Re: Beyond Freedom and Dignity: A Philosophical Review

On May 27, 10:59 am, Allan C Cybulskie <allan_c_cybuls...@xxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Allan:
One cannot ascribe any failure or any reasons or
any sort of blindness, idiocy, or stupidity to
people who are totally controlled by contingencies,

JC:
Actually I think you can ascribe blindness, idiocy,
or stupidity to people who are totally controlled
by contingencies, you just can't make them morally
responsible for that outcome.

Allan:
nor can one say that one set of behavior is "better"
than another; on what grounds would one make the comment?

JC:
On the ground of "better" being rewarding in some way.
A set of behaviors that give an outcome that results
in enhancement of a world with less painful elements
such as prison, war, starvation, unfairness and so on.

Allan:
That is as well produced by the contingencies. This
would reduce Skinner's view to simple determinism,
with all of the relevant issues and benefits.

JC:
Yes I think it does reduce to simple determinism.
A non determinate system makes no sense to me. It
can only produce nonsense by definition.

Allan:
Going the other way, though, has the potential to be
interesting. In order to differentiate it from the
idea that the contingencies just "influence" our
decisions but that we can still choose the precise
action we take -- which is the standard view of most
people who advocate for free will; no one argues that
past history + environment does not INFLUENCE our
decisions, as I have already said -- let us assign to
Skinner the view that the contingencies are the PRIMARY
factors in determining what we do, and that it is only
a minor factor that "choice" plays in them -- whatever
"choice" ends up being.

JC:
You mix up 'choice' at the end with 'free choice' in
the middle of the above. I would say choices, the
result of past history + current environment + internal
drives are the ONLY factor controlling the choices.

"Free" means not controlled by something else. "Free
will" is still determined but determined by the system
itself at the time. The actual choice is determined
by some internal source. Think about being 'free' from
prison. It is some internal choice that makes you
leave the prison. It is free in the sense there is
no outside force preventing it anymore. It is still
however determined by the nature of the person.

When you say 'free' ask yourself free from what?

What is free choice free from? When a chair moves
about the legs of the chair have limited degrees
of freedom. Snap off a leg and it is now free from
the rest of the chair. That is, its orientation
and motion are no longer determined by the rest
of the chair - but it is still determined. The
leg has been 'freed'. That is all it means.

Free choice means made by the system at the current
time it doesn't mean that the past, its internal
nature hasn't determined the actual choice.


Allan:
Then we can get responsibility assigned to the controller,
and can even argue that in those instances choice matters
more because of the behaviors they are engaging in; they
should "choose better" because of the importance of the
behaviors.

The flip-side of this is that the controlled also gets
some responsibility, since they have choice themselves
and can thus choose what they respond to, in a minor
way. Thus this has to be taken into account when
deciding how to control the controlled.

JC:
The notion here is moral responsibility. If P effects Q
was it a morally acceptable effect?




[...]

Allan:
So the lesson to take from the book is that it's time
for the behaviorists to put up or shut up. You've
talked a good line, but you have to show results and
show us that this is possible, especially if you want
to talk about empirical sciences or results in any way.
If you can't show us that it's possible, why should
we take you seriously?

JC:
I don't think they can apply behaviorist methodology
to the community as a whole unless they first convince
the community of their point of view.

Applying the principles of classical or instrumental
learning in practical situations is very limited and
the people involved have to be convinced that it is
what they want.

A previous poster to this forum wanted to reform prisons
to reduce the number of prisoners who returned to prison.
One problem, the problem, is he didn't have complete
control over the prison system and couldn't convince
others that his methods should be applied. They all no
doubt had their own agendas and those may have conflicted
with any reform. If you don't take into account vested
interests and other people's points of view no amount
of logic or reason will bring about change.

Behaviorist methods of control seem very limited and
demand often a change in the behavior of the controller.

Our family cat has some annoying habits which I know
are a result of the behavior of other members of the
family. I cannot change the behavior of the cat without
first changing the behavior of the other members of the
family. And that in turn may mean I have to change my
own behavior. All too much. I have better things to do.

Another dislike people have of behaviorists is those
attracted to the methodology seem to be cold hearted
uncaring people who just like to make other people
miserable by calling them idiots and so on. In order
to change others you must change yourself. And I guess
their response to that will be an uncaring I don't want
to change you I want to use you as an example of an
idiot for others to see. They are only interested in
thier needs not other people's needs.

If you can't change the behavior of a rat whack it
on the head and find a more compliant rat :)

When I read the biography of BF Skinner I had the
impression he didn't really understand people. Maybe
that is why he couldn't write novels even though he
was an excellent writer.

I think the philosophy of behaviorism or the practical
application of classical or instrumental learning are
very limited in how much control their application will
give to the applier. It is more a case not of using it
for control but understanding to what extent these
kinds of simple learning principles can be duplicated
in machines and understanding how they work internally.

--
JC

.

Relevant Pages

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