Photograph: Images By Tang Ming Tung/DigitalVision/Getty Images

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017936099 ISBN-13: 978-1-319-14624-5 (EPUB)

Copyright © 2018, 2015, 2012, 2009 Worth Publishers All rights reserved.

WORTH PUBLISHERS One New York Plaza Suite 4500 New York, NY 10004-1562 www.macmillanlearning.com

 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kathleen Stassen Berger received her undergraduate education at Stanford University and Radcliffe College, and then she earned an MAT from Harvard University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Yeshiva University. Her broad experience as an educator includes directing a preschool, serving as chair of philosophy at the United Nations International School, and teaching child and adolescent development at Fordham University graduate school, Montclair State University, and Quinnipiac University. She also taught social psychology to inmates at Sing Sing Prison who were earning paralegal degrees.

Currently, Berger is a professor at Bronx Community College of the City University of New York, as she has been for most of her professional career. She began there as an adjunct in English and for the past decades has been a full professor in the Social Sciences Department, which includes psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology, political science, and human services. She has taught introduction to psychology, child and adolescent development, adulthood and aging, social psychology, abnormal psychology, and human motivation. Her students—from diverse ethnic, economic, and educational backgrounds, of many ages, ambitions, and interests—honor her with the highest teaching evaluations.

Berger is also the author of Invitation to the Life Span and The Developing Person Through the Life Span. Her developmental texts are used at more than 700 colleges and universities worldwide and are available in Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese as well as English. Her research interests include adolescent identity, immigration, bullying, and grandparents, and she has published articles on developmental topics in the Wiley Encyclopedia of Psychology, Developmental Review, and in publications of the American Association for Higher Education and the National Education Association for Higher Education. She continues teaching and learning from her students as well as from her four daughters and three grandsons.

 

 

BRIEF CONTENTS

Preface

PART I The Beginnings CHAPTER 1 The Science of Human Development

CHAPTER 2 Theories

CHAPTER 3 The New Genetics

CHAPTER 4 Prenatal Development and Birth

PART II The First Two Years CHAPTER 5 The First Two Years: Biosocial Development

CHAPTER 6 The First Two Years: Cognitive Development

CHAPTER 7 The First Two Years: Psychosocial Development

PART III Early Childhood CHAPTER 8 Early Childhood: Biosocial Development

CHAPTER 9 Early Childhood: Cognitive Development

CHAPTER 10 Early Childhood: Psychosocial Development

PART IV Middle Childhood CHAPTER 11 Middle Childhood: Biosocial Development

CHAPTER 12 Middle Childhood: Cognitive Development

CHAPTER 13 Middle Childhood: Psychosocial Development

PART V Adolescence CHAPTER 14 Adolescence: Biosocial Development

CHAPTER 15 Adolescence: Cognitive Development

CHAPTER 16 Adolescence: Psychosocial Development

EPILOGUE Emerging Adulthood

APPENDIX More About Research Methods

Glossary References Name Index Subject Index

 

 

CONTENTS Preface

PART I

The Beginnings

Chapter 1 The Science of Human Development Understanding How and Why

The Scientific Method A VIEW FROM SCIENCE: Overweight Children and Adult Health The Nature–Nurture Controversy

The Life-Span Perspective Development Is Multidirectional

 

 

Development Is Multicontextual INSIDE THE BRAIN: Thinking About Marijuana Development Is Multicultural Development Is Multidisciplinary Development Is Plastic

A CASE TO STUDY: David Designing Science

Observation The Experiment The Survey Studying Development over the Life Span

Cautions and Challenges from Science Correlation and Causation Quantity and Quality Ethics

Chapter 2 Theories What Theories Do

Questions and Answers Past and Future

Grand Theories Psychoanalytic Theory: Freud and Erikson Behaviorism: Conditioning and Learning Cognitive Theory: Piaget and Information Processing INSIDE THE BRAIN: Measuring Mental Activity

 

 

Newer Theories Sociocultural Theory: Vygotsky and Beyond Evolutionary Theory OPPOSING PERSPECTIVES: Toilet Training—How and When?

What Theories Contribute

Chapter 3 The New Genetics The Genetic Code

46 to 21,000 to 3 Billion Same and Different Matching Genes and Chromosomes OPPOSING PERSPECTIVES: Too Many Boys?

New Cells, New People Cells and Identity Twins and More

From Genotype to Phenotype Many Factors Gene–Gene Interactions Nature and Nurture Practical Applications

Chromosomal and Genetic Problems Spontaneous Mutations Not Exactly 46 Gene Disorders Genetic Counseling and Testing

 

 

A CASE TO STUDY: Raising Healthy Children

Chapter 4 Prenatal Development and Birth Prenatal Development

Germinal: The First 14 Days Embryo: From the Third Week Through the Eighth Week Fetus: From the Ninth Week Until Birth INSIDE THE BRAIN: Neuronal Birth and Death

Birth The Newborn’s First Minutes Medical Assistance

Problems and Solutions Harmful Substances Applying the Research A VIEW FROM SCIENCE: What Is Safe? Prenatal Diagnosis Low Birthweight: Causes and Consequences OPPOSING PERSPECTIVES: “What Do People Live to Do?” Complications During Birth

The New Family The Newborn New Mothers

 

 

New Fathers Parental Alliance Family Bonding

PART II

The First Two Years

 

 

Chapter 5 The First Two Years: Biosocial Development Body Changes

Body Size Sleep Brain Development INSIDE THE BRAIN: Neuroscience Vocabulary Harming the Infant Body and Brain A VIEW FROM SCIENCE: Face Recognition

Perceiving and Moving The Senses Motor Skills Cultural Variations

Surviving in Good Health Better Days Ahead A CASE TO STUDY: Scientist at Work Immunization Nutrition

Chapter 6 The First Two Years: Cognitive Development Sensorimotor Intelligence

Stages One and Two: Primary Circular Reactions Stages Three and Four: Secondary Circular Reactions Stages Five and Six: Tertiary Circular Reactions A VIEW FROM SCIENCE: Object Permanence

Information Processing Affordances Memory

Language: What Develops in the First Two Years? The Universal Sequence INSIDE THE BRAIN: Understanding Speech Cultural Differences Theories of Language Learning

 

 

OPPOSING PERSPECTIVES: Language and Video

Chapter 7 The First Two Years: Psychosocial Development Emotional Development

Early Emotions Toddlers’ Emotions Temperament INSIDE THE BRAIN: Expressing Emotions

The Development of Social Bonds Synchrony Attachment Insecure Attachment and the Social Setting A CASE TO STUDY: Can We Bear This Commitment? Social Referencing Fathers as Social Partners

Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development Psychoanalytic Theory Behaviorism Cognitive Theory Evolutionary Theory Sociocultural Theory Conclusion

 

 

PART III

Early Childhood

Chapter 8 Early Childhood: Biosocial Development

 

 

Body Changes Growth Patterns Nutrition Brain Growth INSIDE THE BRAIN: Connected Hemispheres

Advancing Motor Skills Gross Motor Skills A VIEW FROM SCIENCE: Eliminating Lead Fine Motor Skills

Injuries and Abuse Avoidable Injury A CASE TO STUDY: “My Baby Swallowed Poison” Prevention

Child Maltreatment Definitions and Statistics Frequency of Maltreatment Consequences of Maltreatment Preventing Maltreatment

Chapter 9 Early Childhood: Cognitive Development Thinking During Early Childhood

Piaget: Preoperational Thought A CASE TO STUDY: Stones in the Belly Vygotsky: Social Learning Children’s Theories

 

 

Brain and Context Language Learning

A Sensitive Time The Vocabulary Explosion Acquiring Grammar Learning Two Languages

Early-Childhood Schooling Homes and Schools Child-Centered Programs Teacher-Directed Programs Intervention Programs Long-Term Gains from Intensive Programs

Chapter 10 Early Childhood: Psychosocial Development Emotional Development

Initiative Versus Guilt Motivation

Play Playmates Active Play Learning Emotional Regulation

Challenges for Caregivers Styles of Caregiving A VIEW FROM SCIENCE: Culture and Parenting Style Discipline

 

 

OPPOSING PERSPECTIVES: Is Spanking OK? Becoming Boys or Girls: Sex and Gender A CASE TO STUDY: The Berger Daughters What Is Best?

PART IV

Middle Childhood

 

 

Chapter 11 Middle Childhood: Biosocial Development A Healthy Time

Slower Growth, Greater Strength Physical Activity Health Problems in Middle Childhood A VIEW FROM SCIENCE: What Causes Childhood Obesity?

Children with Special Brains and Bodies Measuring the Mind Special Needs in Middle Childhood Specific Learning Disorders OPPOSING PERSPECTIVES: Drug Treatment for ADHD and Other Disorders

Special Education A CASE TO STUDY: Unexpected and Odd Labels, Laws, and Learning Early Intervention Gifted and Talented

 

 

Chapter 12 Middle Childhood: Cognitive Development Building on Theory

Piaget and Concrete Thought Vygotsky and Culture A CASE TO STUDY: Is She Going to Die? Information Processing INSIDE THE BRAIN: Coordination and Capacity Memory Control Processes

Language Vocabulary Speaking Two Languages Differences in Language Learning OPPOSING PERSPECTIVES: Happiness or High Grades?

Teaching and Learning International Schooling Schooling in the United States Choices and Complications

 

 

Chapter 13 Middle Childhood: Psychosocial Development The Nature of the Child

Self-Concept OPPOSING PERSPECTIVES: Protect or Puncture Self-Esteem? Resilience and Stress

Families and Children Shared and Nonshared Environments Family Structure and Family Function A VIEW FROM SCIENCE: “I Always Dressed One in Blue Stuff . . .” Connecting Structure and Function Family Trouble

The Peer Group The Culture of Children A CASE TO STUDY: Ignorance All Around

Children’s Moral Values Moral Reasoning What Children Value

 

 

PART V

Adolescence

Chapter 14 Adolescence: Biosocial Development Puberty Begins

 

 

Unseen Beginnings Brain Growth When Will Puberty Begin? INSIDE THE BRAIN: Lopsided Growth A VIEW FROM SCIENCE: Stress and Puberty Too Early, Too Late

Growth and Nutrition Growing Bigger and Stronger Diet Deficiencies Eating Disorders

Sexual Maturation Sexual Characteristics Sexual Activity Sexual Problems in Adolescence

Chapter 15 Adolescence: Cognitive Development Logic and Self

Egocentrism Formal Operational Thought Two Modes of Thinking A CASE TO STUDY: Biting the Policeman INSIDE THE BRAIN: Impulses, Rewards, and Reflection

Digital Natives Technology and Cognition Sexual Abuse?

 

 

Addiction Cyber Danger

Secondary Education Definitions and Facts Middle School High School OPPOSING PERSPECTIVES: Testing Variability

Chapter 16 Adolescence: Psychosocial Development Identity

Not Yet Achieved Four Arenas of Identity Formation

Relationships with Adults A VIEW FROM SCIENCE: Teenagers, Genes, and Drug Use Parents

Peer Power Peer Pressure A CASE TO STUDY: The Naiveté of Your Author Romance Sex Education

Sadness and Anger Depression Delinquency and Defiance

Drug Use and Abuse

 

 

Variations in Drug Use OPPOSING PERSPECTIVES: E-Cigarettes: Path to Addiction or Healthy Choice?

Harm from Drugs Preventing Drug Abuse: What Works?

Epilogue Emerging Adulthood Biosocial Development

Strong and Active Bodies Taking Risks

Cognitive Development Countering Stereotypes Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

Psychosocial Development Identity Achievement Intimacy Needs Concluding Questions and Hopes

Appendix More About Research Methods Make It Personal Read the Research

Professional Journals and Books The Internet

Additional Terms and Concepts Who Participates? Research and Design Reporting Results

 

 

PREFACE

If human development were simple, universal, and unchanging, there would be no need for a new edition of this textbook. Nor would anyone need to learn anything about human growth. But human development is complex, varied, and never the same.

This is evident to me in small ways as well as large ones. Yesterday, I made the mistake of taking two of my grandsons, aged 6 and 7, to the grocery store, asking them what they wanted for dinner. I immediately rejected their first suggestions—doughnuts or store-made sandwiches. But we lingered over the meat counter. Asa wanted hot dogs and Caleb wanted chicken. Neither would concede.

At least one universal is apparent in this anecdote: Grandmothers seek to nourish grandchildren. But complexity and variability were evident in two stubborn cousins and one confused grandmother.

This small incident is not unlike the headlines in today’s newspaper. Indeed, other developmental questions seem more urgent now, interweaving what is universally true about humans with what is new and immediate, balancing them in order to move forward with our public and personal lives. I found a compromise for dinner—chicken hot dogs, which both boys ate, with whole wheat bread and lots of ketchup. I do not know the solutions to public dilemmas such as climate change, immigration, gun violence, and systemic racism, but I believe that a deeper and more accurate understanding of human development might help.

That is why I wrote this eleventh edition, which presents both the enduring and the current findings from the study of child and adolescent development. Some of those findings have been recognized for decades, even centuries, and some are new, as thousands of scientists study how humans grow and change with new circumstances. I hope they will help us with the public and private aspects of our lives.

What’s New in the Eleventh Edition? New Material Every year, scientists discover and explain more concepts and research. The best of these are integrated into the text, with hundreds of new references on many topics, including epigenetics at conception, prenatal protections, infant nutrition, autism spectrum disorder, attachment, high- stakes testing, drug addiction and opioid-related deaths, sex education, and diversity of all kinds —ethnic, economic, gender, and cultural. Cognizant of the interdisciplinary nature of human development, I include recent research in biology, sociology, education, anthropology, political science, and more—as well as my home discipline, psychology.

 

 

What Can You Learn? Scientists first establish what is, and then they try to change it. In one recent experiment, Deb Kelemen (shown here) established that few children under age 12 understand a central concept of evolution (natural selection). Then she showed an experimental group a picture book illustrating the idea. Success! The independent variable (the book) affected the dependent variable (the children’s ideas), which confirmed Kelemen’s hypothesis: Children can understand natural selection if instruction is tailored to their ability.

Genetics and social contexts are noted throughout. The interaction of nature and nurture is discussed in many chapters, because neuroscience relates to every aspect of life. Among the many topics described with new research are the variations, benefits, and hazards of breast- feeding, infant day care, preschool education, single parenthood, exercise, vaccination, same-sex marriage—always noting differences, deficits, and resilience.

No paragraph in this edition is exactly what it was in the tenth edition. To help professors who taught with the earlier texts, or students who have friends who took the course a few years ago, here are some highlights of the updates:

Is She Awake? This 36-year-old mother in Hong Kong put her 7-month-old baby on her back, protecting her from SIDS as the Chinese have done for centuries. However, the soft pillow and comforter are hazards. Will she carry the baby to a safe place before she falls asleep?

Updated examples illustrating replication, race and ethnicity, and cross-sequential study

 

 

(Chapter 1). New feature on childhood obesity illustrating the scientific method (Chapter 1). New feature on marijuana use and sensitive periods (Chapter 1). Expanded discussion and new examples of what theories do (Chapter 2). New example and figure on opioid-related deaths illustrating classical conditioning (Chapter 2). Descriptions of newer brain imaging techniques such as DTI (diffusion tensor imaging) (Chapter 2). Grandmother hypothesis added to the discussion of evolutionary theory (Chapter 2). New coverage on the impact of the microbiome (Chapter 3). Updated material on stem cells and the use of CRISPR (Chapter 3). New feature on genetic counseling (Chapter 3). New feature on neurogenesis in the developing fetus (Chapter 4). Updated coverage and data on cesarean sections, the utilization of midwives, and alternatives to hospital birth (Chapter 4). Added discussion of teratogens, including recent research and data on Zika virus (Chapter 4). New research and data on international trends in low birthweight (Chapter 4). Updated coverage and research examples of infant sleep, bed-sharing, and co-sleeping (Chapter 5). New feature explaining neuroscience terms and brain structures (Chapter 5). New research on newborn vision and experience of pain (Chapter 5). Added coverage of motor-skill development, including walking (Chapter 5). New research on memory in infancy (Chapter 6). New coverage of bilingualism in babies (Chapter 6). Added discussion of attachment and the work of Bowlby and Ainsworth (Chapter 7). New features on emotional expression and adoptive parents’ attachment to their children (Chapter 7). Expanded coverage and research on infant day care, including new data on international trends in paid family leave (Chapter 7). Updated research on childhood obesity and nutrition (Chapter 8). Added discussion and research on childhood allergies (Chapter 8). New research on dangers of environmental pollutants in early childhood (Chapter 8). New research examples in discussion of young children’s logic (Chapter 9). Expanded discussion and new research on STEM learning, educational software use, and bilingualism in early childhood (Chapter 9). New research on brain plasticity and emotional regulation (Chapter 10). New coverage and data on screen time (Chapter 10). New research on gender development and gender differences (Chapter 10). Added discussion of embodied cognition and the importance of physical activity for overall health (Chapter 11). Added coverage on Sternberg, Gardner, and multiple intelligences (Chapter 11).

 

 

Updated coverage of childhood psychopathology, including ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, and specific learning disorders, and special education (Chapter 11). New feature on cognition in middle childhood (Chapter 12). Added discussion of Vygotsky and the role of instruction (Chapter 12). New discussion of the U.S. Common Core standards and of Finland’s recent education reform (Chapter 12). Added discussion and research on social comparison in middle childhood (Chapter 13). New U.S. and international research on various family structures (Chapter 13). New feature and research on bullying (Chapter 13). Added discussion of the benefits of psychotherapy for emotional problems during adolescence (Chapter 14). New coverage and research on executive function (Chapter 14). New research on eating disorders and sexual activity during adolescence (Chapter 14). Added discussion and research on advances in cognition during adolescence (Chapter 15). Updated coverage of media use among adolescents (Chapter 15). New research on adolescents’ experience of middle school (Chapter 15). Updated coverage of ethnic and gender development, as well as sexual orientation (Chapter 16). Updated coverage of teenage drug use, including e-cigarettes (Chapter 16). More coverage on exercise and new data on family-planning trends worldwide (Epilogue). Updated material on college completion and debt, including a new infographic (Epilogue). Updated material and new research on dating, cohabitation, and romance in emerging adults (Epilogue).

Universal Morality Remarkable? Not really. By the end of middle childhood, many children are eager to express their moral convictions, especially with a friend. Chaim Ifrah and Shai Reef believe that welcoming refugees is part of being a patriotic Canadian and a devout Jew, so they brought a welcoming sign to the Toronto airport where Syrian refugees (mostly Muslim) will soon deplane.

New Inside the Brain Feature

 

 

Since new discoveries abound almost daily in the field of neuroscience, I have added Inside the Brain features to several chapters, exploring topics such as the intricacies of prenatal and infant brain development, brain specialization and speech development, and brain maturation and emotional development.

New and Updated Coverage of Neuroscience Inclusion of neuroscience is a familiar feature of this book. In addition to the new Inside the Brain features, I include the latest, cutting-edge research on the brain in virtually every chapter, often enhancing it with charts, figures, and photos to help students understand the brain’s inner workings. A list highlighting this material is available at macmillanlearning.com.

New Developing Lives Developing Lives is a robust and sophisticated interactive experience in which each student “raises” a virtual child from sperm-and-egg to teenager—fully integrated into LaunchPad. With Developing Lives, each student creates a personal profile, selects a virtual partner (or chooses to be a single parent), and marks the arrival of their newborn (represented by a unique avatar based on the parents’ characteristics). As the child grows, the student responds to events both planned and unforeseen, making important decisions (nutrition choices, doctor visits, sleeping location) and facing uncertain moments (illness, divorce, a new baby), with each choice affecting how the child grows. Throughout, Developing Lives deepens each student’s attachment and understanding of key concepts in the field with immediate, customized feedback based on child development research. It integrates more than 200 videos and animations and includes quizzes and essay questions that are easy to assign and assess.

New Integration with LaunchPad Throughout the book, the margins include LaunchPad call-outs to online videos about people in a particular context or key scientists who might become role models. For example, Susan Beal, the Australian scientist who revolutionized our understanding of SIDS (sudden infant death

 

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syndrome) and infant sleep is shown. The video demonstrates that she is not an aloof expert, but a wife and mother, like many students and their relatives. Application to Developing Lives (described above) and Data Connections activities (described below) are also highlighted for the reader.

Renewed Emphasis on Critical Thinking and Application in the Pedagogical Program We all need to be critical thinkers. Virtually every page of this book presents questions as well as facts. A new marginal feature, Think Critically, encourages student reflection and analysis. There are no pat answers to these questions: They could be used to start a class discussion or begin a long essay.

Every chapter begins with a few What Will You Know? questions, one for each major heading. Of course, much of what readers will learn will be reflected in new attitudes and perspectives— hard to quantify. But these What Will You Know? questions are intended to be provocative and to pose issues that the students will remember for decades.

In addition, after every major section, What Have You Learned? questions appear. They are designed to help students review what they have just read, a pedagogical technique proven to help retention. Ideally, students will answer these learning objective questions in sentences, with specifics that demonstrate knowledge. Some items on the new lists are straightforward, requiring only close attention to the chapter content. Others require comparisons, implications, or evaluations.

Key terms are indicated with bold print and are defined in the margins as well as in the glossary, because expanded vocabulary aids expanded understanding. To help students become better observers, occasional Observation Quizzes accompany a photo or figure. And, since many students reading this book are preparing to be teachers, health care professionals, police officers,

 

 

or parents, every chapter contains Especially For questions that encourage students to apply important developmental concepts just as experts in the field do.

As a professor myself, I continue to seek ways to deepen knowledge. Cognitive psychology and research on pedagogy finds that vocabulary, specific applications details, and critical thinking are all part of learning. These features are designed to foster all four.

Updated Features Online Data Connections Activities Understanding how scientists use data helps students realize that the study of human development is much more than personal experience and common sense. Evidence sometimes contradicts myths and assumptions, and sometimes it confirms them. This edition continues to offer interactive activities—many of which have been updated with the latest available data—to allow students to interpret data on topics ranging from infant breast-feeding to adolescent risk- taking.

For example, students discover how U.S. poverty rates are worse for children than for adults, data that may be surprising. These interactive activities advance active thinking, deepening their understanding of the need for data. Instructors can assign these activities in the online LaunchPad that accompanies this book.

Opposing Perspectives, A View from Science, and A Case to Study Special topics and new research abound in childhood and adolescent development. This edition

 

 

of The Developing Person Through Childhood and Adolescence includes boxed features in every chapter. Opposing Perspectives focuses on controversial topics—from prenatal sex selection to e-cigarettes. Information and opinions on both sides of each issue are presented, so students can weigh evidence, assess arguments, and reach their own conclusions while appreciating that an opposite conclusion also has merit. A View from Science explains research in more detail, illustrating the benefits of the scientific method. A Case to Study focuses on particular individuals, helping students to recognize the personal implications of what they learn.

Infographics Information is sometimes better understood visually and graphically. Carefully chosen, updated photos and figures appear on almost every page, with captions that explain and increase knowledge. In addition, every chapter includes a full-page, graphical depiction.

These infographics explain key concepts, from brain development to school attendance rates, often with data that encourage students to think of other nations, other cultures, other times. My two awesome editors and I have worked closely with noted designer Charles Yuen to create these infographics, hoping they reinforce key ideas.

Child Development and Nursing Career Correlation Guides Many students taking this course will become nurses or early-childhood educators. This book and accompanying testing material are fully correlated to the NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) career preparation goals and the NCLEX (nursing) licensure exam. These two supplements are available in LaunchPad.

Ongoing Features Writing That Communicates the Excitement and Challenge of the Field Writing about the science of human development should be lively, just as people are. Each sentence conveys attitude as well as content. Chapter-opening vignettes describe real-life situations. Examples and clear explanations abound, helping students connect theory, research, and experiences.

Coverage of Diversity Cross-cultural, international, multiethnic, sexual orientation, poverty, age, family structure, gender—all these words and ideas are vital to appreciating how children develop. Research uncovers surprising similarities and notable differences: All people have much in common, yet each human is unique. From the discussion of social contexts in Chapter 1 to the coverage of cultural differences among emerging adults in the Epilogue, each chapter explains that no one is average; each of us is diverse.

New research on family structures, immigrants, bilingualism, and ethnic differences in health are among the many topics that illustrate human diversity. Respect for human differences is

 

 

evident throughout. Examples and research findings from many parts of the world are not add- ons but are integral to our understanding of child development. A list of these examples and research is available at macmillanlearning.com.

Learning to Button Most shirts for 4-year-olds are wide-necked without buttons, so preschoolers can put the shirts on themselves. But the skill of buttoning is best learned from a mentor, who knows how to increase motivation.

Current Research from the Field My mentors encouraged curiosity, creativity, and skepticism; as a result, I read and analyze thousands of articles and books on everything from the genetic alleles that predispose children to autism spectrum disorder to the complications of ethnic identity. The recent explosion of research in neuroscience has challenged me, once again, first to understand and then to explain many complex findings and speculative leaps. My students continue to ask questions and share their experiences, providing new perspectives and concerns.

Topical Organization Within a Chronological Framework The book’s basic organization remains unchanged. Four chapters begin the book with coverage of definitions, theories, genetics, and prenatal development. These chapters function not only as a developmental foundation but also as the structure for explaining plasticity, nature and nurture, multicultural awareness, risk analysis, gains and losses, family bonding, and many other concepts that yield insights for all of human development.

The other three parts correspond to the major periods of development. Each age is discussed in three chapters, one for the biological, one for the cognitive, and one for the social world. I believe that this topical organization within a chronological framework provides a scaffold for students’ understanding of the interplay between chronological age and specific topics.

 

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Sisters and Brothers Gender equality has become important to both sexes, as evidenced by the thousands of men who joined the Women’s March on January 21, 2017—the day after President Trump’s inauguration. Many who attended took exception with his positions on sex and gender issues, and the result was one of the largest protest marches ever: an estimated 4 million people in more than one hundred towns and cities. This shows Washington, D.C., where more than half a million gathered.

Photographs, Tables, and Graphs That Are Integral to the Text Students learn a great deal from this book’s illustrations because Worth Publishers encourages authors to choose the photographs, tables, and graphs and to write captions that extend the content. Observation Quizzes that accompany many of them inspire readers to look more closely at certain photographs, tables, and figures. The online Data Connections further this process by presenting numerous charts and tables that contain detailed data for further study.

Media and Supplements After teaching for many years, I know personally that supplements can make or break a class, and that some publisher’s representatives are helpful in explaining how to use them while others are not. Many new quizzes, videos, and other aids are available for both students and professors. Ask your publisher’s representative how these might be used. I have taught with texts from many publishers; I expect you will find that Worth representatives are among the best, and you will be glad you asked for help.

 

 

Global Decay Thousands of children in Bangalore, India, gathered to brush their teeth together, part of an oral health campaign. Music, fast food, candy bars, and technology have been exported from the United States, and many developing nations have their own versions (Bollywood replaces Hollywood). Western diseases have also reached many nations; preventive health now follows.

Observation Quiz Beyond toothbrushes, what other health tools do most children here have that their parents did not? (see answer, p. 314)

LaunchPad with Developing Lives, LearningCurve Quizzing, and Data Connections Activities Built to solve key challenges in the course, LaunchPad gives students what they need to prepare for class and gives instructors what they need to set up a course, shape the content, craft presentations and lectures, assign and assess homework, and guide the learning of every student.

LaunchPad, which can be previewed at launchpadworks.com, includes the following:

 

http://launchpadworks.com

 

An interactive e-Book, which integrates the text with videos that aid student learning. Developing Lives, the sophisticated interactive experience in which students “raise” their own virtual child. This fascinating simulation integrates more than 200 videos and animations and includes quizzes and essay questions that are easy to assign and assess. Data Connections, interactive activities that allow students to interpret data on topics ranging from breast-feeding to risk-taking. The LearningCurve adaptive quizzing system, which is based on the latest findings from learning and memory research. It combines adaptive question selection, immediate and valuable feedback, and a gamelike interface to engage students in a learning experience that is unique to them. Each LearningCurve quiz is fully integrated with other resources in LaunchPad through the Personalized Study Plan, so students can review using Worth’s extensive library of videos and activities. And state-of-the-art question analysis reports allow instructors to track the progress of individual students as well as their class as a whole. Worth’s Video Collection for Human Development, which covers the full range of the course, from classic experiments (like the Strange Situation and Piaget’s conservation tasks) to investigations of children’s play to adolescent risk-taking. Instructors can assign these videos to students through LaunchPad or choose 1 of 50 popular video activities that combine videos with short-answer and multiple-choice questions. (For presentation purposes, our videos are also available on flash drive.) Instructor’s Resources, which has been hailed as the richest collection of instructor’s resources in developmental psychology. They include learning objectives, springboard topics for discussion and debate, handouts for student projects, course-planning suggestions, ideas for term projects, and a guide to audiovisual and online materials. Lecture Slides, which include two sets of prebuilt slides: one comprised of chapter art and illustrations, and another consisting of comprehensive, book-specific lectures. These slides

 

 

can be used as-is or customized to fit your course needs. A Test Bank containing at least 100 multiple-choice and 70 fill-in-the-blank, true-false, and essay questions per chapter. Good test questions are critical to every course, and we have gone through each and every one of these test questions with care. We have added more challenging questions, and questions are keyed to the textbook by topic, page number, and level of difficulty. Questions can be organized by NCLEX, NAEYC, and APA goals and Bloom’s taxonomy. We have also written rubrics for grading all of the essay questions in the test bank.

The Diploma computerized test bank guides instructors step by step through the process of creating a test. It also allows them to quickly add an unlimited number of questions; edit, scramble, or re-sequence items; format a test; and include pictures, equations, and media links. The accompanying gradebook enables instructors to record students’ grades throughout the course and includes the capacity to sort student records, view detailed analyses of test items, curve tests, generate reports, and add weights to grades.

Thanks I would like to thank the academic reviewers who have read this book in every edition and who have provided suggestions, criticisms, references, and encouragement. They have all made this a better book.

I want to mention especially those who have reviewed this edition:

Chris Alas, Houston Community College Adrienne Armstrong, Lone Star College William Robert Aronson, Florida International University T. M. Barratt, Arizona State University Daniel Benkendorf, The City University of New York–Baruch College Gina Brelsford, Pennsylvania State University–Harrisburg Melissa A. Bright, University of Florida Alda Cekrezi, Lone Star College Kristi Cordell-McNulty, Angelo State University Barbara Crosby, Baylor University Faith T. Edwards, Univeristy of Wisconsin—Oshkosh Naomi Ekas, Texas Christian University Michael A. Erickson, Hawaii Pacific University Diane Klieger Feibel, University of Cincinnati—Blue Ash College Lori Neal Fernald, The Citadel Military College of South Carolina Valerie C. Flores, Loyola University Chicago Stacie Foster, Arizona State University Kathryn Frazier, Northeastern University Christopher Gade, Berkeley City College Dan Grangaard, Austin Community College Jiansheng Guo, California State University—East Bay Pinar Gurkas, Clayton State University E. Allison Hagood, Arapahoe Community College

 

 

Toni Stepter Harris, Virginia State University Raquel Henry, Lone Star College—Kingwood Danelle Hodge, California State University—San Bernadino Vernell D. Larkin, Hopkinsville Community College Richard Marmer, American River College Jerry Marshall, Green River College T. Darin Matthews, The Citadel Military College of South Carolina Elizabeth McCarroll, Texas Woman’s University Alejandra Albarran Moses, California State University–Los Angeles Kelly A. Warmuth, Providence College

The editorial, production, and marketing people at Worth Publishers are dedicated to meeting the highest standards of excellence. Their devotion of time, effort, and talent to every aspect of publishing is a model for the industry, and the names of all those who helped with this edition are listed on the second page of this book. I particularly would like to thank Andrea, Chris, and Chuck.

New York July 2017

 

 

The Beginnings

PART I CHAPTERS 1-2-3-4

 

 

APPLICATION TO DEVELOPING LIVES PARENTING SIMULATION INTRODUCTION AND PRENATAL

 

 

T

DEVELOPMENT

In the Introduction module of Developing Lives, you will begin to customize the developmental journey of your child with information about your personality, cognitive abilities, and demographic characteristics. Next, as you progress through the Prenatal simulation module, how you decide the following will impact the biosocial, cognitive, and psychosocial development of your baby.

Biosocial Cognitive Psychosocial

Will you modify your behaviors and diet during pregnancy?

Will you find out the gender of your baby prior to delivery?

What kind of delivery will you and your partner plan for (in the hospital with medication, at home with a doula, etc.)?

Are you going to talk to your baby while he or she is in the womb?

How much does your baby understand during prenatal development?

How will your relationship with your partner change as a result of the pregnancy?

Will you begin bonding with your baby prior to birth?

he science of human development includes many beginnings. Each of the first four chapters of this text forms one corner of a solid foundation for our study.

Chapter 1introduces definitions and dimensions, explaining research strategies and methods that help us understand how people develop. The need for science, the power of culture, and the necessity of an ecological approach are all explained.

Without ideas, our study would be only a jumble of observations. Chapter 2 provides organizing guideposts: Five major theories, each leading to many other theories and hypotheses, are described.

Chapter 3 explains heredity. Genes never act alone, yet no development — whether in body or brain, at any time, in anyone — is unaffected by DNA.

Chapter 4 details the prenatal growth of each developing person from a single cell to a breathing, grasping, crying newborn. Many circumstances — from the mother’s diet to the father’s care to the culture’s values — affect development during every day of embryonic and fetal growth.

 

 

As you see, the science and the wonder of human life begin long before birth. These four chapters provide the basic ideas and concepts that enable us to understand each developing child — and all of the rest of us.

 

 

The Science of Human Development CHAPTER

1

 

 

 

✦ Understanding How and Why The Scientific Method A VIEW FROM SCIENCE: Overweight Children and Adult Health The Nature–Nurture Controversy

✦ The Life-Span Perspective Development Is Multidirectional Development Is Multicontextual INSIDE THE BRAIN: Thinking About Marijuana Development Is Multicultural Development Is Multidisciplinary Development Is Plastic A CASE TO STUDY: David

✦ Designing Science Observation The Experiment The Survey Studying Development over the Life Span

✦ Cautions and Challenges from Science Correlation and Causation Quantity and Quality Ethics

What Will You Know?1

1. Why is science especially crucial for understanding how people develop?

2. Are children always and everywhere the same, or is each child unique, changing from day to day and place to place?

3. What methods are used to study development?

4. What must scientists do to make their conclusions valid and ethical?

hen I was 4 years old, professional photographers came to our house to take pictures of my

 

 

Wmother and me, wearing matching dresses. I was bathed and dressed for the occasion,and my mother wore lipstick and perfume. Right before they came, I found a scissors andcut my hair. My mother stopped me before I could finish, but some tufts were short. She laughed, tying bows to make my hair presentable. I do not remember any of this, but my mother has told this anecdote many times. There are photographs to prove it.

What surprises you most about this memory? Is it normal for children to misbehave, or does my hair-cutting suggest something pathological — maybe defiance, or antisocial behavior? Would you have punished me if I were your child?

What about this incident reflects culture and history — maybe photographers coming to homes, mother–daughter dresses, lipstick, ribbons, scissors within a child’s reach? Why did my mother laugh and cherish the memory?

This chapter introduces the developmental perspective, which seeks to answer questions like these. Every action of each child could be natural, could be cultural, or could reflect something odd about their genes or upbringing. To really understand this incident, we need research — on other 4-year-olds, on other mothers, and on my mother and me over the years.

Perhaps my mother did not want those photographers, but, as expected of wives at the time, she may have agreed to please my father. But perhaps she resented the pressure on appearance, so she was glad that I cut my hair. Does that interpretation come from my current viewpoint, not from hers? Maybe, maybe not.

You, and everyone who was ever a child, experienced dozens of incidents like this one. Are you the product of genes, culture, context, or child rearing? This chapter suggests how to find answers.

 

 

Understanding How and Why The science of human development seeks to understand how and why people—all kinds of people, everywhere, of every age—change or remain the same over time. The goal is for the 7.6 billion people on Earth to fulfill their potential. Their development is multidirectional, multicontextual, multicultural, multidisciplinary, and plastic, five terms that will be explained soon.

science of human development The science that seeks to understand how and why people of all ages change or remain the same over time.

First, however, we need to emphasize that developmental study is a science. It depends on theories, data, analysis, critical thinking, and sound methodology, just like every other science. All scientists ask questions and seek answers in order to ascertain “how?” and “why?”

Science is especially useful when we study people: Lives depend on it. What should pregnant women eat? How much should babies cry? When should children be punished, how, and for what? Should schools be coed or single-sex, public or private? Should education encourage independence or obedience, be optional or required, through eighth grade or twelfth grade? People disagree about all this and more, sometimes vehemently.

The Scientific Method Almost everyone cares about children, yet many people respond to children without understanding them. Disputes occur often because facts are unknown, and applications spring from assumptions, not from data.

Five Crucial Steps To avoid unexamined opinions, to rein in personal biases, and to discover new truths, researchers follow the five steps of the scientific method (see Figure 1.1):

FIGURE 1.1 Process, Not Proof Built into the scientific method—in questions, hypotheses, tests, and replication—is a passion for possibilities, especially unexpected ones.

scientific method A way to answer questions using empirical research and data-based conclusions.

 

 

1. Begin with curiosity. On the basis of theory, prior research, or a personal observation, pose a question.

2. Develop a hypothesis. Shape the question into a hypothesis, a specific prediction to be examined.

3. Test the hypothesis. Design and conduct research to gather empirical evidence (data). 4. Analyze the evidence. Conclude whether the hypothesis is supported or not. 5. Report the results. Share the data, conclusions, and alternative explanations.

hypothesis A specific prediction that can be tested.

empirical evidence Evidence that is based on observation, experience, or experiment; not theoretical.

Replication As you see, developmental scientists begin with curiosity and then seek the facts, drawing conclusions after careful research. Reports are written so that other scientists can examine the procedures, analyze the data, check the conclusions, and then replicate the results.

Replication—repeating the study with different participants — is needed before conclusions are considered solid. Scientists study the reports (Step 5) of other scientists and build on what has gone before. Sometimes they try to duplicate a study exactly, using the same methods; often they follow up with related research (Stroebe & Strack, 2014). Conclusions are then revised, refined, rejected, or confirmed.

replication Repeating a study, usually using different participants, sometimes of another age, socioeconomic status (SES), or culture.

Obviously, the scientific method is not foolproof. Scientists may draw conclusions too hastily, misinterpret data, or ignore alternative perspectives. The results from one group of people may differ from the results from another group. Sometimes scientists discover outright fraud (Bouter, 2015). Ideally, results are replicated, not only by conducting the same research again but also by designing other research that will verify and extend the same hypothesis (Larzelere et al., 2015).

An effort to replicate 100 published studies in psychology found that about one-third did not produce the same results and another one-third were less conclusive than the original (Open Science Collaboration, 2015). Problems often arose from the research design (Step 3) of the original studies and the pressure to publish.

The push for replication is welcomed by scientists in many disciplines. For instance, educators reevaluated the effects of preschool education paid by state taxes in Virginia. They confirmed that children who attended preschool recognized nine more letters, on average, than children of

 

 

the same age who did not (Huang, 2017). Since replication reveals that some well-intentioned programs are not effective, it is good to know that this one was.

Asking questions and testing hypotheses are crucial for every aspect of child development. A View from Science shows this process in more detail.

A VIEW FROM SCIENCE

Overweight Children and Adult Health2

Obesity is a serious problem. Over the life span, from infancy to age 60, rates of obesity increase, and with it, rates of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. The connection between overweight and disease was not always known. Indeed, the opposite seemed true.

Since tiny newborns and underweight children are more likely to die, people made a logical, but false, assumption: Heavier children must be healthier (Laraway et al., 2010).

That assumption had fatal consequences. Adults were proud of their pudgy babies and overfed their children. Not until the middle of the twentieth century, in the famous Framingham Heart Study, did scientists discover that obese adults risked premature death— of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and many other ailments.

This discovery sparked a new question (Step 1): Was childhood obesity a health risk when those children grew up? That led to a hypothesis (Step 2) that overweight in childhood impairs health in adulthood.

What Will Become of Her? This happy, beautiful girl in Sweden may become an overweight woman . . . or she may not. Research finds that if she slims down by adulthood, she is likely to be healthier than the average woman who was never overweight.

This hypothesis is now widely assumed to be true. For instance, a poll found that most Californians consider childhood obesity “very serious,” with one-third of them rating poor eating habits as a worse risk to child health than drug use or violence (Hennessy-Fiske, 2011). But is their assumption valid?

The best way to test that hypothesis (Step 3) is to examine adult health in people who had been weighed and measured in childhood. Several researchers did exactly that, using data on children’s height and weight—and their measurements as adults—from four studies. A summary of those studies (Juonala et al., 2011) found that most people (83 percent) maintained their relative weight. Thus most overweight children became overweight adults. (See Figure 1.2a.) Analysis of those data led to a strong conclusion (Step 4), which was then published (Step 5): Overweight children are likely to become obese adults.

 

 

FIGURE 1.2 Not Yet Obese You probably know that more than half of all adults in the United States are overweight, so this chart—with only 21 percent of adults obese—may seem inaccurate. However, three facts explain why the data are accurate: (1) “Obese” is much heavier than overweight; (2) the average adult in this study was 34 years old (middle-aged and older adults are more often obese); and (3) one of the studies that provided much of the longitudinal data was in Finland, where rates of obesity are lower than in the United States.

Other research finds that childhood obesity is increasing in almost every nation of the world, including those countries where, in the past, malnutrition and infectious diseases were prime causes of child death. That is no longer true: Very few children die of malnutrition, but many become overweight adults, a health hazard that can be traced to childhood. As one review states it:

The prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults continues to increase worldwide and, because of their association with cardiovascular disorders, diabetes, and dyslipidemia, are becoming one of the major health issues.

[Susic & Varagic, 2017, p. 139]

For instance, in those four studies, 29 percent of the adults who were overweight all their lives had high blood pressure, compared to 11 percent of those who were never overweight (Juonala et al., 2011). Hypertension is a proven risk factor for heart disease and strokes, which are becoming the most common cause of death in poor nations (Mozaffarian et al., 2016).

A new question arose (Step 1), building on those earlier findings. What about overweight children who become normal-weight adults? Have they already harmed their health? That led to another hypothesis (Step 2): Overweight children will have a higher rate of heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and death in adulthood, even if they slim down. The research design (Step 3) was to measure indications of health in adults who had been overweight as children but who now were normal weight.

The data (Step 4)disproved the hypothesis (see Figure 1.2b): As normal-weight adults, those who had been overweight as children were not at high risk of disease, a conclusion replicated by several studies with quite different populations (Juonala et al., 2011). Scientists were happy with that conclusion— disproving a commonly believed hypothesis may be even more welcome than proving it, because science ideally uncovers false assumptions as well as confirms true ones.

Many other issues, complications, and conclusions regarding diet are discussed later in this book. For now, all you need to remember are the steps of the scientific method and that developmentalists are right: Significant “change over time” is possible.

 

 

The Nature–Nurture Controversy An easy example of the need for science concerns a great puzzle of life, the nature—nurture debate. Nature refers to the influence of the genes that people inherit. Nurture refers to influences from the environment, which is broadly interpreted to include the entire context of development. The environment begins with the health and diet of the embryo’s mother and continues lifelong, including experiences in the family, school, community, and nation.

nature In development, nature refers to the traits, capacities, and limitations that each individual inherits genetically from his or her parents at the moment of conception.

nurture In development, nurture includes all of the environmental influences that affect the individual after conception. This includes everything from the mother’s nutrition while pregnant to the cultural influences in the nation.

The nature—nurture debate has many manifestations, among them heredity-environment, maturation-learning, and sex-gender. Under whatever name, the basic question is, “How much of any characteristic, behavior, or emotion is the result of genes, and how much is the result of experience?“

Some people believe that most traits are inborn, that children are innately good (“an innocent child”) or bad (“beat the devil out of them”). Others stress nurture, crediting or blaming parents, neighborhood, drugs, or even food, when someone is good or bad, a hero or a scoundrel.

Neither belief is accurate. The question is “how much,” not “which,” because both genes and the environment affect every characteristic: Nature always affects nurture, and then nurture affects nature. Even “how much” is misleading, because it implies that nature and nurture each contribute a fixed amount. Instead, the dynamic interaction between them shapes the person (Eagly & Wood, 2013; Lock, 2013; Shulman, 2016).

A further complication is that the impact of any good or bad experience — a beating, or a beer, or a blessing—is magnified or inconsequential because of the particular genes or events. Thus, every aspect of nature and nurture depends on other aspects of nature and nurture in ways that vary for each person.

 

 

Chopin’s First Concert Frederick Chopin, at age 8, played his first public concert in 1818, before photographs. But this photo shows Piotr Pawlak, a contemporary prodigy playing Chopin’s music in the same Polish Palace where that famous composer played as a boy. How much of talent is genetic and how much is cultural—a nature-nurture question that applies to both boys, 200 years apart.

Epigenetics The science of this interaction is explored in epigenetics, the study of the many ways in which the environment alters genetic expression. Epigenetics begins with methylation at conception and continues lifelong. For example, brain formation is directed by genes inherited at conception, but those genes are not alone. Soon, nutrients and toxins affect the prenatal brain, nurture affecting nature.

epigenetics The study of how environmental factors affect genes and genetic expression—enhancing, halting, shaping, or altering the expression of genes.

Not only do biological influences shape the brain, social experiences do as well. Chronic loneliness, for example, changes brain structures (Cacioppo et al., 2014). More than that, over thousands of years, human experiences shape genes. We are affected not only by our own nature and nurture but also by the nature and nurture of our parents, grandparents, and so on (Young, 2016).

Sometimes protective factors, in either nature or nurture, outweigh our liabilities. As one review explains, “there are, indeed, individuals whose genetics indicate exceptionally high risk of disease, yet they never show any signs of the disorder” (Friend & Schadt, 2014, p. 970). Why? Epigenetics. [Developmental Link: More discussion of epigenetics occurs in Chapter 3.]

Dandelions and Orchids There is increasing evidence of differential susceptibility — that sensitivity to any particular experience differs from one person to another because of the particular genes each person has inherited, or because of events that the person experienced years earlier.

differential susceptibility The idea that people vary in how sensitive they are to particular experiences. Often such differences are genetic, which makes some people affected “for better or for worse” by life events. (Also called differential sensitivity.)

Some people are like dandelions — hardy, growing and thriving in good soil or bad, with or without ample sun and rain. Other people are like orchids — quite wonderful, but only when ideal growing conditions are met (Ellis & Boyce, 2008; Laurent, 2014).

For example, in one study, depression in pregnant women was assessed and then the emotional maturity of their children was measured. Those children who had a particular version of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) were likely to be emotionally immature if their mothers were depressed, but more mature than average if their mothers were not depressed (Babineau et al., 2015).

 

 

Each of us carries both joys and scars from childhood experiences that would not have affected another person. Think about your favorite teacher. What about you — either in your genes or in your experiences—made that particular teacher wonderful for you? Could that same teacher be hated, or ignored, by another student? That’s differential susceptibility.

THINK CRITICALLY:3 Should we try to assign a percent to nature and a percent to nurture so that they add up to 100 percent?

Male and Female The nature—nurture debate is not merely academic. In a tragic case, an infant’s penis was mistakenly destroyed in 1966. At that time, sex differences were thought to originate from the genitals and child rearing, not from the genes. So his parents had his testicles removed and renamed him Brenda. They raised him as a girl (Money & Ehrhardt, 1972).

But we now know that some male—female differences are genetic and hormonal— in the brain, not the body; in nature, not nurture. After a troubled childhood, Brenda chose to become David, a man, at age 15. That was too late; David killed himself at age 38 (Diamond & Sigmundson, 1997; Associated Press, 2004).

From this example, it is tempting to conclude that all male—female differences are due to nature, but that would be incorrect. For instance, it was once believed that biology made females inferior in math. Girls who wanted to be physicists or engineers were told to choose another career. But in the 1960s millions of women insisted that nurture, not nature, kept women from excelling in math.

Consequently, more girls were allowed to study calculus. Recent international tests find that math scores of the two sexes have become quite similar: In some nations (Russia, Singapore, Algeria, and Iran) girls are ahead of boys! The practical implications of that research are that college women are encouraged to become engineers, physicists, or chemists (Brown & Lent, 2016). The scientific implications are, again, that nature and nurture interact, in sex differences and in everything else.

Video Activity: The Boy Who Was a Girl examines the case of David/Brenda Reimer and what it means to be a boy or a girl.4

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?5

1. What are the five steps of the scientific method? 2. What is the difference between asking a question (Step 1) and developing a hypothesis (Step

2)? 3. Why is replication important for scientific progress? 4. What basic question is at the heart of the nature-nurture controversy? 5. When in development does nature begin to influence nurture? 6. What is the difference between genetics and epigenetics?

 

 

7. How might differential susceptibility be evident when students respond to a low exam grade?

 

 

The Life-Span Perspective The life-span perspective (Baltes, 1987; Fingerman et al., 2011; Lerner et al., 2014) began as a lens through which to view the entire human life span, particularly adult development. Insights from that perspective soon transformed our understanding of development at every age. The crucial idea is that, at every moment in life, context and culture affect each person’s past and shape their future. The life-span perspective views development as multidirectional, multicontextual, multicultural, multidisciplinary, and plastic (Baltes et al., 2006; Barrett & Montepare, 2015; Raz & Lindenberger, 2013).

life-span perspective An approach to the study of human development that takes into account all phases of life, not just childhood or adulthood.

Development Is Multidirectional Multiple changes, in every direction, characterize development. Traits appear and disappear, with increases, decreases, and zigzags (see Figure 1.3). An earlier assumption — that all development advances until about age 18, steadies, and then declines—has been soundly disproven by life- span research.

FIGURE 1.3 Patterns of Developmental Growth Many patterns of developmental growth have been discovered by careful research. Although linear (or nonlinear) progress seems most common, scientists now find that almost no aspect of human change follows the linear pattern exactly.

Patterns of Change Sometimes discontinuity is evident: Change can occur rapidly and dramatically, as when caterpillars become butterflies. Sometimes continuity is found: Growth can be gradual, as when redwoods add rings over hundreds of years. Some characteristics do not seem to change at all: The person I am now is an older version of the person I was as an infant. The same is true of you.

Children experience simple growth, radical transformation, improvement, and decline as well

 

 

as stability, stages, and continuity — day to day, year to year, and generation to generation. Not only do the pace and direction of change vary, but each characteristic follows its own trajectory.

Losses in some abilities occur simultaneously with gains in others. For example, babies lose some ability to distinguish sounds from other languages when they begin talking in whatever language they hear; school-age children become quite realistic, losing some of the magical imagination of younger children.

Critical and Sensitive Periods The timing of losses and gains, impairments or improvements, varies as well. Some changes are sudden and profound because of a critical period, which is either when something must occur to ensure normal development or the only time when an abnormality might occur. For instance, the human embryo grows arms and legs, hands and feet, fingers and toes, each over a critical period between 28 and 54 days after conception. After that, it is too late: Unlike some insects, humans never grow replacement limbs.

critical period A crucial time when a particular type of developmental growth (in body or behavior) must happen for normal development to occur, or when harm (such as a toxic substance or destructive event) can occur.

We know this fact because of a tragic episode. Between 1957 and 1961, thousands of newly pregnant women in 30 nations took thalidomide, an antinausea drug. This change in nurture (via the mother’s bloodstream) disrupted nature (the embryo’s genetic program).

If an expectant woman ingested thalidomide during the critical period for limb formation, her newborn’s arms or legs were malformed or absent (Moore et al., 2015, p. 480). Whether all four limbs, or just arms, hands, or fingers were missing depended on exactly when the drug was taken. If thalidomide was ingested only after day 54, no harm occurred.

Life has few such dramatic critical periods. Often, however, a particular development occurs more easily—but not exclusively — at a certain time. That is called a sensitive period.

sensitive period A time when a certain type of development is most likely, although it may still happen later with more difficulty. For example, early childhood is considered a sensitive period for language learning.

An example is learning language. If children do not communicate in their first language between ages 1 and 3, they might do so later (hence, these years are not critical), but their grammar is impaired (hence, these years are sensitive).

Similarly, childhood is a sensitive period for learning to speak a second or third language with native pronunciation. Adults who master new languages are asked, “Where are you from?” by those who can detect an accent, even when the speaker does not. Indeed, adults born in the United States whose first language was English reveal whether they grew up in Boston, Brooklyn, or Boise. The same is true within every other nation, as the tone, timing, and pronunciation of every language varies by region and social class.

Sometimes the multidirectional nature of development shows the influence of national culture. Childhood and adolescence are a sensitive period for attitudes about psychosocial drugs, as

 

 

evident from changes in acceptance of marijuana. This is discussed further in Inside the Brain.

I Love You, Mommy We do not know what words, in what language, her son is using, but we do know that Sobia Akbar speaks English well, a requirement for naturalized U.S. citizens. Here she obtains citizenship for her two children born in Pakistan. Chances are they will speak unaccented American English, unlike Sobia, whose accent might indicate that she learned British English as a second language.

Development Is Multicontextual The second insight from the life-span perspective is that “human development is fundamentally contextual” (Pluess, 2015, p. 138). Some of the many contexts that affect development are physical (climate, noise, population density, etc.); some relate to family (parents’ relationship, siblings’ values, income, other relatives, etc.); and some to community (urban, suburban, or rural; multiethnic or not; etc.).

INSIDE THE BRAIN

Thinking About Marijuana 6

Brains are affected by drugs, for better or worse, in two ways. First, structural changes are possible in the size and activity of particular regions. Second, the links between neurons are strengthened or weakened. These findings again reveal differential susceptibility, as well as multidirectional development.

The most studied drug is alcohol, which (1) reshapes the brain during fetal development and (2) strengthens desire. As a result, (1) some newborns are brain damaged lifelong, and (2) some social drinkers suddenly find that a drink awakens neuronal links that make another drink impossible to refuse.

Now consider marijuana. Links between fear from part of the brain (the amygdala) or pleasure from other parts of the brain (especially in the basal ganglia) precede drug use. Both are multidirectional, powerfully affected by childhood. Consequently, attitudes change because of the rise and fall of fear (see Figure 1.4).

 

 

FIGURE 1.4 Double Trends Both cohort and generational trends are evident. Note that people of every age are becoming more accepting of marijuana, but the effect is most obvious for adults who never heard about “reefer madness.”

Observation Quiz Why is the line for the 1981-1997 cohort much shorter than the line for the older cohorts? (see answer, p. 14)7

In the United States in the 1930s, marijuana was declared illegal. The 1936 movie Reefer Madness was shown until about 1960, with vivid images connecting marijuana with a warped brain, suicide, and insanity. Most adolescents feared and shunned marijuana. However, marijuana was part of the jazz and popular music scene: In the 1960s, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, James Brown, and Bob Marley smoked it and sang about it.

Young adolescents listened to that music, resisted adult rules, and increasingly tried marijuana themselves. By 1980, half of all high school seniors had smoked “weed” in the previous year, according to Monitoring the Future . an annual report (Miech et al., 2016).

That worried older adults, whose emotional reactions to marijuana had been formed decades earlier. They believed it would permanently damage vulnerable teenage brains, leading to psychological disorders and drug addiction (Estroff & Gold, 1986).

President Nixon declared that drug abuse (especially marijuana, but not cigarettes or alcohol) was “Public Enemy Number One.” A decade later, Nancy Reagan (first lady from 1981 to 1989) advocated, “Just say no to drugs.” That affected the attitudes and behavior of the next cohort: By 1991, the rate of high school seniors who had ever tried marijuana (21 percent) was only one-third of what it had been.

Attitudes, politics, and behavior are multidirectional, and so another shift has occurred. The parents of current adolescents are not from the generation that most feared the drug. One result is that far fewer (30 percent) of their teenagers think regular use of marijuana is “a great risk,” compared to about 80 percent in the early 1980s. Behavior has shifted as well: In 2016, 38 percent of high school students reported smoking marijuana in the past year.

This signifies changes in the neurological links to marijuana use—irrational fears and desires. Some evidence finds that marijuana smoking alters the brain (Mandelbaum & de la Monte, 2017), but many scientists are not convinced. Some question research that finds a correlation between marijuana use and “structural abnormalities in the brains of young people,” but we lack good “scientific evidence about the effects of marijuana on the adolescent brain.” As a result, we are “gambling with the health and safety of our youth” (DuPont & Lieberman, 2014, p. 557).

It may be that pregnant women who use marijuana damage the brains of their fetus (Alpár et al., 2016; Volkow et al., 2017). On the other hand, some find that marijuana relieves pain, with fewer dangerous side effects (addiction and death) than prescribed opiates (Miller, 2016).

The best we have longitudinally may be from Australians who were regular users of marijuana from age 18 on. By midlife, they had more financial and relationship problems than those who were drug-free—but not more than those who abused alcohol (Cerdá et al., 2016). However, data on Australians who smoked an illegal drug 20 years ago may not apply to Americans now.

Unfortunately, federal laws passed decades ago impede current research: Longitudinal, unbiased studies on

 

 

brain benefits and costs of marijuana have not been published, and earlier data may confuse correlation with causation (a topic discussed at the end of this chapter).

We know that the effects of the drug on the brain vary, and that just thinking about marijuana triggers extreme brain reactions, including phobia and ecstasy. Are current attitudes (mostly positive) more rational than the mostly negative ones of our great-grandparents? More science needed.

For example, a student might decide on a whim to stop by a social gathering instead of heading straight to the library. The social context of the party (perhaps free drinks and food, lively music, many friends, ample room, and interesting strangers) is influential, affecting that student’s performance in class the next morning, and perhaps his or her future. We each encounter several contexts each day, some by choice and some not; they all could affect our later thoughts and actions.

Ecological Systems Leading developmentalist Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917–2005) emphasized the importance of considering contexts. Just as a naturalist studying an organism examines the ecology (the relationship between the organism and its environment) of a tiger, or a tree, or a trout, Bronfenbrenner recommended an ecological-systems approach (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) to study humans.

ecological-systems approach A perspective on human development that considers all of the influences from the various contexts of development. (Later renamed bioecological theory.)

Where in the World? Like every child, this boy is influenced by dozens of contexts from each of Bronfenbrenner’s systems, some quite direct and some in the macro-and exosystems. His cap (called a kopiah), diligence, all-boys school, and slanted desk each affects his learning, but those could occur in many nations—in the Americas, Europe, or Africa. In fact, this is in Asia, in Kota Bharu, Malaysia.

This approach recognizes three nested levels (see Figure 1.5). Most obvious are microsystems — each person’s immediate social contexts, such as family and peer group. Next are exosystems (local institutions such as school and church, temple, or mosque) and then macrosystems (the larger social setting, including cultural values, economic conditions, and political processes).

 

 

FIGURE 1.5 The Ecological Model According to developmental researcher Urie Bronfenbrenner, each person is significantly affected by interactions among a number of overlapping systems, which provide the context of development. Microsystems —family, peer group, classroom, neighborhood, house of worship—intimately and immediately shape human development. Surrounding and supporting the microsystems are the exosystems, which include all the external networks, such as community structures and local educational, medical, employment, and communications systems, that affect the microsystems. Influencing both of these systems is the macrosystem, which includes cultural patterns, political philosophies, economic policies, and social conditions. Mesosystems refer to interactions among systems, as when parents and teachers coordinate to educate a child. Bronfenbrenner eventually added a fifth system, the chronosystem, to emphasize the importance of historical time.

Two more systems affect these three. One is the chronosystem (literally, “time system”), which is the historical context. The other is the mesosystem, consisting of the connections among the other systems.

Toward the end of his life, Bronfenbrenner renamed his approach bioecological theory to highlight the role of a sixth set of systems, those within the body (e.g., the sexual-reproductive system, the cardiovascular system) that affect the external systems (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006).

Bronfenbrenner’s perspective remains useful. For example, a puzzling fact is that children who have been sexually abused are likely to be abused again, in childhood and adulthood. Why? Fault of the family? The culture?

Perhaps all three and more. Psychologists using the bioecological approach to analyze repeated sexual victimization conclude that the micro-, macro-, and exosystems each have an impact (Pittenger et al., 2016).

 

 

History and Social Class Two contexts — the historical and the socioeconomic — are basic to understanding everyone, from conception onward. Since they are relevant to every stage, we explain them now.

People born within a few years of one another are called a cohort, a group defined by its members’ shared age. Cohorts travel through life together, affected by the values, events, technologies, and culture of the historical period as it interacts with their age at the time. From the moment of birth, when parents name their baby, historical context affects what may seem like a private and personal choice (see Table 1.1).

cohort People born within the same historical period who therefore move through life together, experiencing the same events, new technologies, and cultural shifts at the same ages. For example, the effect of the Internet varies depending on what cohort a person belongs to.

TABLE 1.1

Popular First Names

Girls

2015: Emma, Olivia, Sophia, Isabella, Ava

1995: Jessica, Ashley, Emily, Samantha, Sarah

1975: Jennifer, Amy, Heather, Melissa, Angela

1955: Mary, Deborah, Linda, Debra, Susan

1935: Mary, Shirley, Barbara, Betty, Patricia

Boys

2015: Noah, Liam, Mason, Jacob, William

1995: Michael, Matthew, Christopher, Jacob, Joshua

1975: Michael, Jason, Christopher, James, David

1955: Michael, David, James, Robert, John

1935: Robert, James, John, William, Richard

Information from U.S. Social Security Administration.

If you know someone named Emma, she is probably young: Emma is the most common name for girls born in 2015 but was not in the top 100 until 1996, and not even in the top 1,000 in 1990. If you know someone named Mary, she is probably old: About 10 percent of all girls born from 1900 to 1965 were named Mary, but now Mary is unusual.

Two of my daughters, Rachel and Sarah, have names that were common when they were born.

 

 

One wishes she had a more unusual name; the other is glad she does not. That is differential susceptibility, which applies to you as well as to my daughters. Your name is influenced by history; your reaction is yours.

The second pervasive context is economic, reflected in a person’s socioeconomic status, abbreviated SES: (Sometimes SES is called tocial class, as in middle class or working class) SES reflects education, occupation, and neighborhood, as well as income.

socioeconomic status (SES) A person’s position in society as determined by income, occupation, education, and place of residence. (Sometimes called social class.)

Measuring SES is complex, especially internationally. The United Nations rates the United States and Canada as wealthy nations, but most North Americans do not consider themselves rich. (see Figure 1.6.)

FIGURE 1.6 Children of the Future The United States is an exception to a general rule: the wealthier a nation, the smaller the income gap. Since young families tend to be the least wealthy, and since education and health care are affected by neighborhood and employment, a wide gap bodes ill for children. Particularly troubling are the trend lines— unless changes occur, the United States will be worse than Mexico by 2035.

SES is not just about money. Suppose a U.S. family is comprised of an infant, an unemployed mother, and a father who earns less than $17,000 a year. Their SES would be low if they live in a violent, drug-infested neighborhood and the wage earner is a high school dropout working 45 hours a week for minimum wage (in 2016, the federal minimum wage was $7.25 an hour). But SES would be much higher if the wage earner is a postdoctoral student living on campus and teaching part time. Both of these families are below the official poverty line for a family of three ($19,790), but only one is low-SES.

 

 

SES brings advantages and disadvantages, opportunities and limitations — all affecting housing, health, nutrition, knowledge, and habits. Although low income obviously limits a child, other factors are pivotal, especially education and national policy.

Same Situation, Far Apart: Shelter Rules The homeless shelter in Paris, France (left) allows dogs, Christmas trees, and flat-screen televisions for couples in private rooms. The one in Cranston, Rhode Island (right) is only for men (no women, children, or dogs), who must leave each morning and wait in line each night for one of the 88 beds. Both places share one characteristic: Some of the homeless are turned away, as there is not room for everyone.

Answer to Observation Quiz (from p. 11) Because surveys rarely ask children their opinions, and the youngest cohort on this graph did not reach adulthood until about 2005.

For example, the nations of northern Europe seek to eliminate SES disparities as much as possible, and the health and school achievement of children from their low-income families are not far behind the richest children. By contrast, developing nations, especially in Latin America, tend to have large SES achievement gaps (Ravallion, 2014). Among advanced nations, the United States has “recently earned the distinction of being the most unequal of all developed countries” (Aizer & Currie, 2014, p. 856). Such differences by nation are a result of the macrosystem, not the microsystem.

Income differences are not only found by ethnic group but also by age. Young children with young parents are poorest, and poverty in early childhood reduces academic achievement even more than poverty during adolescence (Wagmiller 2015). The reason probably relates to the quality of education before age 5.

Development Is Multicultural In order to study “all kinds of people, everywhere, at every age,” research must include people of many cultures. For social scientists, culture is far more than food or clothes; it is a set of ideas, beliefs, and patterns of behavior.

culture A system of shared beliefs, norms, behaviors, and expectations that persist over time and prescribe social behavior and assumptions.

 

 

Creating Culture Culture is a powerful and pervasive social construction, that is, a concept created, or constructed, by a society. Social constructions affect how people think and act—what they value, ignore, and punish.

social construction An idea that arises from shared perceptions, not on objective reality. Many age-related terms (such as childhood, adolescence, yuppie, and senior citizen) are social constructions, strongly influenced by social assumptions.

Although most adults think they accept, appreciate, and understand many cultures, that may not be accurate. It is easy to overgeneralize, becoming simplistic about cultures that are not one’s own. For example, when people speak of Asian culture or Hispanic culture, they may be stereotyping, ignoring cultural differences between people from Korea and Japan, for instance, or those from Mexico and Guatemala.

Hard Floor, Hard Life These are among the thousands of unaccompanied minors who fled Latin America and arrived in Arizona and Texas in 2014. Developmentalists predict that the effects of their hazardous journey will stay with them, unless sources of resilience—such as caring family and supportive community—are quickly found. Culture and context affect everyone lifelong.

Observation Quiz How many children are sleeping here in this photograph? (see answer, p. 16)

Every generalization risks harming individuals. For example, the idea that Asian children are the “model minority” increases the pressure on children to excel, and then to be teased when they do. Further, some people in every group deliberately rebel against the expected beliefs and behaviors from their culture.

Thus, the words culture and multicultural need to be used carefully, especially when they are applied to individuals, lest one slides from awareness to stereotype.

In a diverse nation such as the United States, everyone is multicultural. Within each person, ethnic, national, school, and family cultures sometimes clash, with no one a pristine exemplar of

 

 

only one culture. One of my students, whose parents had immigrated to the United States, wrote:

My mom was outside on the porch talking to my aunt. I decided to go outside; I guess I was being nosey. While they were talking I jumped into their conversation which was very rude. When I realized what I did it was too late. My mother slapped me in my face so hard that it took a couple of seconds to feel my face again.

[C., personal communication]

Notice how my student reflects her mother’s culture; she labels herself “nosey” and “very rude.” She later wrote that she expects children to be seen, not heard. Her son makes her “very angry” when he interrupts.

In this example, she and her son both reflect U.S. culture, where talkative children are encouraged, as well as the culture of her mother’s homeland, where they are not. Do you think my student was nosey or, on the contrary, that her mother should not have slapped her? Or do you hesitate to choose either option? Your answer — or non-answer—reflects your culture.

As with my student’s mother, people tend to believe that their culture is better than others. This belief has benefits: People who endorse their culture’s attitudes and habits tend to be happy, proud, and willing to help strangers. However, that belief becomes destructive if it reduces respect for people from other groups. Thoughtlessly, differences are assumed to be inferior (Akhtar & Jaswal, 2013).

Difference and Deficit Developmentalists recognize the difference-equals-deficit error, which is the assumption that people unlike us (difference) are inferior (deficit). Sadly, when humans notice that someone else does not think or act as they do, the human tendency is to believe that such a person is to be pitied, feared, or encouraged to change. Even 3-year-olds assume that the way things are done by their parents, or in their community, is the right way (Schmidt et al., 2016).

difference-equals-deficit error The mistaken belief that a deviation from some norm is necessarily inferior to behavior or characteristics that meet the standard.

The difference-equals-deficit error is one reason that a careful multicultural approach is necessary. Never assume that another culture is wrong and inferior—or the opposite, right and superior. Assumptions can be harmful.

For example, one Japanese child, on her first day in a U.S. school, was teased for the food she brought for lunch. The next day, when she arrived at school, she dumped the contents of her lunchbox in the garbage — she would rather go hungry than be considered deficient.

Video: Research of Geoffrey Saxe further explores how difference does not equal deficit.

This example illustrates the problem with judging another culture: A Japanese lunch might, or might not, be healthier than a typical American one. The children did not know or care about

 

 

nutrition; they assumed that their usual lunch was best. Meanwhile, the Japanese child’s mother may have thought she was packing a better lunch than the standard U.S. one.

To further develop a multicultural perspective, we need to differentiate culture, ethnicity, and race . Members of an ethnic group almost always share ancestral heritage and often have the same national origin, religion, and language. That shared history affects them when they are far from their original home.

ethnic group People whose ancestors were born in the same region and who often share a language, culture, and religion.

Consequently, ethnic groups often share a culture, but this is not always true (see Figure 1.7). There are “multiple intersecting and interacting dimensions” to ethnic identity (Sanchez & Vargas, 2016 . p. 161). People may share ethnicity but differ culturally, especially if they left their original home long ago and adopted the culture of their new place, such as people of Irish descent in Ireland, Australia, and North America. The opposite is also true: People of many ethnic groups may all share a culture, as evident in all the people who identify with British, American, or Canadian culture.

FIGURE 1.7 Overlap—But How Much? Ethnicity, culture, and race are three distinct concepts, but they often—though not always—overlap.

Ethnicity is a social construction, a product of the social context, not biology. It is nurture, not nature, with specifics dependent on the other people nearby. For example, African-born people in North America typically consider themselves African, but African-born people in Africa identify with a more specific ethnic group. Awareness of ethnicity has increased in the United States, in part because the recent influx of immigrants has awakened an interest in family history among many Americans. People in the United States are more aware of ethnicity and race than people elsewhere (Verkuyten, 2016). That itself is cultural.

Answer to Observation Quiz (from p. 15) Nine—not counting the standing boy or the possible tenth one whose head is under the blanket. Rumpled blankets suggest that eight more are elsewhere at the moment. Each night hundreds of children sleep in this Border Protection Processing Facility in Brownsville, Texas. They are detained while authorities decide whether to send them back to the countries they fled or to a safe place in the United States.

 

 

Some Americans are puzzled by civil wars in distant nations (e.g., in Syria, or Sri Lanka, or Kenya), where bitter enemies may appear to be of the same ethnicity. Do not be surprised: Within every nation, people recognize ethnic differences that outsiders do not see. Social constructions are potent.

THINK CRITICALLY: To fight racism, must race be named and recognized?

Ethnic identity flourishes when co-ethnics are nearby, when ethnic distinctions are visible, and people of other groups emphasize differences (Sanchez & Vargas, 2016). For those reasons, race, thought to signify biological distinctions, may be confused with ethnicity.

race A group of people who are regarded by themselves or by others as distinct from other groups on the basis of physical appearance, typically skin color. Social scientists think race is a misleading concept, as biological differences are not signified by outward appearance.

That mistake was made in South Africa. Apartheid separated the population into four distinct groups, supposedly racial ones: White, Black, Coloured, and Asian. This simple division was one reason that the end of apartheid was called a “bloodless revolution,” with no violence between Whites and Blacks. However, there was extensive violence among Black groups, not noted at first in the press because Westerners did not expect or understand it (Thompson & Berat, 2014).

Social scientists are convinced that race is a social construction, without biological usefulness. Skin color is particularly misleading, because dark-skinned people with African ancestors have the “highest levels of genetic diversity” (Tishkoff et al., 2009, p. 1035), and because many dark- skinned people whose ancestors were not African share neither culture nor ethnicity with Africans.

Concern that the word race is inaccurate and misleading is expressed by biologists as well as social scientists. As one team writes:

We believe the use of biological concepts of race in human genetic research — so disputed and so mired in confusion—is problematic at best and harmful at worst. It is time for biologists to find a better way.

[Yudell et al., 2016, p. 564]

However, the fact that race is a social construction does not make it irrelevant. African American adolescents who are proud of their race are likely to achieve academically, resist drug addiction, and feel better about themselves (Zimmerman et al., 2013). Thousands of medical, educational, and economic conditions — from low birthweight to college graduation, from home ownership to marriage rates — reflect racial disparities.

Thus, some social scientists believe that, in order to overcome racism, race must be recognized. They say that to be “color-blind” is to be racist (Neville et al., 2016). Perhaps. In any case, remember that race is a social construction, not a biological one, and that it indicates neither culture nor ethnicity.

 

 

Fitting In The best comedians are simultaneously outsider and insider, giving them a perspective that helps people laugh at the absurdity of their lives. Trevor Noah—son of a Xhosa South African mother and a German Swiss father—grew up within, yet outside, his native culture. For instance, he was seen as “Coloured” in his homeland, but as “White” on a video, which once let him escape arrest!

Observation Quiz What four aspects of Noah’s attire signify that he belongs at this fashion gala? (see answer, p. 19)

Development Is Multidisciplinary Historically, the various specialities within universities were each called a discipline. This continues, but developmental science is increasingly multidisciplinary (Lerner et al., 2014). The reason is that every academic discipline risks becoming a silo, a storage tank for research in that discipline, isolated from other disciplines. Breaking out of silos is crucial for understanding the whole person.

Nonetheless, scientists need to burrow into specific aspects of human life in order to fully grasp the developmental process. For that reason, development is often divided into three domains—biosocial, cognitive, and psychosocial. (Figure 1.8 describes each domain.) Each domain is the focus of several academic disciplines: Biosocial includes biology, neuroscience, and medicine; cognitive includes psychology, linguistics, and education; and psychosocial includes sociology, economics, and history.

 

 

FIGURE 1.8 The Three Domains The division of human development into three domains makes it easier to study, but remember that very few factors belong exclusively to one domain or another. Development is not piecemeal but holistic: Each aspect of development is related to all three domains.

Genetics The need for multidisciplinary research is obvious when considering genetic analysis. When the human genome was first mapped in 2003, some people assumed that humans became whatever their genes destined them to be—heroes, killers, or ordinary people. Biology was thought to be destiny: For example, thousands of scientists searched for a particular gene that would make a person develop alcohol use disorder, schizophrenia, or diabetes. And those thousands failed. Multidisciplinary research shows that many influences from many domains make a person more, or less, likely to have specific traits.

VISUALIZING DEVELOPMENT

Diverse Complexities

It is often repeated that “the United States is becoming more diverse,” a phrase that usually refers only to ethnic diversity and not to economic and religious diversity (which are also increasing and merit attention). From a developmental perspective, two other diversities are also important — age and region, as shown below. What are the implications for schools, colleges, employment, health care, and nursing homes in the notable differences in the ages of people of various groups? And are attitudes about immigration, or segregation, or multiracial identity affected by the ethnicity of one’s neighbors?

 

 

Yes, genes affect every aspect of behavior. But even identical twins, with identical genes, differ physically, cognitively, and socially. The reasons abound, including non-DNA influences in utero and their position in the womb, both of which affect birthweight and birth order, and dozens of other epigenetic influences throughout life (Carey, 2012t. [Developmental Link: Mapping of the human genome is discussed in Chapter 3.] The need for many disciplines to understand the effect of genes is evident in our discussion of dandelions and orchids, and of nature and nurture.

 

 

Answer to Observation Quiz (from p. 17) Tie, tiepin, handkerchief, white cuffs—all appropriate costume for this context, and all impractical for most people in their daily lives.

Overall, multidisciplinary research broadens and deepens our knowledge. People are complex. A proper grasp of all of the systems — from the workings of the microbiome in the gut to the effects of climate change in the entire world — requires scientific insights from many disciplines. Adding to this complexity, people change over time. That leads to the final theme of the life-span perspective, plasticity.

Birth of a Neuron A decade ago, neuroscientists thought that adult brains lost neurons, with age or alcohol, but never gained them. Now we know that precursors of neurons arise in the lateral ventricles (bright blue, center) to become functioning neurons in the olfactory bulb (for smell, far left) and the hippocampus (for memory, the brown structure just above the brain stem). Adult neurogenesis is much less prolific than earlier in life, but the fact that it occurs at all is astounding.

Development Is Plastic The term plasticity denotes two complementary aspects of development: (1) Human traits can be molded (as plastic can be), yet (2) people maintain a certain durability of identity (as plastic does). The concept of plasticity in development provides both hope and realism — hope because change is possible, and realism because development builds on what has come before.

plasticity The idea that abilities, personality, and other human characteristics can change over time. Plasticity is particularly evident during childhood, but even older adults are not always “set in their ways.”

Dynamic Systems

 

 

Plasticity is basic to our contemporary understanding of human development (Lerner, 2009). This is evident in the dynamic-systems approach. The idea is that human development is an ongoing, ever-changing interaction between the body and mind and between the individual and every aspect of the environment, including all of the systems described in the ecological-systems approach.

dynamic-systems approach A view of human development as an ongoing, ever-changing interaction between the physical, cognitive, and psychosocial influences. The crucial understanding is that development is never static but is always affected by, and affects, many systems of development.

Note the word dynamic: Physical contexts, emotional influences, the passage of time, each person, and every aspect of the ecosystem are always interacting, always in flux, always in motion. For instance, a new approach to developing the motor skills of children with autism spectrum disorder stresses the dynamic systems that undergird movement — the changing aspects of the physical and social contexts (Lee & Porretta, 2013). [Developmental Link: Autism spectrum disorder is discussed in Chapter 11.]

Similarly, a dynamic-systems approach to understanding the role of fathers in child development takes into account the sex and age of the child, the role of the mother, and the cultural norms of fatherhood. The result is a complex mix of complementary effects — and, dynamically, this affects the child in diverse ways as plasticity of family systems would predict (Cabrera, 2015).

The dynamic-systems approach builds on the multidirectional, multicontextual, multicultural, and multidisciplinary nature of development. With any developmental topic, stage, or problem, the dynamic-systems approach urges consideration of all the interrelated aspects, every social and cultural factor, over days and years. Plasticity and the need for a dynamic-systems approach are most evident when considering the actual lived experience of each individual. My nephew David (A Case to Study, below) is one example.

Plasticity emphasizes that people can and do change, that predictions are not always accurate. Even “brain anatomy can change noticeably as a function of learning” (Zatorre, 2013, p. 587).

The early months and years are especially plastic, “for better or for worse” (Hartman & Belsky, 2015). Parent responses, early education, nutrition, and exercise put each child on a path. With each year, it is increasingly difficult to change direction. However, plasticity means that even adults can chart a new course.

 

 

Comfortable Routine? This 37-year-old father in Stockholm, Sweden, uses his strong tattooed arm to buckle his daughter’s sandals—caregiving as millions of contemporary men do. Plasticity means that many sex differences that were thought to be innate are actually the result of culture and experience. Is this an example?

A CASE TO STUDY

David8

My sister-in-law contracted rubella (also called German measles) early in her third pregnancy; it was not diagnosed until David was born, blind and dying. Immediate heart surgery saved his life, but surgery to remove a cataract activated a hidden virus and destroyed that eye.

The eye doctor was horrified at the unexpected results of surgery, and he decided that the cataract on the other eye should not be removed until the virus was finally gone. But one dead eye and one thick cataract meant that David’s visual system was severely impaired for the first five years of his life. That affected all of his other systems.

For instance, he interacted with other children by pulling their hair. Fortunately, the virus that had damaged the embryo occurred after the critical period for hearing. As dynamic systems might predict, David developed extraordinary listening ability in response to his diminished sight.

The virus harmed many other aspects of fetal development— thumbs, ankles, teeth, toes, spine, and brain. David attended three special preschools—for the blind, for children with cerebral palsy, for children who were intellectually disabled. At age 6, when some sight was restored, he entered regular public school, learning academics but not social skills— partly because he was excluded from physical education and recess.

 

 

My Brother’s Children Michael, Bill, and David (left to right) are adults now, with quite different personalities, abilities, numbers of offspring (4, 2, and none), and contexts (in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and California). Yet despite genes, prenatal life, and contexts, I see the shared influence of Glen and Dot, my brother and sister-in-law—evident here in their similar, friendly smiles.

By age 10, David had blossomed intellectually: He had skipped a year of school and was in fifth grade, reading at the eleventh-grade level. Before age 20, he learned to speak a second and a third language. In emerging adulthood, he enrolled in college.

As development unfolded, the interplay of systems was evident. David’s family context allowed him to become a productive and happy adult. He told me, “I try to stay in a positive mood.” This was especially important when David’s father died in 2014. David accepted the death (he said, “Dad is in a better place”) and comforted his mother.

Remember, plasticity cannot erase a person’s genes, childhood, or permanent damage. The brain destruction and compensation from that critical period of prenatal development remain. David is now 50. He still lives with his widowed mother. They both need each other.

Despite David’s lifelong disabilities, his listening skills continue to be impressive. He once told me:

I am generally quite happy, but secretly a little happier lately, especially since November, because I have been consistently getting a pretty good vibrato when I am singing, not only by myself but also in congregational hymns in church. [He explained vibrato:] When a note bounces up and down within a quartertone either way of concert pitch, optimally between 5.5 and 8.2 times per second.

David works as a translator of German texts, which he enjoys because, as he says, “I like providing a service to scholars, giving them access to something they would otherwise not have.” As his aunt, I have seen him repeatedly overcome disabilities. Plasticity is dramatically evident. This case illustrates all five aspects of the life-span perspective (see Table 1.2).

TABLE 1.2

Five Characteristics of Development

Characteristic Application in David’s Story

Multidirectional. Change occurs in every direction, not always in a straight line. Gains and losses, predictable growth, and unexpected transformations are evident.

David’s development seemed static (or even regressive, as when early surgery destroyed one eye), but then it accelerated each time he entered a new school or college.

 

 

Multidisciplinary. Numerous academic fields— especially psychology, biology, education, and sociology, but also neuroscience, economics, religion, anthropology, history, medicine, genetics, and many more—contribute insights.

Two disciplines were particularly critical: medicine (David would have died without advances in surgery on newborns) and education (special educators guided him and his parents many times).

Multicontextual. Human lives are embedded in many contexts, including historical conditions, economic constraints, and family patterns.

The high SES of David’s family made it possible for him to receive daily medical and educational care. His two older brothers protected him.

Multicultural. Many cultures—not just between nations but also within them—affect how people develop.

Appalachia, where David lived, is more accepting of people with disabilities.

Plasticity. Every individual, and every trait within each individual, can be altered at any point in the life span. Change is ongoing, although it is neither random nor easy.

David’s measured IQ changed from about 40 (severely intellectually disabled) to about 130 (far above average), and his physical disabilities became less crippling as he matured.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?

1. What aspects of development show continuity? 2. What is the difference between a critical period and a sensitive period? 3. Why is it useful to know when sensitive periods occur? 4. What did Bronfenbrenner emphasize in his ecological-systems approach? 5. What are some of the social contexts of life? 6. How does cohort differ from age group? 7. What factors comprise a person’s SES? 8. How might male-female differences be examples of the difference-equals-deficit error? 9. What is the difference between race and ethnicity?

10. What is the problem with each discipline having its own silo? 11. How is human development plastic?

 

 

Designing Science To verify or refute a hypothesis (Step 2), researchers must choose among hundreds of research designs and decide who, what, how, and when to study (Step 3) in order to gather results that will lead to valid conclusions (Step 4) that are worth publishing (Step 5). Often they use statistics to discover relationships between various aspects of the data. (See Table 1.3.)

TABLE 1.3

Statistical Measures Often Used to Analyze Search Results

Measure Use

Effect size There are many kinds, but the most useful in reporting studies of development is called Cohen’s d, which can indicate the power of an intervention. An effect size of 0.2 is called small, 0.5 moderate, and 0.8 large.

Significance Indicates whether the results might have occurred by chance. If chance would produce the results only 5 times in 100, that is significant at the 0.05 level; once in 100 times is 0.01; once in 1,000 is 0.001.

Cost-benefit analysis

Calculates how much a particular independent variable costs versus how much it saves. This is useful for analyzing public spending, finding that preschool education, or preventative health measures, save money.

Odds ratio Indicates how a particular variable compares to a standard, set at 1. For example, one study found that, although less than 1 percent of all child homicides occurred at school, the odds were similar for public and private schools. The odds of it in high schools, however, were 18.47 times that of elementary or middle schools (set at 1.0) (MMWR, January 18, 2008).

Factor analysis

Hundreds of variables could affect any given behavior. In addition, many variables (such as family income and parental education) overlap. To take this into account, analysis reveals variables that can be clustered together to form a factor, which is a composite of many variables. For example, SES might become one factor, child personality another.

Meta- analysis

A “study of studies.” Researchers use statistical tools to synthesize the results of previous, separate studies. Then they analyze the accumulated results, using criteria that weigh each study fairly. This approach improves data analysis by combining studies that were too small, or too narrow, to lead to solid conclusions.

Every research design, method, and statistic has strengths as well as weaknesses. Understanding these helps people assess whether the conclusions of a particular study are solid or flimsy, believable or open to doubt. To help you evaluate what you learn, here are three basic research strategies and three ways to study change over time.

 

 

Video Activity: What’s Wrong with This Study? explores some of the major pitfalls of the process of designing a research study.

Observation Yogi Berra famously said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” Like many of his sayings, that quote is amusing but also deep. Scientists agree with Berra.

Scientific observation requires researchers to record behavior systematically and objectively. Observations often occur in a naturalistic setting such as a public park or a home, as people go about their daily lives. Scientific observation can also be done in a laboratory, where scientists record human reactions, often with wall-mounted video cameras and the scientist in another room.

scientific observation A method of testing a hypothesis by unobtrusively watching and recording participants’ behavior in a systematic and objective manner—in a natural setting, in a laboratory, or in searches of archival data.

Observation is crucial to develop hypotheses. However, observation does not prove a hypothesis.

For example, in one study of children arriving at a preschool, several weeks after the start of the year, scientists observed how long parents stayed to hug and kiss their children before saying goodbye. When parents lingered three minutes or more, their “children spent less time involved in the preschool peer social environment,” measured by whether the child looked at or played with other children (Grady et al., 2012, p. 1690).

The authors suggest that this “has implications for not only children’s later peer interactions and peer status, but also for children’s engagement in school and, ultimately, academic achievement” (J. Grady et al., 2012, p. 1690). Perhaps, by staying, the parents made the children anxious about school.

But those implications are not proven. Perhaps parents of shy children stayed to help the children become more comfortable with school. Contrary to the researchers’ speculation, those children might become academically strong later on. Thus, the data led to two alternative hypotheses: (1) Parental anxiety impairs child social engagement, or (2) shy children are given parental support. More research is needed.

The Experiment The experiment proves what causes what. In the social sciences, experimenters typically do something to a group of participants or expose them to something and then note their reaction.

experiment A research method in which the researcher tries to determine the cause-and-effect relationship between two variables by manipulating one (called the independent variable) and then observing and recording the ensuing changes in the other (called the dependent variable).

 

 

In technical terms, the experimenters manipulate an independent variable, which is the imposed treatment or special condition (also called the experimental variable; a variable is anything that can vary). They note whether and how the independent variable affects whatever they are studying, called the dependent variable (which depends on the independent variable).

independent variable In an experiment, the variable that is introduced to see what effect it has on the dependent variable. (Also called experimental variable.)

dependent variable In an experiment, the variable that may change as a result of whatever new condition or situation the experimenter adds. In other words, the dependent variable depends on the independent variable.

Thus, the independent variable is the possible cause; the dependent variable is the result. The purpose of an experiment is to see whether the independent variable affects the dependent variable. In other words, what (independent variable) causes what (dependent variable).

What Can You Learn? Scientists first establish what is, and then they try to change it. In one recent experiment, Deb Kelemen (shown here) established that few children under age 12 understand a central concept of evolution (natural selection). Then she showed an experimental group a picture book illustrating the idea. Success! The independent variable (the book) affected the dependent variable (the children’s ideas), which confirmed Kelemen’s hypothesis: Children can understand natural selection if instruction is tailored to their ability.

In a typical experiment (as diagrammed in Figure 1.9), at least two groups of participants are studied. One group, the experimental group, receives the particular treatment or condition (the independent variable); the other group, the comparison group (also called the control group), does not.

 

 

FIGURE 1.9 How to Conduct an Experiment The basic sequence diagrammed here applies to all experiments. Many additional features, especially the statistical measures listed in Table 1.3 and various ways of reducing experimenter bias, affect whether publication occurs. (Scientific journals reject reports of experiments that were not rigorous in method and analysis.)

Especially for Nurses9 In the field of medicine, why are experiments conducted to test new drugs and treatments? (see response, p. 26)

To follow up on the observation study above, researchers could experiment. For example, they could assess the social skills (dependent variable) of hundreds of children in the first week of school and then require parents in half of the classes to linger at drop-off (independent variable, experimental group), and in the other classes, ask the parents to leave immediately or let the parents do whatever they thought best (both control or comparison groups).

Several months later, the social skills (dependent variable) of the children could be measured again. A few years later, their school achievement (another dependent variable) could be recorded. Would this experiment prove that lingering at drop-off caused later academic success?

The Survey A third research method is the survey, in which information is collected from a large number of people by interview, questionnaire, or some other means. This is a quick, direct way to obtain data. It avoids assuming that the people we know are representative of people in general.

survey A research method in which information is collected from a large number of people by interviews, written questionnaires, or some other means.

For example, perhaps you know an 8-year-old boy who is a bully, or a 16-year-old girl who is pregnant. Some people might jump to the conclusion that boys are bullies and that many teenagers have babies. But one of the lessons from science is that one case proves nothing. At best, it raises questions, or provides an example of something found in research that included

 

 

hundreds of participants.

THINK CRITICALLY: If you want to predict who will win the next U.S. presidential race, what survey question would you ask, and who would you ask?

If you surveyed several hundred people, you would discover that most boys are not bullies and that the birth rate of 15- to 19-year-old women has fallen steadily in past decades, from a peak of 96 per 1,000 in 1957 to 22 per 1,000 in 2015. Births are increasing in only one group, those over age 35. For instance, in 2015, the birth rate for women aged 35 to 39 was 52 per 1,000, more than twice that of the birth rate for women aged 15 to 19 (Martin et al., 2016).

I hese birth data come from birth certificates, which are more accurate than surveys. Indeed, although surveys are quick and direct, they are not always accurate. People sometimes lie to please the researcher, and answers are influenced by the wording and the sequence of the questions.

Survey respondents may even lie to themselves. For instance, every two years since 1991, high school students in the United States have been surveyed confidentially. The most recent survey included 15,713 students from all 50 states and from schools large and small, public and private (MMWR, June 10, 2016).

Students are asked whether they had sexual intercourse before age 13. Every year, more ninth- grade boys than eleventh-grade boys say they had sex before age 13, yet those eleventh-graders were ninth-graders a few years before (see Figure 1.10).

FIGURE 1.10 I Forgot? If these were the only data available, you might conclude that ninth-graders have suddenly become more sexually active than eleventh-graders. But we have 20 years of data— those who are ninth-graders now will answer differently by eleventh grade.

Why? Do ninth-graders lie because they want to appear sexually active? Or do eleventh- graders lie because they are embarrassed by their earlier actions? Or do some students forget, or misunderstand the question? The survey cannot tell us.

 

 

Studying Development over the Life Span In addition to conducting observations, experiments, and surveys, developmentalists must measure how people change or remain the same over time, as our definition explains. Remember that systems are dynamic, ever-changing. To capture that dynamism, developmental researchers use one of three basic research designs: cross-sectional, longitudinal, and cross-sequential.

Cross-Sectional Versus Longitudinal Research The quickest and least expensive way to study development over time is with cross-sectional research, in which groups of people of one age are compared with people of another age. Cross- sectional design seems simple. However, the people being compared may differ in more ways than just age.

cross-sectional research A research design that compares groups of people who differ in age but are similar in other important characteristics.

All Smiling, All Multiethnic, All the Same? Cross-sectional research comparing these people would find age differences, but there might be cohort differences as well. Only longitudinal research could find them.

For example, because most women now in their 50s gained an average of a pound every year throughout their adulthood, does this mean that women now age 20 who weigh 140 pounds will, on average, weigh 170 pounds at age 50? Not necessarily.

To help discover whether age itself rather than cohort causes a developmental change, scientists undertake longitudinal research. This requires collecting data repeatedly on the same individuals as they age. The current cohort of young women, aware of the risks of overweight and the need for exercise, may not gain as much weight as older generations did (Arigo et al., 2016).

longitudinal research A research design in which the same individuals are followed over time, as their development is repeatedly assessed.

For insight about the life span, the best longitudinal research follows the same individuals from infancy to old age. Long-term research requires patience and dedication from a team of

 

 

scientists, but it can pay off. As you read in A View from Science on page 6, longitudinal research was needed to reveal that one-third of overweight children become normal-weight adults.

Response for Nurses (from p. 24) Experiments are the only way to determine cause-and-effect relationships. If we want to be sure that a new drug or treatment is safe and effective, an experiment must be conducted to establish that the drug or treatment improves health.

Consider another example. A longitudinal study of 790 low-SES children in Baltimore found that only 4 percent graduated from college by age 28 (Alexander et al., 2014). Without scientific data, a person might think that the problem was not enough counselors in high school or too many teenagers making poor choices.

However, because this was a longitudinal study, the data pinpointed when those children were pushed toward, or away from, higher education. Surprisingly, it was long before adolescence. The strongest influences on college attendance were good early education and encouraging, friendly neighbors.

Good as it is, longitudinal research has a problem, something already mentioned — the historical context. Science, popular culture, and politics change over time, and each alters the experiences of a child. Data collected on children born decades ago may not be relevant today.

Seven Times of Life These photos show Sarah-Maria, born in 1980 in Switzerland, at seven periods of her life: infancy (age 1), early childhood (age 3), middle childhood (age 8), adolescence (age 15), emerging adulthood (age 19), and adulthood (ages 30 and 36).

 

 

Observation Quiz Longitudinal research best illustrates continuity and discontinuity. For Sarah- Maria, what changed over 30 years and what didn’t? (see answer, p. 28)

For instance, many recent substances that were once thought to be beneficial might be harmful, among them phthalates and bisphenol A (BPA) (chemicals used in manufacturing in plastic baby bottles), hydrofracking (a process used to get gas for fuel from rocks), e-waste (from old computers and cell phones), and more. Some nations and states ban or regulate each of these; others do not. Verified, longitudinal data are not yet possible.

Because of the outcry among parents, bisphenol A has been replaced with bisphenol S (BPS). But we do not know if BPS is better, or worse, than BPA, because we do not have data on babies who drank from both kinds of bottles and are now adults (Zimmerman & Anastas, 2015).

A new example is e-cigarettes. They are less toxic (how much less?) to the heart and lungs than combustible cigarettes. Some (how many?) smokers reduce their risk of cancer and heart disease by switching to e-cigs (Bhatnagar et al., 2014). But some teenagers (how many?) are more likely to smoke cigarettes if they start by vaping.

The best research shows that nonsmoking teenagers who use e-cigarettes are almost four times as likely to say they “will try a cigarette soon,” an ominous result. But that is a survey, not longitudinal proof (Park et al., 2016).

Until longitudinal data on addiction and death for e-cig smokers are known, 10 or 20 years from now, no one can be certain whether the harm outweighs the benefits (Dutra & Glantz, 2014; Hajek et al., 2014; Ramo et al., 2015). [Developmental Link: The major discussion of e- cigarette use is in Chapter 16.] Do we need to wait until e-cig smokers die of lung disease, or not?

Cross-Sequential Research Scientists have discovered a third strategy, a sequence of data collection that combines cross- sectional and longitudinal research. This combination is called cross-sequential research (also referred to as cohort-sequential or time-sequential research). In sequential designs, researchers study people of different ages (a cross-sectional approach), follow them for years (a longitudinal approach), and then combine the results.

cross-sequential research A hybrid research design in which researchers first study several groups of people of different ages (a cross-sectional approach) and then follow those groups over the years (a longitudinal approach). (Also called cohort-sequential research or time-sequential research.)

A cross-sequential design lets researchers compare findings for, say, 7-year-olds with findings for the same individuals at age 1 as well as with data from people who were 7 long ago, who are now ages 13, 19, or even much older (see Figure 1.11). Cross-sequential research is complicated, in recruitment and analysis, but it lets scientists disentangle age from history.

 

 

FIGURE 1.11 Which Approach Is Best? Cross-sequential research is the most time-consuming and complex, but it yields the best information. One reason that hundreds of scientists conduct research on the same topics, replicating one another’s work, is to gain some advantages of cohort-sequential research without waiting for decades.

The first well-known cross-sequential study (the Seattle Longitudinal Study) found that some intellectual abilities (vocabulary) increase even after age 60, whereas others (speed) start to decline at age 30 (Schaie, 2005/2013), confirming that development is multidirectional. This study also discovered that declines in adult math ability are more closely related to education than to age, something neither cross-sectional nor longitudinal research could reveal.

Especially for Future Researchers What is the best method for collecting data? (see response, p. 29)

The advantages of cross-sequential research are now evident. Accordingly, many researchers

 

 

combine cross-sectional and longitudinal data collected by other scientists, thus using cross- sequential analysis without needing to do all of the data collection themselves.

For example, six scientists combined data from 14 longitudinal studies. They found that adolescent optimism about the future predicted health in middle age (Kern et al., 2016). Without a cross-sequential analysis, would people know that teenagers who say “life will be better when I grow up” are likely to be in good health decades later?

Answer to Observation Quiz (from p. 26) Of course, much changed and much did not change, but evident in the photos is continuity in Sarah-Maria’s happy smile and discontinuity in her hairstyle and color, which shows dramatic age and cohort changes.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?

1. Why does observation NOT prove “what causes what”? 2. Why do experimenters use a control (or comparison) group as well as an experimental group? 3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the survey method? 4. Why would a scientist conduct a cross-sectional study? 5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of longitudinal research? 6. What current substances or practices might be found to be harmful in the future? 7. Why do developmentalists use cross-sequential research?

 

 

Cautions and Challenges from Science The scientific method illuminates and illustrates human development as nothing else does. Facts, consequences, and possibilities have emerged that would not be known without science — and people of all ages are healthier, happier, and more capable because of it.

Response for Future Researchers (from p. 27) There is no best method for collecting data. The method used depends on many factors, such as the age of participants (infants can’t complete questionnaires), the question being researched, and the time frame.

For example, death of newborns, measles in children, girls not sent to school, and boys being bullied are all less prevalent today than a century ago. Science deserves credit. Even violent death — in war, from homicide, or as punishment for a crime — is less likely in recent centuries than in past ones: Inventions, discoveries, and education are reasons (Pinker, 2011).

Developmental scientists have also discovered unexpected sources of harm. Video games, cigarettes, television, shift work, asbestos, and even artificial respiration are all less benign than people first thought.

As evident in these examples, the benefits of science are many. However, there are also serious pitfalls. We now discuss three potential hazards: misinterpreting correlation, depending too heavily on numbers, and ignoring ethics.

Correlation and Causation Probably the most common mistake in interpreting research is confusing correlation with causation. That was evident in Inside the Brain on page 10. It is true that 14-year-olds who regularly smoke marijuana are less likely to graduate from high school. But marijuana may not be the cause: It may be a symptom of academic problems that predated the first use of marijuana.

A correlation exists between two variables if one variable is more (or less) likely to occur when the other does. A correlation is positive if both variables tend to increase together or decrease together, negative if one variable tends to increase while the other decreases, and zero if no connection is evident. (Try the quiz in Table 1.4.)

correlation A number between +1.0 and -1.0 that indicates the degree of relationship between two variables, expressed in terms of the likelihood that one variable will (or will not) occur when the other variable does (or does not). A correlation indicates only that two variables are somehow related, not that one variable causes the other to occur.

TABLE 1.4

Quiz on Correlation

Two Variables Positive, Negative, or ZeroCorrelation? Why? (Third

Variable)

1. Ice cream sales and murder rate ____________ ____________

 

 

2. Reading ability and number of baby teeth

____________ ____________

3. Sex of adult and his or her average number of offspring

____________ ____________

For each of these three pairs of variables, indicate whether the correlation between them is positive, negative, or nonexistent. Then try to think of a third variable that might determine the direction of the correlation. The correct answers are printed upside down below.

Answers:

1. Positive; third variable: heat

2. Negative; third variable: age

3. Zero; each child must have a parent of each sex; no third variable

Expressed in numerical terms, correlations vary from +1.0 (the most positive) to —1.0 (the most negative). Correlations are almost never that extreme; a correlation of +0.3 or —0.3 is noteworthy; a correlation of +0.8 or —0.8 is astonishing.

Many correlations are unexpected. For instance, a positive correlation is evident in being a first-born child and having asthma, in being a teenage girl and attempting suicide, and in living in a county with few dentists and being obese. The dentist study found that surprising correlation even after taking into account community poverty and the number of medical doctors. The authors suggest that dentists provide information about nutrition, which improves health (Holzer et al., 2014).

Remember that correlation is not causation. Just because two variables are correlated does not mean that one causes the other — even if it seems logical that it does. Can you think of other possible explanations for the correlation between dentists and obesity?

Quantity and Quality A second caution concerns quantitative research (from the word quantity). Quantitative research data can be categorized, ranked, or numbered and thus can be easily translated across cultures and for diverse populations. One example of quantitative research is the use of children’s school achievement scores to compare the effectiveness of education within a school or a nation.

quantitative research Research that provides data that can be expressed with numbers, such as ranks or scales.

 

 

A Pesky Third Variable Correlation is often misleading. In this case, a third variable (the supply of fossil fuels, a crack in the window, or the profit of the corporation) may be relevant.

Since quantities can be easily summarized, compared, charted, and replicated, many scientists prefer quantitative research. Statistics require numbers. Quantitative data are easier to replicate (Creswell, 2009). However, when data are presented in categories and numbers, some nuances and individual distinctions are lost.

Many developmental researchers thus turn to qualitative research (from the word quality) — asking open-ended questions, reporting answers in narrative (not numerical) form. Qualitative researchers are interested in understanding how people interpret their experiences and how they construct their worlds (Merriam, 2009, p. 24).

qualitative research Research that considers qualities instead of quantities. Descriptions of particular conditions and participants’ expressed ideas are often part of qualitative studies.

Qualitative research reflects cultural and contextual diversity, but it is also more vulnerable to bias and harder to replicate. Both types of research, and research that combines the two, are needed (Mertens, 2014).

Ethics The most important caution for all scientists, especially for those studying humans, is to uphold ethical standards. Each academic discipline and professional society involved in the study of human development has a code of ethics (a set of moral principles).

Ethical standards and codes are increasingly stringent. Most educational and medical institutions have an Institutional Review Board (IRB), a group that permits only research that follows certain guidelines. One crucial focus is on the well-being of the participants in a study: They must understand and consent to their involvement, and the researcher must keep results confidential and must ensure that no one is harmed.

Especially for Future Researchers and Science Writers Do any ethical guidelines apply when an author writes about the experiences of family members, friends, or research participants? (see response, p. 31)

Although IRBs slow down science, some research conducted before IRBs was clearly unethical, especially when the participants were children, members of minority groups,

 

 

prisoners, or animals. Even so, some ethical dilemmas remain (Leiter & Herman, 2015). Many ethical issues arose in the 2014–2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa (Gillon, 2015;

Rothstein, 2015t. Among them: Is it fair to use vaccines whose safety is unproven when such proof would take months? What kind of informed consent is needed to avoid both false hope and false fear? Is it best to keep relatives away from people who have Ebola, even though social isolation makes it more likely that a sick person will die?

More broadly, is justice served by a health care system that is inadequate in some countries and high-tech in others? Medicine has tended to focus on individuals, ignoring the customs and systems that make some people more vulnerable. One observer noted:

When people from the United States and Europe working in West Africa have developed Ebola, time and again the first thing they wanted to take was not an experimental drug. It was an airplane that would cart them home.

[Cohen, 2014, p. 911]

Video Activity: Eugenics and the “Feebleminded”: A Shameful History illustrates what can happen when scientists fail to follow a code of ethics.

As stressed early in this chapter, scientists, like all other humans, have strong opinions, which they expect research to confirm. They might try (sometimes without noticing it) to achieve the results they want. As one team explains:

Our job as scientists is to discover truths about the world. We generate hypotheses, collect data, and examine whether or not the data are consistent with those hypotheses …. [but we] often lose sight of this goal, yielding to pressure to do whatever is justifiable to compile a set of studies we can publish. This is not driven by a willingness to deceive but by the self-serving interpretation of ambiguity . . .

[Simmons et al., 2011, pp. 1359, 1365]

Science and Ebola Ebola was halted as much because of social science as medicine, which has not yet found an effective vaccine. Fortunately, social workers taught practices that were contrary to West African culture—no more hugging, touching, or visiting from one neighborhood to another. Psychologists advised health workers, like this one from Doctors Without Borders, to hold, reassure,

 

 

and comfort children as much as possible. This girl was not among the 5,000 Liberians who died.

Obviously, collaboration, replication, and transparency are essential f. ethical safeguards. Hundreds of questions regarding human development 5 need answers, and researchers have yet to find them. That is the most g important ethical mandate of all. For instance:

Do we know enough about prenatal drugs to protect every fetus? Do we know enough about preschool to ensure that every 6-year-old will read? Do we know enough about poverty to enable every child to be healthy? Do we know enough about transgender children, or single parenthood, or divorce, or same- sex marriages to ensure optimal development?

The answer to all of these questions is a resounding NO. Scientists and funders tend to avoid questions that might produce unwanted answers. People

have strong opinions about drugs, preschool, income, sex, and families that may conflict with what science discovers. Religion, politics, and ethics shape scientific research, sometimes stopping investigation before it begins.

For instance, in 1996, the U.S. Congress, in allocating funds for the Centers for Disease Control, passed a law stating, “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” Some believe that this prohibition is one reason that the rate of gun death in the United States is higher than in any other nation. What laws — if any — would change that? Scientists do not agree on the answer, partly because solid research with a national sample has not been done (Gostin, 2016).

THINK CRITICALLY: Can you think of an additional question that researchers should answer?

An even greater question is about the “unknown unknowns,” the topics that we assume we understand but do not, hypotheses that have not yet occurred to anyone because our thinking is limited by our cultures and contexts. This probably applies to both sides of the gun debate.

We hope that the next cohort of developmental scientists will tackle these ethical problems — building on what is known, mindful of what needs to be explored, and raising questions that no one has thought of before. Remember that the goal is to help everyone fulfill their potential. Much more needs to be learned. The next 15 chapters are only a beginning.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?

1. Why does correlation not prove causation? 2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of quantitative research? 3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of qualitative research? 4. What is the role of the IRB? 5. Why might a political leader avoid funding developmental research? 6. What questions about human development remain to be answered?

 

 

Response for Future Researchers and Science Writers (from p. 30) Yes. Anyone you write about must give consent and be fully informed about your intentions. They can be identified by name only if they give permission. For example, family members gave permission before anecdotes about them were included in this text. My nephew David read the first draft of his story (see pp. 20–21) and is proud to have his experiences used to teach others.

 

 

SUMMARY

Understanding How and Why 1. The study of human development is a science that seeks to understand how people change or

remain the same over time. As a science, it begins with questions and hypotheses and then gathers empirical data.

2. Replication confirms, modifies, or refutes conclusions, which are not considered solid until they are confirmed by several studies.

3. The universality of human development and the uniqueness of each individual’s development are evident in both nature (the genes) and nurture (the environment); no person is quite like another. Nature and nurture always interact, and each human characteristic is affected by that interaction.

4. Crucial to the study of nature and nurture is the concept of differential susceptibility — that genes or experiences affect the likelihood that a person will be affected by the environment.

The Life-Span Perspective 5. The assumption that growth is linear and that progress is inevitable has been replaced by the

idea that both continuity (sameness) and discontinuity (sudden shifts) are part of every life and that gains and losses are apparent at every age.

6. Time is a crucial variable in studying human development. A critical period is a time when something must occur or when an abnormality might occur. Often a particular development can occur more easily at a particular time, called a sensitive period.

7. Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological-systems approach notes that each of us is situated within larger systems of family, school, community, and culture, as well as part of a historical cohort. Changes in the context affect all other aspects of the system.

8. Certain experiences or innovations shape people of each cohort because they share the experience of significant historical events. Socioeconomic status (SES) affects each child’s opportunities, health, and education.

9. Culture, ethnicity. and race are social constructions, concepts created by society. Culture includes beliefs and patterns; ethnicity refers to ancestral heritage. Race is also a social construction, not a biological one.

10. Developmentalists try to avoid the difference-equals-deficit error. Differences are alternate ways to think or act. They are not necessarily harmful.

11. Within each person, every aspect of development interacts with the others, but development can be divided into three domains — biosocial, cognitive, and psychosocial. A multidisciplinary, dynamic-systems approach is needed.

12. Throughout life, human development is plastic. Brains and behaviors may change over time. Plasticity means that change is possible, not that everything can change.

Designing Science 13. Commonly used research methods are scientific observation, the experiment, and the survey.

Each can provide insight and discoveries, yet each is limited. 14. Developmentalists study change over time, often with cross-sectional and longitudinal

 

 

research. Ideally, results from both methods are combined in cross-sequential analysis.

Cautions and Challenges from Science 15. A correlation shows that two variables are related not that one causes the other: Both may be

caused by a third variable. 16. Quantitative research provides numerical data. This makes it best for comparing contexts

and cultures via verified statistics. By contrast, more nuanced data come from qualitative research, which reports on individual lives.

17. Ethical behavior is crucial in all of the sciences. Results must be fairly gathered, reported, and interpreted. Participants must understand and consent to their involvement.

18. The most important ethical question is whether scientists are designing, conducting, analyzing, publishing, and applying the research that is most critically needed.

 

 

KEY TERMS

science of human development (p. 4) scientific method (p. 4) hypothesis (p. 4) empirical evidence (p. 4) replication (p. 4) nature (p. 6) nurture (p. 7) epigenetics (p. 7) differential susceptibility (p. 7) life-span perspective (p. 8) critical period (p. 9) sensitive period (p. 9) ecological-systems approach (p. 12) cohort (p. 13) socioeconomic status (SES) (p. 13) culture (p. 14) social construction (p. 14) difference-equals-deficit error (p. 15) ethnic group (p. 16) race (p. 16) plasticity (p. 19) dynamic-systems approach (p. 19) scientific observation (p. 22) experiment (p. 23) independent variable (p. 23) dependent variable (p. 23) survey (p. 24) cross-sectional research (p. 25) longitudinal research (p. 26) cross-sequential research (p. 27) correlation (p. 29) quantitative research (p. 30) qualitative research (p. 30)

 

 

APPLICATIONS

1. It is said that culture is pervasive but that people are unaware of it. List 30 things you did today that you might have done differently in another culture. Begin with how and where you woke up.

2. How would your life be different if your parents were much higher or lower in SES than they are? Consider all three domains.

3. A longitudinal case study can be insightful but is also limited in generality. Interview one of your older relatives, and explain what aspects of his or her childhood are unique and what might be relevant for everyone.

 

 

Theories CHAPTER

2

 

 

 

O

✦ What Theories Do Questions and Answers Past and Future

✦ Grand Theories Psychoanalytic Theory: Freud and Erikson Behaviorism: Conditioning and Learning Cognitive Theory: Piaget and Information Processing INSIDE THE BRAIN: Measuring Mental Activity

✦ Newer Theories Sociocultural Theory: Vygotsky and Beyond Evolutionary Theory OPPOSING PERSPECTIVES: Toilet Training—How and When?

✦ What Theories Contribute

What Will You Know? 1. What is practical about a theory?

2. Do childhood experiences affect adults?

3. Would you be a different person if you grew up in another place or century?

4. Why do we need so many theories?

n a frigid November night, Larry DePrimo, a 25-year-old police officer on duty in Times Square, saw a man with “blisters the size of his palm” on his bare feet. He asked the man his shoe size (12) and then bought him all-weather boots and thermal socks. As DePrimo

bent down to help the man don his gift, a tourist from Arizona snapped his photo. Days later, the tourist wrote to the New York Police Department, who put the image on their Web site. It went viral.

Then came theories, in half a million comments on Facebook. Commentators asked: Was this real or a hoax? Was DePrimo’s act typical (“most cops are

honorable, decent people”), atypical (“truly exceptional”), or in between (“not all NYC cops are short-tempered, profiling, or xenophobic”)? Is the officer young and naive? Are his parents proud? Was his assignment (anti-terrorism patrol) neglected or boring?

 

 

These questions reflect not science but “folk theories,” which arise from pre-conceptions and everyday experience (Bazinger & Kuhberger, 2012). We all have dozens of folk theories, without realizing that they lead us to opinions that are not shared by people with other theories (Gerstenberg & Tenenbaum, 2017). This anecdote illustrates three aspects shared by every theory, scientific as well as folk: (1) Behavior can be surprising, (2) humans develop theories to explain everything, and (3) experience and culture matter.

Past experience is particularly powerful. This was apparent with the boots: An advocate for the homeless suspected that the photo was staged; the photographing tourist thought of her father (also a police officer); many commentators blamed someone, among them the mayor (for not helping the poor), the police (for harassing the homeless), journalists (for focusing on “murder and mayhem”), and the barefoot man himself (for choosing his plight).

One year later, DePrimo was promoted. His father, wanting people to understand the totality of his son, said that his service record was the reason, not the boots (Antenucci, 2013). DePrimo himself was pleasantly surprised, commenting on the new detective badge on his shirt: “I look down and it’s still unreal to me” (DePrimo, quoted in Antenucci, 2013). For him and for all of us, a badge is a symbol, infused with decades of theories.

Badge and Boots This is Larry DePrimo, a New York City police officer in Manhattan, who astonished many people when he bought boots for a barefoot man on a cold afternoon.

In this chapter, we explain five insightful theories of human development. Three of them— psychoanalytic, behaviorist, and cognitive—have been touchstones for developmentalists for decades and are thus called “grand theories.” You will read how each has evolved over the years, with newer versions of the originals set out by Freud, Pavlov, and Piaget.

The other two theories—sociocultural and evolutionary—are newer for developmentalists. Their implications and applications are still in flux, but both add intriguing perspectives.

Facts regarding what happened in a single moment are relatively easy to prove. I can do this with DePrimo and the boots. He was from my local precinct. I know his commanding officer; I

 

 

listened to his personal take on this event; it was not a hoax. Understanding why is more difficult: Each of the theories in this chapter has a different perspective.

 

 

What Theories Do Kurt Lewin (1945) once quipped, “Nothing is as practical as a good theory.” Like many other scientists, he knew that theories help analysis and move us toward a clearer understanding. Imagine trying to build a house without a design. You might have all the raw materials—bricks, wood, nails—and you might have willing workers. But without a detailed plan, you could not proceed. It is possible that you would want to add a window or move a door, but the basic plan is essential before you begin.

Similarly, all of the momentary experiences of each day are the raw material of a human life. But without a theory for how it all fits together, life would be meaningless. Revisions may occur (as you will soon see), but theories are needed to start.

Every theory explains observations via concepts and ideas that organize the confusing mass of sensations that we encounter every moment. Some theories are idiosyncratic, narrow, and useless to anyone except the people who thought of them. Others are much more elaborate and insightful, such as the five major theories described in this chapter.

Of course, theories differ; some are less adequate than others, and some reflect one culture but not another. The five in this chapter are “good” theories, because they have proven to be practical and useful for developmental scientists for many years. They are also useful for anyone who cares about children. What should an adult do when a child refuses to eat dinner, or crawls into bed with his mother, or multiplies 7 × 8 correctly? The answer depends on theory, ideally a theory that has stood the tests of time and science.

Because they are comprehensive and complex, these five theories propel science forward, inspiring thousands of scientists to experiment, explain, and dispute. Scientific theories of development lead to new insights and elicit alternate interpretations.

Theories are meant to be tested. Indeed, sometimes a theory leads to a hypothesis that turns out to be false, an outcome that is considered a benefit, not a liability, of theory.

For example, would you expect that as wives earn more money they do less housework? Some theories would predict that. But testing that hypothesis reveals gaps in those theories. The relationship between earnings and housework is surprising, with high-earning women still doing more housework than their husbands (Hook, 2017). “Various theoretical models compete” to explain these results, but none is adequate by itself (Carlson & Lynch, 2017, p. 212). More research and better theories are needed.

A developmental theory is a systematic statement of general principles that provides a framework for understanding how and why people change over time. Facts and observations connect to patterns, weaving details into a meaningful whole.

developmental theory A group of ideas, assumptions, and generalizations that interpret and illuminate the thousands of observations that have been made about human growth. A developmental theory provides a framework for explaining the patterns and problems of development.

A developmental theory is more than a hunch or a hypothesis; it is more comprehensive than a folk theory. Developmental theories provide insights that are both broad and deep, connecting the distant past and the far-off future.

 

 

Questions and Answers As you remember from Chapter 1, the first step in the science of human development is to pose a question, which often springs from theory. Among the thousands of important questions are the following, each central to one of the five theories in this chapter:

1. Do early experiences—of breast-feeding or attachment or abuse—shape adult personality? 2. Does learning depend on encouragement, punishment, and/or role models? 3. Do morals develop spontaneously in childhood so children do not need to be taught right

from wrong? 4. Does culture determine parents’ behavior, such as how to respond to an infant’s cry? 5. Is survival an inborn instinct, underlying all personal and social decisions?

The answer to each of these questions is “yes” when examined in order by the following theories: psychoanalytic, behaviorism, cognitive, sociocultural, and evolutionary. Each question is answered “no” or “not necessarily” by several others. For every answer, more questions arise: Why or why not? When and how? SO WHAT? This last question is crucial; implications and applications affect everyone’s daily life.

To be more specific about what theories do:

Theories produce hypotheses. Theories generate discoveries. Theories offer practical guidance.

Past and Future Humans spontaneously develop theories about everything they observe. Scientists have realized this for centuries. Charles Darwin wrote, “As soon as the important faculties of the imagination, wonder, and curiosity, together with some power of reasoning, had become partially developed, man would naturally crave to understand what was passing around him, and would have vaguely speculated on his own existence” (Darwin, 1871, quoted in Thomson, 2015, p. 104; Culotta, 2009, and many others).

 

 

Give My Regards to Broadway Those lyrics written by George Cohan (1878-1942) are inscribed on his bronze statue overlooking thousands of twenty-first-century tourists from every state and nation in Times Square in New York City. Like all five theories in this chapter, this scene depicts the dynamic interaction of old insights and new realities.

Quoting Darwin (a controversial figure) evokes theories about creation and evolution, including the theory that science and religion are opposing worldviews, a theory not held by most scientists. Most agree with the theologian and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who said:

Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.

[King, 1977, p. 4]

 

 

Backpacks or Bouquets? Children worldwide are nervous on their first day of school, but their coping reflects implicit cultural theories. Kindergartner Madelyn Ricker in Georgia shows her new backpack to her teacher, and elementary school students in Russia bring flowers to their teachers.

Theories are meant to be useful. That is why we need them. Without developmental theories, we would be reactive and bewildered, blindly following our culture and our prejudices to the detriment of anyone who wonders about their children, their childhood, their future.

Not surprisingly, given that history and culture shape perspectives (as stressed in Chapter 1), each of the major theories in this chapter became ascendant in a particular decade during the past 100 years. Of course, all five shed light on current issues—otherwise, they would not still be useful. All were developed primarily by European and North American scientists, another limitation.

But that perspective is not a reason to reject them. In fact, all of these theories echo ideas written by ancient sages, in Greece, China, India, and elsewhere, since humans always “naturally crave to understand,” and since humans everywhere and always are one species. Consider them a benchmark, useful for understanding human development. Also remember that none of them is the final theoretical word: As explained in Chapter 1, human growth is dynamic, always affected by cohort and culture.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED?

1. What are the similarities and differences between folk theories and scientific theories? 2. What three things do theories do? 3. Why do people need theories to move forward with their lives? 4. Who develops theories—everyone or just scientists? 5. What is the focus of a developmental theory?

 

 

Grand Theories In the first half of the twentieth century, two opposing theories—psychoanalytic and behaviorism —dominated the discipline of psychology, each with extensive applications to human development. In about 1960, a third theory—cognitive— arose, and it too was widely applied to development.

These three are called “grand theories” and explained here because they are comprehensive, enduring, and far-reaching. In developmental studies, these theories continue to be useful. But be forewarned: None of them is now considered as grand as developmentalists once believed.

Psychoanalytic Theory: Freud and Erikson Inner drives, deep motives, and unconscious needs rooted in childhood— especially the first six years—are the focus of psychoanalytic theory. These unconscious forces are thought to influence every aspect of thinking and behavior, from the smallest details of daily life to the crucial choices of a lifetime.

psychoanalytic theory A grand theory of human development that holds that irrational, unconscious drives and motives, often originating in childhood, underlie human behavior.

Freud at Work In addition to being the world’s first psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud was a prolific writer. His many papers and case histories, primarily descriptions of his patients’ symptoms and sexual urges, helped make the psychoanalytic perspective a dominant force for much of the twentieth century.

Freud’s Ideas Psychoanalytic theory originated with Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), an Austrian physician who treated patients suffering from mental illness. He listened to their remembered dreams and uncensored streams of thought. From that, he constructed an elaborate, multifaceted theory.

According to Freud, development in the first six years of life occurs in three stages, each characterized by sexual interest and pleasure arising from a particular part of the body. In

 

 

infancy, the erotic body part is the mouth (the oral stage); in early childhood, it is the anus (the anal stage); in the preschool years, it is the penis (the phallic stage), a source of pride and fear among boys and a reason for sorrow and envy among girls. Then, after a quiet period (latency), the genital stage arrives at puberty, lasting throughout adulthood. (Table 2.1 describes stages in Freud’s theory.)

TABLE 2.1

Comparison of Freud’s Psychosexual and Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages

Approximate Age Freud (psychosexual) Erikson (psychosocial)

Birth to 1 year Oral Stage The lips, tongue, and gums are the focus of pleasurable sensations in the baby’s body, and sucking and feeding are the most stimulating activities.

Trust vs. Mistrust Babies either trust that others will satisfy their basic needs, including nourishment, warmth, cleanliness, and physical contact, or develop mistrust about the care of others.

1-3 years Anal Stage The anus is the focus of pleasurable sensations in the baby’s body, and toilet training is the most important activity.

Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt Children either become self-sufficient in many activities, including toileting, feeding, walking, exploring, and talking, or doubt their own abilities.

3-6 years Phallic Stage The phallus, or penis, is the most important body part, and pleasure is derived from genital stimulation. Boys are proud of their penises; girls wonder why they don’t have them.

Initiative vs. Guilt Children either try to undertake many adultlike activities or internalize the limits and prohibitions set by parents. They feel either adventurous or guilty.

6-11 years Latency Not really a stage, latency is an interlude. Sexual needs are quiet; psychic energy flows into sports, schoolwork, and friendship.

Industry vs. Inferiority Children busily practice and then master new skills or feel inferior, unable to do anything well.

Adolescence Genital Stage The genitals are the focus of pleasurable sensations, and the young person seeks sexual stimulation and satisfaction in heterosexual relationships.

Identity vs. Role Confusion Adolescents ask themselves “Who am I?” They establish sexual, political, religious, and vocational identities or are confused about their roles.

Adulthood Freud believed that the genital stage lasts throughout adulthood. He also said that the goal of a healthy life is “to love and to work.”

Intimacy vs. Isolation Emerging adults seek companionship and love or become isolated from others, fearing rejection.

Generatility vs. Stagnation

 

 

Adults contribute to future generations through work, creative activities, and parenthood or they stagnate. Integrity vs. Despair Older adults try to make sense of their lives, either seeing life as a meaningful whole or despairing at goals never reached.

Freud maintained that sensual satisfaction (from stimulation of the mouth, anus, or penis) is linked to major developmental stages, needs, and challenges. During the oral stage, for example, sucking provides not only nourishment for the infant but also erotic joy and attachment to the mother. Kissing between lovers is a vestige of the oral stage. Next, during the anal stage, pleasures arise from selfcontrol, initially with toileting but later with wanting everything to be clean, neat, and regular (an “anal personality”).

One of Freud’s most influential ideas was that each stage includes its own struggles. Conflict occurs, for instance, when parents wean their babies (oral stage), toilet train their toddlers (anal stage), deflect the sexual curiosity and fantasies of their 5-year-olds (phallic stage), and limit the sexual interests of adolescents (genital stage). Freud thought that the experiences surrounding these conflicts determine later personality.

Freud did not believe that any new stage occurred after puberty; rather, he believed that adult personalities and habits were influenced by childhood. Unconscious conflicts rooted in early life are evident in adult behavior—for instance, cigarette smoking (oral) or meticulous housecleaning (anal) or falling in love with a much older partner (phallic).

Erikson’s Ideas Many of Freud’s followers became famous theorists themselves—Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, and Karen Horney among them. They agreed with Freud that early-childhood experiences affect everyone, often unconsciously, but they also expanded and modified his ideas. For scholars in human development, one neo-Freudian, Erik Erikson (1902–1994), is particularly insightful. He proposed a comprehensive developmental theory of the entire life span.

No Choking During the oral stage, children put everything in their mouths, as Freud recognized and as 12-month-old Harper Vasquez does here. Toy manufacturers and lawyers know this, too, which is why

 

 

many toy packages read “Choking hazard: small parts, not appropriate for children under age 3.”

Erikson described eight developmental stages, each characterized by a particular challenge, or developmental crisis. Although Erikson named two polarities at each crisis, he recognized a wide range of outcomes between those opposites. Typically, development at each stage leads to neither extreme but to something in between.

A Legendary Couple In his first 30 years, Erikson never fit into a particular local community, since he frequently changed nations, schools, and professions. Then he met Joan. In their first five decades of marriage, they raised a family and wrote several books. If Erikson had published his theory at age 73 (when this photograph was taken) instead of in his 40s, would he still have described life as a series of crises?

In the stage of initiative versus guilt, for example, 3- to 6-year-olds undertake activities that exceed the limits set by their parents and their culture. They leap into swimming pools, pull their pants on backward, make cakes according to their own recipes, and wander off alone.

Erikson thought that those preschool initiatives produce feelings of pride or failure, depending on adult reactions. Should adults pretend to like the cake that a preschooler made or, instead, punish that child for wasting food and messing up the kitchen? According to Erikson’s theory, a child will feel guilty lifelong if adults are too critical or if social norms are too strict regarding the young child’s initiatives.

As you can see from Table 2.1, Erikson’s first five stages are closely related to Freud’s stages. Like Freud, Erikson believed that unresolved childhood conflicts echo throughout life, causing problems in adulthood.

Erikson considered the first stage, trust versus mistrust, particularly crucial. For example, an adult who has difficulty establishing a secure, mutual relationship with a life partner may never have resolved that first crisis of early infancy. If you know people who are “too trusting” or “too suspicious,” Erikson would suggest that you ask them about their care when they were infants.

In his emphasis on childhood, Erikson agreed with Freud. However, in two crucial aspects, Erikson’s stages differ significantly from those of his mentor.

1. Erikson’s stages emphasized family and culture, not sexual urges. 2. Erikson recognized adult development, with three stages after adolescence.

 

 

Behaviorism: Conditioning and Learning The comprehensive theory that dominated psychology in the United States for most of the twentieth century was behaviorism. This theory began in Russia, with Pavlov, who first described conditioning.

behaviorism A grand theory of human development that studies observable behavior. Behaviorism is also called learning theory because it describes the laws and processes by which behavior is learned.

Just Like Her Grandparents She sits on London Bridge, establishing her identity via hair, shoes, and clothes. Erikson would say she is quite conventional, doing what adolescents have always done!

Classical Conditioning More than a century ago, Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936) did hundreds of experiments to examine the link between something that affected a living creature (such as a sight, a sound, a touch) and how that creature reacted. Technically, he was interested in how a stimulus affects a response.

While studying salivation in his laboratory, Pavlov noticed that his research dogs drooled (response) not only at the smell of food (stimulus) but also, eventually, at the sound of the footsteps of the people bringing food. This observation led Pavlov to perform a famous experiment: He conditioned dogs to salivate (response) when hearing a particular noise (stimulus).

Pavlov began by sounding a tone just before presenting food. After a number of repetitions of the tone-then-food sequence, dogs began salivating at the sound even when there was no food. This simple experiment demonstrated classical conditioning (also called respondent conditioning).

 

 

Especially for Teachers Your kindergartners are talkative and always moving. They almost never sit quietly and listen to you. What would Erik Erikson recommend? (see response, p. 43)

classical conditioning The learning process in which a meaningful stimulus (such as the smell of food to a hungry animal) is connected with a neutral stimulus (such as the sound of a tone) that had no special meaning before conditioning. (Also called respondent conditioning.)

In classical conditioning, a person or animal learns to associate a neutral stimulus with a meaningful one, gradually responding to the neutral stimulus in the same way as to the meaningful one. In Pavlov’s original experiment, the dog associated the tone (the neutral stimulus) with food (the meaningful stimulus) and eventually responded to the tone as if it were the food itself. The conditioned response to the tone, no longer neutral but now a conditioned stimulus, was evidence that learning had occurred.

Behaviorists see dozens of examples of classical conditioning. Infants learn to smile at their parents because they associate them with food and play; toddlers learn to fear busy streets if the noise of traffic repeatedly frightens them; students learn to enjoy—or hate—school, depending on their kindergarten experience.

One current application of this theory is to explain the sudden increase of opioid overdose deaths in the United States (see Figure 2.1). (Opioids include heroin, morphine, and many prescription painkillers.) Many such deaths may not really be caused by an excessive quantity of the drug, because the deadly dose may be far less than others consume with no ill effect. Indeed, an “overdose” might be the same quantity as what that very person had taken before.

FIGURE 2.1 A Deadly Response The epidemic of opioid deaths is most notable among white, middle-aged men. There are many explanations for this demographic, but one that arises from behaviorism is that these drug-users are not conditioned to heroin. Tolerance may be psychological as well as physical; novice substance abusers have not acquired it.

Nor is every overdose death the consequence of some hidden “extra” within the drug. Indeed, people die of legally prescribed and carefully produced pills at doses they have taken before. One

 

 

hypothesis is that the person died because of a conditioned response (Siegel, 2016). This is how the stimulus—response link might work. When people habitually take a certain

drug, they become conditioned to it—their body and mind tolerate it, protecting them from serious side effects. That explains craving: Those with substance use disorder (SUD) are conditioned to seek the drug when they feel anxious, or in pain, or lonely. They connect relief of those feelings (response) with the drug (stimulus).

However, that same dose might be too much if the circumstances have not allowed the body and mind to prepare to adjust to it. A relatively small dose in a new context might be too much. A study of 44 “overdose” victims who survived (they were hospitalized and treated immediately, usually with naloxone, a potent antidote to opioid poisoning) found that often the dose was usual but conditioning made the response extreme (Neale et al., 2017). Two examples:

Alan (23 years) . . . had been told to leave the hostel where he had been staying because he had taken drugs and was intoxicated. . . . He had then taken more heroin and was wandering around outside, but could not remember overdosing. He was found unconscious . . .

[2017, p. 171]

Thus he was tolerant of heroin taken in his hostel room, but the same dose outside made him unconscious.

James (38 years) reported . . . [that] a friend had injected him. He stated that he could not remember anything about the effects of the heroin as he had instantly “blacked out” as the needle “went in”.

[2017, p. 172]

A Contemporary of Freud Ivan Pavlov was a physiologist who received the Nobel Prize in 1904 for his

 

 

research on digestive processes. It was this line of study that led to his discovery of classical conditioning, when his research on dog saliva led to insight about learning.

Observation Quiz How is Pavlov similar to Freud in appearance, and how do both look different from the other theorists pictured?, (see answer, p. 44)

Of course, the friend did not know that James had been psychologically conditioned to instantly connect injection—even before any physiological effects in the bloodstream—with blacking out. Thus, a relatively small dose (the friend thought he was being helpful) could have killed him.

Behaviorists notice many reactions linked to stimuli that once were neutral. Think of how some people react to the buzzing of a bumble bee or the sight of a police car in the rearview mirror. Such reactions are learned. The announcement of a final exam makes some students sweat—as no young child would.

Behaviorism in the United States Pavlov’s ideas seemed to bypass most Western European developmentalists but were welcomed in the United States, because many North Americans disputed the psychoanalytic emphasis on the unconscious.

The first of three famous Americans who championed behaviorism was John B. Watson (1878–1958). He argued that if psychology was to be a true science, psychologists should examine only what they could see and measure, not invisible unconscious impulses. In his words:

Why don’t we make what we can observe the real field of psychology? Let us limit ourselves to things that can be observed, and formulate laws concerning only those things. . . . We can observe behavior—’what the organism does or says.

[Watson, 1924/1998, p. 6]

According to Watson, if the focus is on behavior, it is apparent that everything is learned. He wrote:

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.

[Watson, 1924/1998, p. 82]

 

 

An Early Behaviorist John Watson was an early proponent of learning theory. His ideas are still influential and controversial today.

Other American psychologists agreed. They chose to study observable behavior, objectively and scientifically. For everyone at every age, behaviorists believe there are natural laws of human behavior. They experiment with mice and pigeons, as well as with people, to discover the laws that apply to all living creatures. Such laws explain how simple actions become complex competencies, because stimuli in the environment affect each action. Children are taught how to act, whether parents know it or not.

Learning in behaviorism is far more comprehensive than the narrow definition of learning, which focuses on academics, such as learning to read or multiply. Instead, for behaviorists, everything that people think, do, and feel is learned, step by step, via conditioning.

Response for Teachers (from p. 41) Erikson would note that the behavior of 5-year-olds is affected by their developmental stage and by their culture. Therefore, you might design your curriculum to accommodate active, noisy children.

For example, newborns learn to suck on a nipple; infants learn to smile at a caregiver; preschoolers learn to hold hands when crossing the street. Such learning is conditioned and can endure when no longer useful. That explains why children suck lollipops, adults smile at strangers, and I still grab my children’s hands in traffic. My children laugh and say, “Mom, I know how to avoid cars now.” Of course, I understand that they are adults, quite able to walk the city by themselves, but I have been conditioned by the years when they were children.

 

 

Operant Conditioning The most influential North American proponent of behaviorism was B. F. Skinner (1904–1990). Skinner agreed with Watson that psychology should focus on observable behavior. He did not dispute Pavlov’s classical conditioning, but, as a good scientist, he built on Pavlov’s conclusions. His most famous contribution was to recognize another type of conditioning— operant conditioning (also called instrumental conditioningl —in which animals (including people) act and then something follows that action.

operant conditioning The learning process by which a particular action is followed by something desired (which makes the person or animal more likely to repeat the action) or by something unwanted (which makes the action less likely to be repeated). (Also called instrumental conditioning.)

In other words, Skinner went beyond learning by association, in which one stimulus is paired with another stimulus (in Pavlov’s experiment, the tone with the food). He focused instead on what happens after the response. If the consequence that follows is enjoyable, the creature (any living thing—a bird, a mouse, a child) tends to repeat the behavior; if the consequence is unpleasant, the creature does not do it again.

Consequences that increase the frequency or strength of a particular action are called reinforcers; the process is called reinforcement (Skinner, 1953). According to behaviorism, almost all of our daily behavior, from saying “Good morning” to earning a paycheck, is the result of past reinforcement.

reinforcement When a behavior is followed by something desired, such as food for a hungry animal or a welcoming smile for a lonely person.

Rats, Pigeons, and People B. F. Skinner is best known for his experiments with rats and pigeons, but he also applied his knowledge to human behavior. For his daughter, he designed a glass-enclosed crib in which temperature, humidity, and perceptual stimulation could be controlled to make her time in the

 

 

crib enjoyable and educational. He encouraged her first attempts to talk by smiling and responding with words, affection, or other positive reinforcement.

Pleasant consequences are sometimes called rewards, but behaviorists do not call them that because they want to avoid the confusion of the word “reward.” What some people consider a reward may actually be a punishment, an unpleasant consequence. For instance, a teacher might reward good behavior by giving the class extra recess time, but some children hate recess. For them, recess is not a reinforcer.

The opposite is true as well: Something thought to be a punishment may actually be reinforcing. For example, parents “punish” their children by withholding dessert. But a particular child might dislike the dessert, so being deprived of it is no punishment.

Culture matters, too. Japanese parents threaten to punish their children by refusing to let them come home; American parents threaten to make the children stay home. Whether these opposite strategies are really punishments depends on the child as well as the culture (Bornstein, 2017).

The crucial question is “What works as a reinforcement or punishment for that individual?” The answer varies by age, as developmentalists have shown. For instance, adolescents find risk and excitement particularly reinforcing, and they consider punishments much less painful than adults do. That was one conclusion of a study of teenagers who were violent: For them, the thrill of breaking the law was reinforcing, outweighing the pain of getting caught (Shulman et al., 2017).

Consider a common practice in schools: Teachers send misbehaving children out of the classroom. Then principals suspend the worst violators from school.

However, if a child hates the teacher, leaving class is rewarding; and if a child hates school, suspension is a reinforcement. Indeed, research on school discipline finds that some measures, including school suspension, increase later disobedience (Osher et al., 2010). Educators have learned that, to stop misbehavior, it is often more effective to encourage good behavior, to “catch them being good” (Polirstok, 2015, p. 932).

Answer to Observation Quiz (from p. 42) Both are balding, with white beards. Note also that none of the other theorists in this chapter have beards—a cohort difference, not an ideological one.

In the United States, the chance of an African American child being suspended from school is three times higher than for a European American child. The rate is also higher than average for children designated as needing special education. Those statistics raise a troubling question: Is suspension a punishment for the child, or is it a reinforcer for the teacher? (Tajalli & Garba, 2014; Shah, 2011).

The data show that children who are suspended from school are more likely than other children to be imprisoned years later. That is a correlation; it does not prove that suspension causes later imprisonment. But behaviorists suggest that it might (Mallett, 2016). [Developmental Link: Correlation and causation are discussed in Chapter 1.]

Remember, behaviorists focus on the effect that a consequence has on future behavior, not whether it is intended to be a reward or not. Children who misbehave again and again have been reinforced, not punished, for their actions—perhaps by their parents or teachers, perhaps by their friends or themselves.

Social Learning At first, behaviorists thought all behavior arose from a chain of learned responses, the result of

 

 

(1) the association between one stimulus and another (classical conditioning) or (2) past reinforcement (operant conditioning). Thousands of experiments inspired by learning theory have demonstrated that both classical conditioning and operant conditioning occur in everyday life. We are all conditioned to react as we do.

Video Activity: Modeling: Learning by Observation features the original footage of Albert Bandura’s famous experiment.

However, people at every age are social and active, not just reactive. Instead of responding merely to their own direct experiences, “people act on the environment. They create it, preserve it, transform it, and even destroy it . . . [in] a socially embedded interplay” (Bandura, 2006, p. 167).

That social interplay is the foundation of social learning theory (see Table 2.2), which holds that humans sometimes learn without personal reinforcement. As Albert Bandura, the primary proponent of this theory, explains, this learning often occurs through modeling, when people copy what they see others do (also called observational learning) (Bandura, 1986, 1997).

social learning theory An extension of behaviorism that emphasizes the influence that other people have over a person’s behavior. Even without specific reinforcement, every individual learns many things through observation and imitation of other people. (Also called observational learning.)

modeling The central process of social learning, by which a person observes the actions of others and then copies them.

TABLE 2.2

Three Types of Learning

Behaviorism is also called learning theory because it emphasizes the learning process, as shown here.

Type of Learning Learning Process Result

Classical Conditioning

Learning occurs through association.

Neutral stimulus becomes conditioned response.

Operant Conditioning

Learning occurs through reinforcement and punishment.

Weak or rare responses become strong and frequent — or, with punishment, unwanted responses become extinct.

Social Learning occurs through Observed behaviors become copied behaviors.

 

 

Learning modeling what others do.

Modeling is not simple imitation: Some people are more likely to follow or to be role models than others. Indeed, people model only some actions, of some individuals, in some contexts. Sometimes people do the opposite of what they have seen.

Generally, modeling is most likely when the observer is uncertain or inexperienced (which explains why modeling is especially powerful in childhood) and when the model is admired, powerful, nurturing, or similar to the observer. Social learning occurs not only for behavior and preferences (why do teenagers wear their hair as they do?) but also for morals, which may appear to be decided by each individual but also are affected by what people learn from others (Bandura, 2016).

THINK CRITICALLY: Is your speech, hairstyle, or choice of shoes similar to those of your peers, or of an entertainer, or a sports hero? Why?

Cognitive Theory: Piaget and Information Processing According to cognitive theory, thoughts and expectations profoundly affect attitudes, values, emotions, and actions. This may seem obvious now, but it was not always so clear. Social scientists recognize a “cognitive revolution,” which occurred around 1980. Suddenly how and what people think became important. This added to psychoanalysis (which emphasized hidden impulses) and behaviorism (which emphasized observed actions). Thoughts come between impulses and actions, and they are crucial.

cognitive theory A grand theory of human development that focuses on changes in how people think over time. According to this theory, our thoughts shape our attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

The cognitive revolution is ongoing: Contemporary researchers use new tools to study cognition, with neuroscience, large data, and body—mind connections (e.g., Griffiths, 2015). To understand the impact of cognitive theory on development, we begin with Piaget.

Piaget’s Stages of Development Jean Piaget (1896–1980) transformed our understanding of cognition, leading some people to consider him “the greatest developmental psychologist of all time” (Haidt, 2013, p. 6). His academic training was in biology, with a focus on shellfish—a background that taught him to look closely at small details.

Before Piaget, most scientists believed that babies could not yet think. But Piaget used scientific observation with his own three infants. He took meticulous notes, finding infants curious and thoughtful.

Later he studied hundreds of schoolchildren. From this work emerged the central thesis of cognitive theory: How children think changes with time and experience, and their thought processes affect behavior. According to cognitive theory, to understand people, one must understand their thinking.

 

 

Would You Talk to This Man? Children loved talking to Jean Piaget, and he learned by listening carefully—especially to their incorrect explanations, which no one had paid much attention to before. All his life, Piaget was absorbed with studying the way children think. He called himself a “genetic epistemologist”—one who studies how children gain knowledge about the world as they grow.

Piaget maintained that cognitive development occurs in four age-related periods, or stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational (see Table 2.3). Each period fosters certain cognitive processes: Infants think via their senses; preschoolers have language but not logic; school-age children have simple logic; adolescents and adults can use formal, abstract logic (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958/2013b; Piaget, 1952/2011).

TABLE 2.3

Piaget’s Periods of Cognitive Development

Name of Period

Characteristics of the Period Major Gains During the Period

Birth to 2 years

Sensorimotor Infants use senses and motor abilities to understand the world. Learning is active, without reflection.

Infants learn that objects still exist when out of sight (object permanence) and begin to think through mental actions. (The sensorimotor period is discussed further in Chapter 6.)

2-6 years Preoperational Children think symbolically, with language, yet children are egocentric, perceiving from their own perspective.

The imagination flourishes, and language becomes a significant means of self- expression and social influence. (The preoperational period is discussed further in Chapter 9.)

6-11 Concrete Children understand By applying logic, children grasp concepts of

 

 

years operational and apply logic. Thinking is limited by direct experience.

conservation, number, classification, and many other scientific ideas. (The concrete- operational period is discussed further in Chapter 12.)

12 years through adulthood

Formal operational

Adolescents and adults use abstract and hypothetical concepts. They can use analysis, not only emotion.

Ethics, politics, and social and moral issues become fascinating as adolescents and adults use abstract, theoretical reasoning. (The formal-operational period is discussed further in Chapter 15.)

Piaget found that intellectual advancement occurs because humans at every age seek cognitive equilibrium —a state of mental balance. The easiest way to achieve this balance is to interpret new experiences through the lens of preexisting ideas. For example, infants grab new objects in the same way that they grasp familiar objects; a child’s concept of God as loving or punishing depends on their experience with their own parents. That is why people of many faiths call themselves “a child of God.”

cognitive equilibrium In cognitive theory, a state of mental balance in which people are not confused because they can use their existing thought processes to understand current experiences and ideas.

At every age, people interpret other people’s behavior by assuming that everyone thinks as they themselves do. Once a child gets an idea, he or she sticks to it—even when logic or adults say it is wrong.

Cognition is easier when the mind simplifies ideas. For instance, once children grasp the concept of “dog,” they can see unfamiliar animals on the street, from Great Danes to Chihuahuas, and say “doggie.” They also expect dogs to sniff, bark, wag tails, and so on. Some children want to pet every dog they see; some fear them all—but in either case,

EDUC 305 Educational Philosophy for Teachers

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EDUC 305 Educational Philosophy for Teachers

SCRIP Assessment: Instructions and Rubric

Reflect on your performance in this class, at your job, in your home or ministry.   How have you displayed the following dispositions: Social Responsibility, Commitment/Work Ethic, Reflection, Integrity, and Professionalism?

The candidate will write five brief essays (no more than 100 words each) describing how they have demonstrated or practiced each of the School of Education SCRIP dispositions (Social Responsibility, Commitment/Work Ethic, Reflection, Integrity, and Professionalism) in their own personal and professional life.  If you have questions about the definitions, please see the Dispositions below.

Example responses are given below:

“I have shown commitment and work ethic by completing all assignments in this course to the best of my ability.  I have a strong commitment to KDP so I have attended all chapter meetings and worked extra hours at the book fair.  Also, my host teacher at Linkhorne Elementary wanted me to help direct a play so I spent several nights a week for 3 weeks assisting her with play practice.  The extra hours I spent helping with play practice were well beyond the minimum number of hours I needed for my practicum.” 

“I have shown integrity in this course by completing independent assignments by myself.  In instances that I have used the work of others, I have properly cited this.  If I was absent or tardy, I self-reported these instances to my professor.   I have taken notes and participated in class discussions rather than being involved in off task behaviors.”

SCRIP is the acronym that assists with listing all five dispositions

 

1. Displays a sense of Social responsibility

 

Fruit of the Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Goodness (Gal 5:22,23)

 · Demonstrates the belief that all students can learn

· Demonstrates a sense of fairness, justice, and equity for all students

· Differentiates instruction to meet the needs of all diverse learners

· Demonstrates empathy and sensitivity to human needs

· Provides opportunities and motivation for all students to learn

· Interacts effectively with students to provide a positive, structured learning environment where student access, success, and achievement is priority
2. Demonstrates Commitment / Work ethic

 

Fruit of the Spirit: Faithfulness, Longsuffering (Gal 5:22,23)

 · Follows through on commitments

· Takes responsibilities seriously

· Completes assigned tasks on time

· Attends class, field experiences, meetings, etc. consistently and promptly

· Shows the self-discipline and work ethic essential to be planned, prepared, and organized for successful instruction and learning to occur.

· Demonstrates a persevering commitment to each student’s learning success.

· Demonstrates initiative in participating in professional development opportunities.
3. Demonstrates Reflective practice

 

Fruit of the Spirit: Faithfulness (Gal 5:22,23)

 · Considers thoughtfully educational matters and the practice of teaching

· Makes choices after pondering ideas and experiences

· Learns from journaling and discussions with colleagues

· Utilizes data to make informed decisions

 
4. Displays personal Integrity

 

Fruit of the Spirit: Goodness (Gal 5:22,23)

 · Models exemplary citizenship through moral leadership

· Acts in an ethical and moral manner

· Values honesty inside and outside of the classroom

· Demonstrates trustworthiness

· Abides by a professional code of ethics; maintains confidentiality and discretion.

 
5. Displays Professionalism

 

Fruit of the Spirit: Gentleness, Meekness, Temperance (Gal 5:22,23)

 · Respects authority, colleagues, students, and others

· Accepts constructive feedback in a respectful, appropriate manner.

· Demonstrates appropriate behavior: possesses patience, self-control, and flexibility when obstacles or difficult situations occur.

· Effectively manages personal emotions and feelings and reacts reasonably to situations.

· Adheres to proper, formulated chains of command / expresses a grievance in a dignified, temperate manner

· Acts confidently and maturely.

· Is prompt and responsible in attendance for class, field experiences, meetings, etc.

· Dresses in a dignified, modest manner that adheres to the dress code of the Host School.

· Effectively uses the English language in speech and writing

· Maintains enthusiasm and passion for the teaching profession.

· Cooperatively collaborates with administrators and colleagues to form learning communities.

· Views learning as a life-long activity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDUC 305 Educational Philosophy for Teachers

 

SCRIP Assessment

: Instructions and Rubri

c

 

Reflect on your performance in this class, at your job, in your home or ministry.

 

 

How have you displayed the following dispositions:

Social

Responsibility, Commitment/Work

Ethic, Reflection, Integrity, and Professionalism

?

 

 

The candidate will write five brief essays (no more than 100 words each) describing how they

have demonstrated or practiced each of the School of Education SCRIP disposi

tions (Social

Responsibility, Commitment/Work Ethic, Reflection, Integrity, and Professionalism) in their

own personal and professional life.

 

If you have questions about the definitions, please see the

Dispositions

below.

 

Example responses are given below:

 

 

“I have shown

 

commitment and work ethic

 

by completing all assignments in this course

t

o the best of my ability.

 

 

I have a strong commitment to KDP so I have attended all

chapter meetings and worked extra hours at the book fair.

 

 

Also, my host teacher at

Linkhorne Elementary wanted me to help direct a play so I spent several nights a week

fo

r 3 weeks assisting her with play practice.

 

 

The extra hours I spent helping with play

practice were well beyond the minimum number of hours I needed for my practicum.”

 

 

“I have shown

 

integrity

 

in this course by completing independent assignments by

myself

.

 

 

In instances that I have used the work of others, I have properly cited this.

 

 

If I

was absent or tardy, I self

–

reported these instances to my professor.

 

 

I have taken notes

and participated in class discussions rather than being involved in off task b

ehaviors.

”

 

 

SCRIP

 

is the acronym that assists with listing all five dispositions

 

 

1. Displays a sense of

S

ocial

responsibility

 

 

Fruit of the Spirit: Love, Joy,

Peace,

Goodness (Gal 5:22,23)

 

·

 

Demonstrates the belief that all students can learn

 

·

 

Demonstrates a sense of fairness, justice, and equity for

all students

 

·

 

Differentiates instruction to meet the needs of all diverse

learners

 

·

 

Demonstrates empathy and sensitivi

ty to human needs

 

·

 

Provides opportunities and motivation for all students to

learn

 

·

 

Interacts effectively with students to provide a positive,

structured learning environment where student access,

success, and achievement is priority

 

2. Demonstrates

C

ommitment

 

/

Work

ethic

 

 

Fruit of the Spirit: Faithfulness,

Longsuffering (Gal 5:22,23)

 

·

 

Follows through on commitments

 

·

 

Takes responsibilities seriously

 

·

 

Completes assigned tasks on time

 

·

 

Attends class, field experiences, meetings, etc.

consistently and promp

tly

 

EDUC 305 Educational Philosophy for Teachers

SCRIP Assessment: Instructions and Rubric

Reflect on your performance in this class, at your job, in your home or ministry.

How have you displayed the following dispositions: Social Responsibility, Commitment/Work

Ethic, Reflection, Integrity, and Professionalism?

The candidate will write five brief essays (no more than 100 words each) describing how they

have demonstrated or practiced each of the School of Education SCRIP dispositions (Social

Responsibility, Commitment/Work Ethic, Reflection, Integrity, and Professionalism) in their

own personal and professional life. If you have questions about the definitions, please see the

Dispositions below.

Example responses are given below:

“I have shown commitment and work ethic by completing all assignments in this course

to the best of my ability. I have a strong commitment to KDP so I have attended all

chapter meetings and worked extra hours at the book fair. Also, my host teacher at

Linkhorne Elementary wanted me to help direct a play so I spent several nights a week

for 3 weeks assisting her with play practice. The extra hours I spent helping with play

practice were well beyond the minimum number of hours I needed for my practicum.”

“I have shown integrity in this course by completing independent assignments by

myself. In instances that I have used the work of others, I have properly cited this. If I

was absent or tardy, I self-reported these instances to my professor. I have taken notes

and participated in class discussions rather than being involved in off task behaviors.”

SCRIP is the acronym that assists with listing all five dispositions

 

1. Displays a sense of Social

responsibility

 

Fruit of the Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace,

Goodness (Gal 5:22,23)

 Demonstrates the belief that all students can learn

 Demonstrates a sense of fairness, justice, and equity for

all students

 Differentiates instruction to meet the needs of all diverse

learners

 Demonstrates empathy and sensitivity to human needs

 Provides opportunities and motivation for all students to

learn

 Interacts effectively with students to provide a positive,

structured learning environment where student access,

success, and achievement is priority

2. Demonstrates Commitment / Work

ethic

 

Fruit of the Spirit: Faithfulness,

Longsuffering (Gal 5:22,23)

 Follows through on commitments

 Takes responsibilities seriously

 Completes assigned tasks on time

 Attends class, field experiences, meetings, etc.

consistently and promptly