My web site is dedicated to all students of values and morals (philosophical and religious axiology), and especially those with an interest in the more rigorous and scientific study of values and morals (empirical axiological science); destined to enrich today's positive psychology, the social sciences, the world's religions, moral education, health care, spirituality and transcendental consciousness at the core of all religions. My textbook, and the following discussions, involve the precision language, and technical considerations, common to any science and our emerging axiological science is no different. In the meantime I am working on a book that simplifies my work for a general audience. 

Now I  plunge into sharing my work; but, I ask for your forgiveness; for, I have not taken the time to "popularize" my work or cast it in the simplest language possible. As a consequence you will find me guilty of "shop talk" or "techno-speak" at times; which I promise to remedy in the future.

Among the many applications of our emerging axiological science is its focus on the the moral dimensions of preventive psychology and preventive medicine. Armed with axiological science I explore the concept of "moral insanity" and examine its relationship to "clinical insanity" diagnosed and treated by those in my profession of psychology. I suppose I should define what I mean by "insanity." I take the term to mean a significant shift from pro-self, pro-social behavior to anti-self, anti-social behavior.    

My new discipline of Axiological Psychology (the foremost application of a paradigm shift called axiological science) begins with the premise that brain is not mind. This must be clearly stated these days given the rise of of neuroscience and brain imaging. Let us distinguish between axiological "mind-disease" and molecular "brain-disease." Clearly, there can be no "twisted molecule" for every "twisted thought," as was asserted in the "biological age of the 1950s," and "neuroscience age" of today some fifty years later. Such ideological, psychological and philosophical pendulums are always swinging in the zeitgeist (i.e., collective or mass-mind) as psychology attempts to escape the limitations of a pre-scientific discipline it can never escape until the field becomes grounded in a precision and empirical science of values and morals unfolding in the pages of my textbook. 

We now have a second science of values (axiological science) to compliment our existing science of facts (natural science) fulfilling the need to scientifically recognize values in a world of facts where values and facts are separate realities demanding their own science. I call the integration of axiological science and natural science Multipolar Science as distinguished from historic Monopolar Science.

The asymmetrical evolution of natural science without value science in the last five hundred years seeded humanity with tragically flawed civilizations favoring the rise of intellectual fanaticism, ideological fanaticism and various forms of nationalistic and religious fascism; all leading to endless wars and desperate acts of terrorism by medieval canaries gulping for air as they choke on alienation, population densities, the shattering polarization of haves and have-nots, and personal identity crises. The asymmetrical evolution of a fact science, without a value science gives rise to our tragically flawed civilizations and their discontents increasingly looking to terrorism as an answer to what ails civilization and them. 

The applications and implications of my work span a broad range of topics from behavioral and personality testing to understanding what ails societies and their discontents. My work establishes grounds for compulsory moral education in our schools, grounds for a preventive psychology, and grounds for diagnosing and treating sick societies and not just sick patients. The role of values and morals in our lives gives the perspective to discuss a wide range of topics affecting the human condition. 

My work focuses on mind which is not brain in an age of high tech brain research and low tech mind research; at least until the publication of "The New Science of Axiological Psychology" which changes everything. I do so by systematically transforming the mathematical model of values and morals proposed by a little known philosopher (Robert S. Hartman) into an empirical empirical science of values I call the Pomeroy-Hartman Synthesis in the field of cognitive psychology. Hubris earned, but aside, what unfolds in the pages of my book amounts to an intellectual revolution and historic paradigm shift having profound implications for humankind, at the edge of an evolutionary cliff, in the 21st century!      

Axiological psychology provides a scientific foundation for the expansion of psychology (cognitive science and positive psychology) in the 21st century. It also is ground for the rejection of psychoanalysis which has significantly undermined the moral fabric of civilizations and societies the world over. 

My work clears a path for the scientific study of the laws of human nature (not to be confused with the laws of nature revealed by historic natural science) employing axiological science as revealed in the pages of "The New Science of Axiological Psychology." My book marks the birth of Multipolar Science in a world flush with run away-natural science (i.e., Monopolar Science) without moral science checks and balances while offering hope to civilization and its discontents. 

The scope of axiological psychology is broad and sweeping given the universality of values in the affairs of humankind ranging from the pursuit of vital-absorbing interests,  to the search for meaning and transcendental consciousness captured by the world's great religions.  

Advances in the field of axiological science especially informs a growing interest in positive psychology and gives humankind a second science I call Multipolar Science as distinguished from historic Monopolar Science. This is a big deal because there are values in the world of facts and Monopolar Science only provides a material science of facts and factual brains are not axiological minds.   

Our finding establishing axiological science and psychology is a big deal extending far beyond psychology as we live in an age of "run-away" natural science and technology without moral science checks and balances. The asymmetrical evolution of natural sciences, like astronomy and chemistry, from natural philosophies, like astrology and alchemy, without the co-evolution of moral science from moral philosophy, is the tragic flaw in the character of civilizations; especially Western Civilizations these days. This structural asymmetry breeds wars and only 8% of our history is without war. It breeds a new fascism wearing the masks of religious fanaticism, and other isms, along pop cultural trends, manifest youth violence, alienation, and other acts of incivility. Without a moral compass grounded in moral science, and science-based moral education, we are a leaky boat on the rough sea of rising population densities, the unsettled economics of globalization, the spread of atomic weapons, material and energy resources, and so forth.     

Copyright © 2000-2008 Behavioral Axiology™     

                         Last Updated: 09/08/08                               

    This web site is about me and my work advancing a new paradigm, a new way of thinking, in the field of psychology and all the social sciences. This new paradigm concerns issues ranging from psychology to war and peace because values cut across all levels of human behavior. My book summarizes many years  investigating the nature of values and morals as basic to understanding the nature of human nature; and as some suggest, the nature of good and evil. My book launches for the first time an empirical science of values and morals (axiological science) with axiological psychology as its foremost application. It is a textbook (heavy reading) covering my approach to values in a world of facts: a book that summarizes data transforming Hartman's theory of values into an empirical science of values. Philosopher Hartman was nominated for the Nobel Prize in its day. Perhaps one day the Pomeroy-Hartman Synthesis will receive further consideration in this regard? Time and others will decide? Meanwhile, unfolding in the pages of my book are seeds for the reconstruction of psychology around a values having profound implications for humanity in  the 21st century. The title of my book is misleading given the universality of values and morals in our lives and their role as building blocks of thinking, ideologies, purpose, search for meaning, and the transcendental consciousness at the core of the world's great religions. Our deeper understanding of the laws of human nature (basically axiological laws, as distinguished from the laws of nature, which are basically physical laws) promises to help us balance the rights of individuals and the rights of collectives in the future. It is here that tension has triggered wars throughout human history 92% of the time. Without a science of values, in our world of facts, humankind has kept the peace only 8% of the time due to this asymmetrical evolution of natural science and technology, without moral science checks and balances, now contributing to the phenomena of domestic and international terrorism! 

As the author of the paradigm shift unfolding in the pages of "The New Science of Axiological Psychology," permit me to further introduce myself as a scientist-clinician with publications in such prestigious journals as the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA," and "Journal of Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology." Unlike many who have published research findings in such journals I am also a licensed clinical psychologist with many years of private practice on Manhattan's Upper East Side, as well as having served for some thirty years as a Senior Staff Psychologist and Chief of Behavioral Medicine at the Harbor View Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center at Brooklyn, New York. My work concerns the advancement of a science of values and morals as a foundation for tomorrow's positive psychology and cognitive science today.

My work also includes having published, in collaboration with world renown psychoanalyst  Benjamin Wolman, Ph.D., the "Handbook of General Psychology;" widely read as a resource in the education of graduate students for many years. I also served as Editor-in-Chief of the "Journal of the International Academy Preventive Medicine" in the days when preventive medicine was being advanced by a small group of progressive physicians and scientists around the world; some of whom were persecuted by local medial societies and government agencies at the time. I was fortunate to have participated in the founding of the world's first international preventive medicine society for physicians and scientists in collaboration with Nobel Prize winning Linus Pauling, Ph.D. and world renown biochemist R. J. Williams, who is remembered for having contributed to the discovery of more vitamins than any other scientist in the world. My mentor Williams is also remembered for his book entitled "Biochemical Individuality" which sounds a cautionary note concerning the use of population statistics in medicine which obscure the metabolic and biochemical individuality and uniqueness of patients. I was elected the first Ph.D. president of this medical association and chosen to serve as its Founding Editor-in-Chief of publications including a five volume series entitled "New Dynamics of Preventive Medicine." Our work contributed to the founding of a preventive medicine section to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to changes in state laws giving citizens the freedom of choice in health care, to an act of congress which established a committee looking into preventive medicine practices. 

I graduated with a Ph.D. in psychology from UT Austin after having earned an advance degree in biology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst; after which I served as Associate Professor in the recently organized clinical psychology doctoral program of Long Island University under Chairman Gustav Gilbert, Former Chief Psychologist, Nuremberg Trials and the author of "The Psychology of Dictatorship," among other books. Gilbert has served as Chief Psychologist at the Nuremberg Trials. It was during those years that I collaborated with world renown psychoanalyst, author, and friend of Federico Fellini, Benjamin Wolman, Ph.D. My association with Gilbert and Wolman inspired my interest in World War II which was deepened during my many years working with World War II Veterans and Former Prisoner's of War. 

Upon my retirement from private practice and the VA Medical Center in New York I spent five years at Lunenburg, Massachusetts where I wrote my book based on research funded by resources derived from my Manhattan private practice. On completing this book I moved to Northern Virginia where I currently live and practice as a clinical psychologist, write, and serve as an Adjunct Professor on the faculty of George Mason University. 

My youth was spent as the eldest son of a New England Dairy Farmer where books and the pursuit of knowledge was highly valued. My interdisciplinary doctoral dissertation at the University of Texas at Austin involved the academic departments of psychology, computer science, biochemistry, especially the Clayton Foundation Biochemical Institute, and Electrical Engineering and especially biomedical  Engineering. Arriving Manhattan I rejected psychoanalysis for the emerging field of cognitive psychology theory and practice and while a professor of psychology completed a clinical post doctoral internship at the Ellis Institute in Manhattan. This background found expression in my role as a scientist-clinician in my field and in time I found what I was looking for in the field of values research in the writings of a little known philosopher by the name of Robert S. Hartman, Ph.D. I then found myself a psychologist again reaching across disciplines to the field of philosophy for answers to questions concerning the structure of values and thought styles on the one hand and patient compliance in the practice of preventive medicine on the other.  Allow me to explain: often our IAPM physicians found their patients failing to apply what they had learned even where their health and well being were concerned. It seemed to me that medicine had become the fastest growing failing business in the world in part because of attitudes (vices) of entitlement, hedonism, and magical thinking instead of attitudes (virtues) of self-reliance and rational health choices ought to rule. It occurred to me that the doctor-patient relationship needed help; the help of a society that rewards the virtues of self-reliance and rational health choices (carrots) and punishes the vices of entitlement thinking and pure hedonism and that what is needed is moral education beginning in the elementary and secondary schools as a foundation for striking a better balance between what's best for the individual and what's best for the collective. Changing 3R Education to 4R Education (consisting of reading, writing, arithmetic, and rational moral education grounded in science) requires the advancement of a science of values and morals of the sort that unfolds in the pages of my book. .   

Out of my work evolves new thinking in science; indeed, the advancement of a second science to compliment historic natural science. That science science is axiological science and its integration with natural science I call Multipolar Science; to be distinguished from historic Monopolar Science in keeping with the fact that there are values in the world of facts and that one science doesn't cover both domains of reality.  

I then carry my work one step further and propose the existence of a dynamic I call  "moral insanity," which admits to degree, and which evolves into the "clinical insanities" diagnosed and treated by psychologists. I further argue that moral education is preventive psychology analogous to historic preventive medicine. Now you have a sense of the the controversial nature of my work and how it amounts to a revolutionary paradigm shift in the field of psychology; serving as a model for all the social sciences. 

Copyright © 2000-2008 Behavioral Axiology™     

                         Last Updated: 09/08/08                                 

Without a science of value (i.e., axiological science and psychology unfolding in the pages of "The New Science of Axiological Psychology") we face the following:  1. no science of mind; even as we continue to advance a science of brain, 2. no science of psychology, 3. no social science which will persist as a pre-scientific discipline without axiological science foundations, 4. no recovery from the plague of postmodern moral relativism and half-smart social constructionism (See Following Q&A), 5. no demystification of good and evil in the 21st century, 6. no deeper appreciation, understanding or development of transcendental values, 7. no common ground for international law in an age of globalization, 8. no moral education in an age of moral obtuseness and confusion, 9. no exploration of or appreciation of the relationship between "moral insanity" and "clinical insanity," 10. no elegant, moral, safe or effective defense of civilization against terrorism in the 21st century, 11. no resolution to the problem of psychology and medicine as the fastest growing, failing businesses in the world, and so forth!          

This textbook is written for college students, the expanding community of basic and applied axiological scientists, and those with a special interest in a scientific approach to the study of values and morals in today's world. Sections of the book are easily read; while other sections are highly technical. The enormous implications for the wider world are noted but not developed. The author hopes to complete a book essentializing and "popularizing" (without dumbing down) the revolutionary findings unfolding in the pages of this text. In the meantime, remarks on these web pages, and an informative book review at amazon.com must suffice. 

 Background Links    Published Research in PNAS     Published Research in PNAS    Book Information    Book Information     Book Information   Former Editor of Medical Books    Former Medical Journal Editor-in-Chief   Recommending Dr. Leon Pomeroy, Clinical Psychologist, Private Practice in Northern Virginia

Seven Reasons Why the Publication of  "The New Science of Axiological Psychology" is a Big Deal...With Implications Beyond Psychology and the Social Sciences:   

Copyright© 2000-2008 Behavioral Axiology™     

         Last Updated: 09/08/08            

1. It is the fulfillment of the modern project of grounding values and morals in empirical science for the first time in recorded history.

2. It grounds psychology in an empirical science of values and morals; which in turn serves as a model for all social sciences, including medical ethics, in the 21st century.  

3. It speaks to the question of how to organize good to fight evil given history teaches it is so much easier to organize evil than good in the world.  

4. It marks the decline and fall of historic Monopolar Science and the rise of Multipolar Science. This is a big deal in itself for we face values in a world of facts with only a science of facts. It is a tragic accident of history that ancient wisdom and modern knowledge (note how we customarily use the expression "ancient wisdom," but never the expression "modern wisdom?" What does this tell us about ourselves?) have failed to give humankind a much needed science of values. Values and Facts cannot be studied with our one science, our science of facts, natural science born some four hundred years ago in the works of Galileo and then Newton. Natural science is totally "blind" to values and therefore largely "blind" to Mind even though it "sees" the Brain, so to speak. This is so because the nature of Mind is axiological and not molecular. The new science capable of knowing values and morals was born with the convergence of psychological and philosophical thought unfolding in the pages of "The New Science of Axiological Psychology" and known as the Pomeroy-Hartman Synthesis in the field of Ellisonian Cognitive Psychology. The result is Multipolar Science representing the integration of historic natural (material) science with emerging axiological (value) science. With Multipolar Science humankind enters a New Enlightenment capable of understanding values and morals, in a world of facts for the first time in recorded history. With this "wind in our sails" the 21st Century promises to become a New Age of Reason or American Enlightenment to be distinguished from what historians have identified as the 18th Century Age of Reason or European Enlightenment. 

5. My book offers the promise of moral education as tomorrow's preventive psychology today where my thesis is that "moral insanity" evolves into "clinical insanity" where "insanity is defined as anti-self, anti-social as distinguished from pro-self, pro-social behavior. My book argues for societal sponsorship of carrot and stick policies supporting the virtues of self-reliance and rational health choices as basic to any preventive psychology or preventive medicine program in a world where psychology and medicine are the fastest growing failing business in the world!  preventive psychology today where my thesis is that "moral insanity" evolves into "clinical insanity" where "insanity is defined as anti-self, anti-social as distinguished from pro-self, pro-social behavior. My book argues for societal sponsorship of carrot and stick policies supporting the virtues of self-reliance and rational health choices as basic to any preventive psychology or preventive medicine program in a world where psychology and medicine are the fastest growing failing business in the world! 

6. It introduces the basic science of transcendental values and mysticism which are the building blocks of spirituality, faith, and the world's organized religions.   

7. It provides a scientific foundation for culture-free, religiously-neutral, moral education without which societies, civilizations, and their historic discontents cannot hope to flourish much less survive. Consider how the rising tide of youth violence, popular cultural decadence, alienation, moral obtuseness and confusion renders the obvious inescapable. 

We must respond now! But How? We must break away from science as we know it, without rejecting historic natural science as we know it, and turn to a second science, the new science of values and morals to build programs of moral education in our schools. Better yet, we need to integrate this second science of values with our historic science of facts producing Multipolar Science and with it address the dangers of the  diffusion of responsibility, moral relativity, and alienation epidemic in today's postmodern world where notions of social construction often bind us to natural laws given by the selective pressures of biosocial and psychosocial evolution. Laws that influence our values and morals, just as they influence logic and mathematics, laws postmodernists have lost sight of, laws of human nature revealed by axiological science and its foremost application axiological psychology.  

My discussion of axiological psychology is a work in progress. It is continued elsewhere on this web site.   Links: Gallery  History  Discussion  Technical  Tool-Box  Resum