Re: Channel 4 documentary

In message <pe5322h1jt47q1gmueob6b2mdjjkcpucq2@xxxxxxx>
Alec Brady <alec.brady@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The principle of double effect[1] would suggest that - for a smack to
be morally acceptible - either the pain is not in itself an evil (a
position I would be sympathetic to) or the pain must not be the cause
of the benefits produced by a smack. Your position (iiuc) seems merely
utilitarian, a kind of family realpolitik - the pain does produce the
good effect, but that's ok because you can do a little evil to achieve
a greater good.

Hmmmm. I recall someone arguing that the Fall was necessary because unless
we had experienced suffering we could never really be happy (defined as the
absence of suffering)!

I don't agree with the above, but it does seem to be true that learning is
facilitated by pain of some sort, whether physical or emotional. Whether
animals or humans, we only alter our behaviour if the perceived benefits
outweigh the perceived pain. In some things - like coming promptly when
Mummy calls for dinner - the benefit is pretty obvious. In other things the
benefit is not so obvious - such as eating the spinach in that dinner. In
such a case the teacher (parent) may need to supply another motive.

The options are to increase the reward or to threaten pain. Let's look at
some of the options.

1. Don't force the child to eat spinach. Is malnutrition and long-term
health disadvantages really less pain than a quick smack?

2. Offer the child chocolate if he eats up. Is dental problems and obesity
really less pain than a quick smack?

You will doubtless object that there are other options available which do
not suffer from these disadvantages and in the case of spinach that is true.
There are other situations, however, where alternative options are not so
easy to find. More importantly, positive reinforcement, as the second option
is called, suffers from the problem that eventually the rewards run out. If
you've already given your child a colour TV in his bedroom, a Nintendo and a
car with free petrol and insurance, what are you going to do next?

If you bring up a child to believe that nothing bad will ever happen to him
or should ever happen, no matter what he does, he is going to come a cropper
when he finds that society *does* have prisons and punishments. The result
will be a sense of grievance against authority and further acts of defiance
and rebellion.

God bless,
Kendall K. Down

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