COMMENT.

In the article, the author comments on works of Professor O. Hobart Mowrer. Mowrer takes the position that what constitutes a social problem depends upon one's judgment as to what constitutes social welfare and that social welfare tends to be a subjective concept of an evaluative character. With this view there can be little disagreement except for the implication that there is wide variation of belief as to what constitute the goals to be sought by group endeavors. The author believes that nearly everyone recognizes as desirable social objectives the reduction in the frequency of poverty, crime, accidents, diseases, mental illness, slums and wars. He disagrees with Mowrer on the measures to be taken to achieve these social values and on the ways in which the sacrifices necessary to accomplish these ends are to be distributed among the various groups in the population. Mowrer has presented a theory in which values and subjective judgments do play an important role. To think of social welfare as other than evaluative in character seems to the author to be impossible since the very term welfare implies a judgment as to what is well for society.