Notes week 2

ABA 602 Danielle Udovich Cox, D. (2020, August 19). Philosophical premises underlying the BACB Professional and Ethical Compliance Code . YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpuKGy47AQw Key Concepts ● In order to understand the function of ethical decisions, we must understand how we justify ethical rules. ● We use philosophic doubt to define what we mean by statements, and how we know something. ● 3 paradigms as to why we follow ethical rules: ○ Virtue ethics ○ Consequentialism ○ Deontology Notes and Questions for ● In this video David Cox, M.S.B., BCBA, describes ethics and why we follow ethical codes. ● Talking about morals is much easier than giving reasons. ● All verbal behavior, including ethical statements, have a function. ● By understanding how we currently justify ethical rules, we are then more ready to change and adapt in the future. ● Why is justification so hard? For behavior analysts, the Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) currently follows the Professional Code for Behavior Analysts. The Code is meant to guide our behavior over several domains of professional practice. ● Philosophic doubt ○ What do you mean by …? ○ How do you know …? ■ How do we know that behaving in some way is right or wrong? ■ How do we know the rules in the compliance code are the most effective or efficient? ○ 3 Levels: ■ Individual rule ■ Interaction of rules ■ Interaction of cultures that create and maintain rules. ○ By asking and thinking, there can be many questions about why we follow these ethical rules when there is a lack of data relative to ethical behavior. ● 3 Primary Paradigms of “why” ○ Virtue Ethics ■ Moral excellence, or virtue, is the main focus of ethics. ■ Virtue refers to honesty or generosity, not just honest or generous behaviors but making sure it becomes part of one’s repertoire, and is maintained by automatic reinforcement, meaning it’s not socially mediated. ■ The founding fathers of virtue ethics include Plato, Aristotle, and Laozi. ■ Guideline 1.04 discusses ethics by using the words truthful and honest to describe how

● Why do we care? We care for ourselves, to be better behavior analysts and provide the best service. ● We care for the profession, we hold our colleagues to the professional code the same way we would ourselves in order to ensure consistency across the profession, and to maintain ethicalness. behavior analysts should behave, and the behavior they should promote. ○ Consequentialism ■ Also referred to as utilitarian, this is when the results of an action determine whether it is right or wrong. ■ The founders of consequentialism include Mill, Bentham, and Sidgwick. ■ Act consequentialism is when an act or behavior is good or bad if, and only if, the act maximizes the good. ■ Hedonism is when pleasure is only good and aversiveness and pain are the only bad. ■ Guideline 2.09 encourages the most effective procedure, and falls slightly under the consequentialism theory. ○ Deontology ■ Relates to duty, uses virtue ethics and consequentialism to achieve their goal. ■ The context in which the behavior occurs is just as important as the behavior. ■ Immanuel Kant is the main founder of deontology, and he claims that there is an extreme demand effort to incorporate consequentialism, and it is just impractical. He also believes it fails due to permissiveness. ● How we define behavior and ethical good ○ Ethical behavior is behavior for the good of others. The good meaning positive reinforcement, and the bad being aversive control. ○ Or, the good are global or desired life outcomes, and they are mostly described verbally, and the good is relative to that verbal language. ● Why do we care about this? ○ First, for ourselves, and second, for the profession of behavior analysis. ○ Since behavior analysts engage in these ethical decisions daily, the important question is why we make the choices we do, and what is the function of our ethical behavior. ○ It’s also important so we can determine how we are justifying our actions when in practice. ○ We should also be analyzing our ethical decisions and the function of them. ○ We should also be aware of other behavior analysts' behaviors due to interlocking behavioral contingencies. Meaning their work affects your work as well. ○ Metacontingencies can form within interlocking contingencies, they often have different topographies,