Take Leta Hollingworth (1886 - 1939) for instance, she was a psychologist who did pioneering work on adolescent development, mental retardation, and gifted children. She was the first person to use the term gifted to refer to youngsters who scored exceptionally high on intelligence test. Hollingworth (1914, 1916) also played a mojor role in debunking popular theories of her era that purported to explain why women were “inferior” to men. For instance, she conducted a study refuting the myth that phases of the mensrual cycle are reliably associated with performance decrements in women. Her careful collection of objective data or gender differences forced other scientists to subject popular, untested beliefs about the sexes to skeptical, empirical inquiry.

Mary Whiton Calkins 1863 1930 who studied under William James, founded on of the first dozen psychology laboratories in America at Wellesley College in 1891, invented a widely used technique for studying memory, and became the first woman to serve as president of the American Psychology Association in 1905. Ironically, however, she never received her Ph. D. in Psychology. Because she was a woman, harvard University only reluctantly allowed her to take graduate classes as a “guest student.” When she completed the requirements for her Ph. D., Harvard would only offer her a doctorate from its under graduate sister school, Radcliffe. Calkins felt that this decision perpetuated unequal treatment of the sexes, so she refused the Radcliffe degree.

In the case of Calkins you can see that the “Official dominant discourse” that women were “inferior” was at first protected by not allowing women to graduate as Ph. D.s in Psychology so they could not challenge the inferior notion scientifically and therefore free women from the unfair restraints of an unpaid slave class (unequal opportunity and pay, social expectations of gender roles trapping women in the unpaid slave class category etc.).

In the case of Hollingworth, she proved that popular scientific theories and untested beliefs about the sexes were not based on empirical scientific observations and tests at all and after doing proper scientific observations and tests to disprove the psychological arguments that women were inferior she broke the social control of the government over women and forced Psychologists claiming to base their theories on empirical evidence of observation and tests to actual start testing untested beliefs and theories. But as you can see the untested inferior tag which locked women in the gender role of unpaid slave class was inshrined in industrial laws, human rights laws and faculty laws of universities concerning who could graduate to speak as an expert and earn a decent living so as to be independent of the financial support of others. Keep in mind that women did not even have the right to vote so as to protect the politicians who created laws that discriminate against women from being voted out and challenged by women. Homosexuals of course used to be arrested so the control was pretty tight for them too in an attempt to cure what politicians considered an undesired, unproductive and deviant image and element in society that needed to be eliminated.

Not imposing their will on others and dictating the terms and conditions of social life you say I am?
I disagree, both the cases for homosexuals and women in history, and even now, is still controlled to some degree by the “dominant discourses” of psychology which still defines women and homosexuality to some extent, perhaps not how they used to but not how women and homosexuals want to be officially defined, and by government policies and law enactment, which though it has become more subtle in its ways of socially controlling, still has a fairly convincing contol over both women and homosexual’s lives, freedom and options etc. And then there is the race, socio-economic status discrimination etc. and other endless discriminations that were defined by psychologists, enacted in law and promoted by political policies and authority, the list of people that have or are socially controlled by a combination of psychological definition, political policies and authority and enactments of law is endless and staggering.

“The way I see it, the law is democratic morality in a way. The people we vote for make laws that (theorectically) represent our views on average. The legislative system is a great way of turning consensus into a rulebook for society. Society needs rules to function, and no one is more qualified than the members of said society to make those rules. So, our laws are a living contract to which we are all signatories. Those who break the contract are punished. Those who dislike the terms strongly enough are allowed to opt out by leaving the country. It’s an efficient way of controlling behavior without imposing an outside will on the people or resorting to the founding of a mythological dictatorship ”

I agree with every thing you have said I am, except the last paragraph: “It’s an efficient way of controlling behavior without imposing an outside will on the people or resorting to the founding of a mythological dictatorship”

Without imposing an outside will on the people? Are you kidding? They are imposing an outside will on the people (I call it social control) through law and psychiatric reasoning (both of which I have studied and passed). When someone (an expert who is allowed to speak on behalf of society and define what is right and wrong and punsihable by law) tells you that a homosexual is an immoral, abnormal, sinful law breaker that must have the aversion therapy of punishment of the law, (they won’t use those words but trust me that is what they mean I have high passes in the subjects, I know) how do you feel if you are a nice and otherwise law abiding homosexual citizen? Can you see and understand the social control principles and invalid judgement of what is wrong and what is right by psychiatric and law judgements which go hand in hand and feed off each other via politicians making statements and legislation and funding psychiatric research which is a harlot that sleeps with the government for the research funds? Ok call me cynical if you wish, but at least I am a person who has studied the disiplines of Social Science, psychiatry and law and am therefore qualified to say that none of the decisions of psychiatry or law is based on actual undeniable facts, but subjective research that finds what it wants to find or is directed (in the case of law) by the legislative whims that politicians enact, enactment does not prove competence, wisdom or superior knowledge just the person enacting has a position of power to encact laws (e.g. presidents and prime ministers can enact laws). The question is are politicians and psychiatrists always right? Obviously my opinion is biased because I have studied all of these subjects (social science, political science and psychiatry) and think they express nothing more than an ‘opinion’ that earns them money to speak it out as an ‘expert’ and ‘authority’ that affects your life and mine. I used homosexuality as an example, but I could present many examples of law and psychiatry that are different and by comparison, uncontroversial issues to homosexuality, and yet still I (who has studied and passed these subjects) question whether it is the “definative answer” to the question of what is moral and right and what is immoral and wrong. That is just my opinion though, you have the right to disagree with me. I think it still comes down to how do we form our world view/values/moral principles of what is right and wrong - moral and immoral and moral, and is our means of judging what is right/wrong moral/immoral sound enough to withstand the rational examination of every person participating and reading this blog, let alone the rest of the world? I think not!! in the case of psychiatry, law and social science, but that is just my opinion.

when discussing morality or sin or whatever we have to nail a definition of what it is or else we will just go around and around discussing the relitivity of everything without making a real point about the topic of say pride, or sin or virtue.

I have found that this is never more of a problem than when discussing religion. The beliefs being debated are so nebulous that it’s easy to start bending words to attack or defend them. Both sides are guilty of subtly or not-so-subtly redefining terms in such a way as to support their points. Just look at the exchange I had with Aaron. We were talking past each other because we were discussing totally different things.

Social Scientist on February 25, 2006 at 6:49 am said:

In the psychology studies I am doing homosexuality was once classified in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as a mental illness. Because of this, treatments and therapy (including shock therapy) where proposed to cure this mental illness and laws were inacted to deter people from being gay (e.g. arrest and penalties) making it a criminal offence to be gay, much like compulsively setting fire to things (pyromania) is considered to be a mental illness and is treated by psychiatrists and punished by the law. People do not believe that homosexuality is a form of mental illness anymore and it has been removed from the DSM as a classification of mental illness now.

But that is not relevant as to determining whether homosexuality is either moral or immoral is it? It could be either moral or immoral without being a mental illness couldn’t it? Some would argue that moralality is relative and subjectively contingent on who is allowed to define it (such as Foucault who was mentioned earlier, he was a gay social theorist and commentator in an age when homosexuality was illegal that debated against homosexuality or other things such as poverty or unemployment being unjustly deemed to be deviant by the state and dealt with through social control strategies). And some would argue it is immoral (the Bible’s position is that it is sin and immorality that is an abomination to God).

This kind of thing makes me take a step back and say “Hey, maybe the Scientologists aren’t 100% nuts.” (Don’t worry. I’m not undergoing auditing. They’re still 95% nuts.) Psychiatry, as it is practiced in the 20th and 21st centuries, is science by committee, which is always a bad idea. Now, if I believed in morality, I would probably say that something being a mental illness would disqualify it from being immoral. Illness removes volition, and volition (in my hypothetical opinion) is a prerequisite for immorality. However, given the mechanisms in place for determining whether or not something is a mental illness, I don’t entirely trust the system to categorize behaviors in this way.

It’s interesting that you talked about psychiatry and law together. I think they have a lot in common. The DSM and the penal code are both comparable to the Bible in some ways. All three try to categorize behaviors into right and wrong or normal and abnormal. They all come up with different conclusions. So, why is it that a group of highly educated psychiatrists, a group of legislators and a group of religious leaders from a few millennia back come up with such drastically different views? Perhaps there is no right answer.

The way I see it, the law is democratic morality in a way. The people we vote for make laws that (theorectically) represent our views on average. The legislative system is a great way of turning consensus into a rulebook for society. Society needs rules to function, and no one is more qualified than the members of said society to make those rules. So, our laws are a living contract to which we are all signatories. Those who break the contract are punished. Those who dislike the terms strongly enough are allowed to opt out by leaving the country. It’s an efficient way of controlling behavior without imposing an outside will on the people or resorting to the founding of a mythological dictatorship

“SS:
Again, I don’t have time to respond to you. Stay tuned. ”

Same bat time same bat channel Same bats lol

I Am on February 24, 2006 at 1:02 pm said:

Aaron Kinney on February 24, 2006 at 12:17 pm said:

I believe that morality is objective for the same reason that I believe the laws of physics are objective.

When you find an instrument that measures or even detects morality, get back to me.

No problem. I think I found the perfect instrument for the measurement of morality. That instrument is any human being. Humans need definite resources and conditions to survive and thrive, and I define morality as actions which best provide for the survival and promotion for a given life form. Since humans objectively need food, for example, we can conclude that sustenance is an objective moral value. In this example, the human body serves as the instrument to measure morality: If the human does not obtain adequate food, that human will eventually die.

Now what if a human says “I dont value food, so morality is relative”? We can conclude that the human is wrong; that he has an error of perception. This is because the instrument of morality measurement, the human being himself, will end up ceasing to be (dying) if he refuses to consume food. According to the definition of morality, this human did not commit the action that best sustained and promoted his life because he ended up dying. Therefore, his moral perception was in error, and the objective morality argument wins because of the brute objective fact that, no matter what this human believes, he needs food to survive and thrive.

Now, this of course hinges on my definition of morality, “actions that best provide for the survival and promotion of a given life form.” Do you or do you not agree with this definition? And if you do agree with this definition, do you still think morality is relative, and why?

That was a damn good answer, but I’m still not buying it. Given your definition, your argument is pretty solid, despite the fact that your “instrument” is as keen a device for measuring morality as a porcelain vase is for measuring whether or not it’s been hit by a sledgehammer. It does raise issues related to extreme situations like cannibalism in dire need, but I’m not going there because I reject your definition. That’s not how dictionaries treat it, and it’s not how it’s used in common parlance. Morality isn’t about survival; it’s about “right.” In fact, moral relativism isn’t even a moral position because morality, as it is typically defined, can’t be relative. Relativism, when you boil it down, is the position that morality doesn’t even exist. In an objective world, I could look at any action and drop it into one of two boxes (good or bad) regardless of my perspective. On the contrary, I would venture that a minority of actions are good for the actor without being at least somewhat negative for at least one other person. It’s just not a black and white world. I want it to be just as much as you do, but it isn’t.

SS:
Again, I don’t have time to respond to you. Stay tuned.