Skinner's Behaviorism

1. Skinner's Behaviorism • I. Behaviorism as a version of Physicalism • II. Implications for Education and Government • III. Skinner's Theory of Value

2. Three Theories of the Mind • Hylomorphism (Aristotle, Aquinas) • Dualism (Descartes) • Physicalism (Hobbes, Skinner) • Eliminationism • Reductionism

3. Problems with Reduction: #3 • 3. The problem of multiple realizability. • The same mental state could be realized by infinitely many different physical states. • The same belief can be shared by people whose brains are quite different, even by creatures of different species. • Even -- aliens who are silicon-based, or androids with electronic brains.

4. Connection between #1 & #3 • This is a characteristic feature of teleological states: the same end can be achieved by infinitely many different means. • Screwdrivers can be made of many different materials, in many different shapes or forms (power vs. manual). • More than 30 different kinds of eyes in nature.

5. Problem #4: Qualities of Conscious Experience • Consciousness seems to involve certain qualities (called “qualia”, singular “quale”), like the feeling of pain or the appearance of colors, that cannot be reduced to physical properties. • Possibility of zombies, color-spectrum inversions. Undetectable by behavior, interaction with environment, brain states.

6. Behaviorism as a Version of Physicalism • Early version of physicalism: stimulus response model. • Build a simple, 2-column table: inputs in first column, outputs in second.

7. Operant conditioning • Includes a kind of "memory" of past experience. • Possibility of positive and negative reinforcement. • X is a positive reinforcement of behavior Y if and only if the association of X with Y makes the repetition of Y more likely.

8. Human beings are finite automata. • Represent by a more complicated table. • Rows: possible inputs (environmental conditions). • Columns: possible internal states. • In each square, we put two things: • 1. The output, behavior produced. • 2. The new internal state into which the subject is transformed.

9. Everything is finite • finitely many inputs (conditions to which the subject is potentially sensitive) • finitely many internal states • finitely many possible behaviors.

10. III. Implications of Behaviorism for Education and Government • A. Education -- especially moral, character education. • Classical (teleological) view: there is a fundamental distinction between manipulation and education.

11. Education (on classical view) • Assists and nurtures natural development of moral sense, character • •Goal: teachers initiate learners into a state to which they have already attained (maturity, wisdom).

12. Manipulation (on classical view) • Circumvents or overrides natural functions, development. • Goal: to modify students' behavior for the good of society, without reference to the current state of the teachers.

13. Education vs. Manipulation • On the behaviorist view: this distinction is empty. All so-called education is merely a form of manipulation (behavior control). • There is no natural development, "no unfolding of a pre-determined pattern" (p. 89)

14. Government • On classical view, individual liberty is an important goal: • In order to attain happiness, each individual needs opportunities to exercise and develop virtue & practical wisdom. • This necessitates a sphere of private sovereignty.

15. Distinction: liberty & license • One has no right to do what is inherently vicious -- e.g., to murder, enslave or dominate another. • When law prohibits such vicious acts, no liberty is lost.

16. Contrast: Hobbes & Rousseau • Held that every law is a restriction of liberty. • Perfect liberty is possible only in the state of nature (anarchy).

17. Skinner: there is no such thing as liberty • So, no law, regulation or social control involves a loss of "liberty". Liberty is not an intelligible social goal. • Why not? Skinner denies the existence of choice, and of virtue. These are mythical components of happiness.

18. Persuasion vs. Manipulation • On the classical view, the state is a partnership, based on mutual respect, and the use of persuasion, not coercion or manipulation.

19. Persuasion: speech that engages the faculties of the rational mind, assisting them to function properly in reaching a reasonable conclusion. • Manipulation (misuse of rhetoric): speech that seeks to circumvent or override the faculties of the rational mind (through the exploitation of weaknesses and biases), causing them to function improperly and form an unreasonable conclusion.

20. Skinner’s rejection of this contrast • Skinner denies the validity of the persuasion/manipulation distinction. • He denies the existence of such inner faculties, and of the distinction of proper/improper functioning.

21. Who controls the controllers? • Skinner argues that there "should" be reciprocity between controllers and controlled, effective measures of "counter-conntrol". (p. 169) • However, he gives no reason why this should be so. Nor does he explain when efforts at counter-control are proper and when they are merely the result of neurotic attachment to "freedom".

22. If the controller has the proper goals, why shouldn't his power be absolute? • Can there be effective countercontrol, when the controller is acting benevolently? No rational basis for objection. Result: the nanny state. (Hillaire Belloc, The Servile State).

23. Skinner's Theory of Value • Definition: • Good things are positive reinforcers. • A positive reinforcer is a consequence of behavior that makes the behavior more likely to recur.

24. Relativism • Immediate consequence: radical relativism. • What is good for you may not be good for me. • What reinforces us depends not only on genetic endowment, but also on "training" by environment. Both vary from person to person.

25. Optimism? • The best things are those consequences that most effectively reinforce behavior. • In the long run and for the most part, the most effective reinforcers must succeed in reinforcing. • Consequently, most people behave so as to produce the most effective reinforcers.

26. Absurd consequences? • This means that most people enjoy the best possible life (given Skinner's definition of the best). • E.g., addicts enjoy the life that is best for them, since their behavior is under the control of the most powerful reinforcers.

27. Ditto for serial killers, who are most effectively reinforced by the thrill of violence. • Consequence: fatalism or quietism. This is already the best possible world.

28. Can Skinner respond? • We want to say at most: that people enjoy the best possible life, given their circumstances. • But, what reinforces whom is always relative to circumstances. • So, can Skinner give an account of which circumstances are best?

29. Skinner and Survival Value • Skinner adopts survival value as the ultimate value. • The survival of one's "culture".

30. Raises two questions: • 1. The survival of what exactly? • 2. What makes survival of the culture/species an especially gripping value, given behaviorism?

31. 1. The survival of what? • If we modify our culture radically through behavior modification our genes through genetic engineering, what survives the process? • Analogy: in Vietnam, "to save the village, we had to destroy it." • Are we ensuring the survival of our culture, or are we ensuring its extinction and replacement? Ditto for our species.

32. 2. Is survival value especially gripping, given behaviorism? • Apparently not -- depends on what happens to reinforce Skinner, due to historical accidents.

33. Possible confusion We might think the following: • If natural selection is the ultimate cause of human morality, then the survival of the species (or one's "culture") is the highest moral value.

34. Two problems: • 1. This depends on a very dubious theory of group selection. • According to the consensus of biologists, natural selection does not favor behavior that benefits the whole species at the expense of the individual's genes. • So, natural selection would not tend to give human beings an overriding concern for the welfare of the species (or of any other large group, like the culture).

35. 2. Confuses the relationship between natural selection and moral values. • Any concern for the welfare of humanity is a product of a "high" morality (in Darwin's sense), which is in turn the by-product of other, more fundamental adaptations. • But, within the sphere of "high" morality, a concern for the welfare of humanity depends on a belief that humanity is worthy, deserving of survival.

36. From the perspective of morality: • Mere survival of the species is not the ultimate end -- it is merely a means to the perpetuation of other values, such as the perpetuation of love, dignity, friendship, science, art, etc.

37. The Cognitive Revolution Two scientific challenges to behaviorism: • Chaos theory • Chomsky’s linguistics

38. Chaos theory • The physical attributes of the human body are capable of infinite variation: vary continuously along a spectrum. • To represent the body as a finite automaton, we must assume that states that vary only slightly differ only slightly in their effects. • This is true only for linear (non-chaotic) systems.

39. The body is a non-linear, chaotic system. • The Butterfly Effect: small, imperceptible differences in input can make massive differences in output. • It's not surprising that it's easier to put a man on the moon than to teach a classroom full of children to read.

40. Chomsky's linguistics • Representing human beings as computers (Turing machines), not finite automata. • Potentially infinite memories -- idealization. • Performance vs. competence. • Equivalent to: efficient vs. final causation. • Competence: what the mind is supposed to do.