Dying slowly with compassion and dignity: A commentary.

Rakos (1998) writes a short, sharp reply to Fraley’s end-of-life paper.

He says Fraley mixes science with philosophy when he links ‘competence’ to ‘human worth’.

The piece is pure theory—no new data, just a logic check aimed at practicing behavior analysts.

The author finds a hidden value judgment: saying ‘more skills = more dignity’ is a moral claim, not a behavioral one.

Once that slip is spotted, the whole argument for ‘letting incompetent people die’ loses its scientific cover.

Davison et al. (2003) show the same flaw in language theory—Michael and Malott spot places where Skinner’s words and later accounts talk past each other.

Hatton et al. (2004) flip the script: they defend Relational Frame Theory against critics, proving behavior analysts can argue without sneaking in moral math.

Palmer (2023) keeps the discussion alive by giving grammar a clean behavioral reading, showing we can tackle tough topics without dragging in worth scores.

When you write goals or give feedback, watch for hidden value words like ‘higher functioning’ or ‘more worthy.’ Swap them for measurable behavior and keep your clinical ethics clean.