Moral Philosophy Associated with Behavioral Theory
Behaviorism is often not connected to any specific form of morality, since it is a totally deterministic approach to human action. This psychological school posits that human action is purely a product of a combination of heredity and environment. More specifically, all human action can be reduced to knowable antecedent causes. Behaviorism as a psychological theory holds that human beings are essentially reactive creatures: they react to external stimuli in predictable ways. What is painful they avoid; what is pleasurable they like. Humanity is simple. In order to change human behavior, new stimuli, eliciting new responses, must be developed.
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Features
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There is no clear-cut "good" or "bad" in the behaviorist model of human action. All that exists are associations between external stimuli and the predictable response. Behaviorism does have the benefit of being simple and easy to comprehend. It is based solely on a model of human action that holds that socially important activities are responses to conditions and external stimuli. If a person experiences the conjunction of an action and a negative consequence (defined as a painful consequence), then that thing will be considered "bad." That thing will be avoided.
Types
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The sort of morality connected to this simple cause and effect psychology can only be a simple sort of utilitarianism. The good is useful for the person and society. Even simpler, what is considered useful is that which produces pleasure. What is bad is that which produces pain. In experiencing these feelings in conjunction with objects, actions or states, people come to be habituated to see painful things as bad.
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Function
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The purpose of this approach is to reduce psychology and moral thinking to what is immediately observable. This, in turn, means that social science can map out a cause-and-effect chain, so as to figure out what is considered useful or not. Social morality can be seen in its fullness by this sort of analysis. Thinking subjects do not exist; human beings are purely reactive subjects.
Considerations
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Justice in this theory concerns what "society" holds to be good and bad action. A criminal or one who is mentally ill is one who habitually does not react properly to the right stimuli or one who has not experienced the proper habituation necessary for a smoothly running society. The person is habituated and determined in his action and hence cannot be personally be held responsible for the social harm he causes. However, the behaviorist school holds that such a person can be re-habituated in a controlled environment to react negatively to what society determines to be harmful or painful action. This would be the purpose of punishment.
Effects
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Behaviorist morality holds that all human beings are determined by what happens to them. Reason might justify this, but it is not the cause of it. People are not reasoning, thinking beings. Morality is then what society deems to be good for it, meaning that there are never any eternal ideas of right and wrong, these are all socially determined.
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