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The teleological science of self-control

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2019

Howard Rachlin
Howard Rachlin
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794-2500 hrachlin@psych1.psy.sunnysb.edu
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Abstract

In response to Ainslie & Gault: The value of a temporally extended behavioral pattern depends on relationships inherent in the pattern itself. It is not possible to express that value as the simple sum of the discounted present values of the pattern's component acts.

In response to Leiber: Teleological behaviorism may be deemed unscientific because it has not yet succeeded to the required degree in predicting and controlling the highly complex patterns of human behavior that comprise our mental lives. However teleological behaviorism is not unscientific because it is teleological or “noncausal;” nor is teleological behaviorism unscientific because it is not reducible to neurophysiology. Nothing in principle bars the development of a teleological science of the mind.

Type
Authors' Response
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , June 1997 , pp. 367 - 369
Copyright
1997 Cambridge University Press

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