ABSTRACT

Responsibility has to do with the relation of a person's behavior to his values. One could also include the kind of values to which the person subscribes. Values are closely related to ends or goals, but not all goals are values. Fixation on means: One can easily find in the activities of psychologists examples of a kind of "functional autonomy of motives," in which too narrow a focus on means leads to behavior that hardly advances the goal values toward which it is still presumably oriented. Means can become ends in the professional as well as the scientific aspect of psychology. Psychologists and other social scientists have helped to undermine the absolute standing of traditional, theologically supported ends and values. Token payments to conscience: One response that many of us make to value conflicts in science and profession as in personal life could be tagged as "token payments.".