Abstract

In his spirited "Faith and Goodness" (this issue), John Staddon says that my defense of B. F. Skinner's definition of the good—as what has the potential to reinforce desire for it—overlooks the fact that people sometimes desire the wrong things. Staddon appears to agree with G. E. Moore that the good should, rather, be equated with what is worthy of being desired, so ought to be desired, whether it ever is desired or not. But since there is no objective test of worthiness, Moore's ought can only mean "I, and folk like me, desire that others desire what we desire that they desire."¹ When the talk is of values, there is no getting away from desires.²