Word: tobacco
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...current law suit pending in Santa Barbara (November 27), recalling the classical notions of free will, necessity, and choice. He then stretched his argument to include the modern behaviorism of B.F. Skinner, concluding that inherent in the plaintiff's argument exists a contradiction. By that be surmised that tobacco companies should not be held responsible for their product's effects, if they were in fact knowledgeable of the cigarette's effects long before the Surgeon General...
What Mr. Oran fails to recognize, is that the tobacco companies were not bound to withholding information from the public, like he believes; instead, they had a definited choice. The notion of make as much money as possible or bottom-up financially doesn't apply, when one considers the alternatives open to the tobacco industry...
What is remarkable, is that tobacco companies have remained callous to the needs of the public. While cigarettes that are lower in nicotine content and filters were developed they didn't substantially reduce the risk to a similar extent that the soft drinks were reduced. A simple filter could be casually compared to light beer a way of diluting the strength of the product, but not to the point of reducing health risks. If the tobacco companies were actually acting on good faith, they would long ago have developed a better product...
...seems that the behaviorist position would lead us to find for the plaintiff. After all, the tobacco companies knew that cigarettes were strong, reinforcers for many people yet still sold them. But not so fast. What about the behavior of the tobacco companies...
...TOBACCO COMPANIES are controlled by environmental contingencies just as surely as individual smokers are. Society has made reinforcement for these companies (i.e., profits) contingent on cigarette-selling behavior. Unfortunately, people die as a result. But do the tobacco companies have a "choice"? The behaviorist says...