DYING SLOWLY WITH COMPASSION AND DIGNITY - A COMMENTARY

Fraley offers a provocative behavior-analytic perspective on the proce ss of slow death. I argue that the value of his insightful analysis is severely compromised by his insistence on equating behavioral compete nce with personal worth. Fraley errs by proclaiming that his philosoph y is science, that existing social practices are essential human attri butes, and that idiosyncratic reinforcing stimuli are universally func tional. Further, his philosophical tenet is fundamentally inconsistent with his genuinely humane goal of understanding and promoting protrac ted dying as a behavioral rather than metaphysical phenomenon.