HOW NOT TO NATURALIZE ETHICS: THE UNTENABILITY OF A SKINNERIAN NATURALISTIC ETHIC* Lawrence M. Hinman University of San Diego "Generally speaking," Hume tells us in the Treatise, "the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous." Max Hocutt's claim that B. F. Skinner's Beyond Freedom and Dignity, which he sees as "possibly the most important work [of moral philosophy] produced in our time," 1 provides an adequate basis for naturalistic semantics for ethics is an excep- tion to Hume's general rule: it is a dangerous philosophical error. I shall first consider the error and then the danger which flows from it. I. THE ERROR In his defense of a Skinnerian ethic, Hocutt argues that (a) the term 'good' is extensionally equivalent to the term 'positively reinforcing'; (b) as a result of this equivalence, value judgments are genuine judgments which state empirically verifiable facts and falsehoods and are thus descriptive; (c) nondescriptive uses of the term 'good' are parasitical upon its descriptive usage; and (d) there are no other cognitively significant uses of the term. 2 Since it is possible to determine empirically within a Skinnerian framework what things are and are not positively reinforcing, it is possible to de- termine empirically what things are and are not good. Ethics thus becomes "a branch of behavioral science; the scientific method is applicable to the solution of our moral problems." 3 Although there are many points in Hocutt's presentation which are *I am indebted to Warner Wick for comments on an earlier draft of this article. 1. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1888), p. 272; Max Hocutt, "Skinner on the Word 'Good': A Naturalistic Semantics for Ethics," Ethics 87, no. 4 (July 1977): quotation from p. 319. 2. Although this final claim is not made explicitly by Hocutt, it follows from his critique of Moore and his discussion of the 'is'-'ought' problem. 3. Hocutt, p. 321. © 1979 by The University of Chicago. 0014-1704/79/8903-0007$00. 75 292 Lawrence M. Hinman, "How Not to Naturalize Ethics: The Untenability of a Skinnerian Naturalistic Ethic." Ethics, Vol. 89, No. 3 (April, 1979), 292-297.