Skinner's Behaviorism

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Skinner's Behaviorism

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

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Three Theories of the Mind

• Hylomorphism (Aristotle, Aquinas)
• Dualism (Descartes)
• Physicalism (Hobbes, Skinner)
• Eliminationism
• Reductionism

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Everything is finite

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

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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)

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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.

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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.

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Contrast Hobbes Rousseau

• Held that every law is a restriction of liberty.
  
• Perfect liberty is possible only in the state of
  nature (anarchy).

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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.

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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.

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• 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.

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Skinners 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".

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• 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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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• 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.

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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?

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Skinner and Survival Value

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

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Raises two questions

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

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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.

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2. Is survival value especially gripping, given
behaviorism?

• Apparently not -- depends on what happens to
  reinforce Skinner, due to historical accidents.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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The Cognitive Revolution

• Two scientific challenges to behaviorism
• Chaos theory
• Chomskys linguistics

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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.

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• 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.

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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.