Word: tobacco
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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...
...counter-argument of the tobacco companies will no doubt be a reprise of the criticism Skinner has faced from the beginning. But of course we have free will, they'll say; people smoke because they want...
...personal history of most smokers is rich with the availability and advocacy of cigarettes. Billions of dollars have been spent by the tobacco companies over the past 60 years to modify the behavior of consumers. In fact, the popular cigarette slogan, "I'd walk a mile for a Camel," was written by the first American behaviorist, John B. Watson, who had lost his professorship at Johns Hopkins and ended up as an advertising executive at J. Walter Thompson in New York...
...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...