My colleague, a real genius, sent me a short treatise on emotion. She explained that emotions are by-products (collateral) of contingencies of punishment and reinforcement. She and I are both classical Skinnerian's. But she exceeded the boundaries of research and delved into the philosophy of behaviorism. She was extending it into our (educational peripheral professionals) relationships with educators (read teachers).
Her brilliant insights made it clear that we are behaving organisms too. How often we refuse to analyze the functions of our own patterns of behavior. What is it that I do that tells me what my motivations are in this life? Can I trace my actions to their source consequences and see if my reported motives are consistent with my real motives??
Now, there are a lot of mentalists (cognitivists) out there that report that Behaviorism is too shallow. It stops at the level of the body's contact with the world, and does not delve into the processes that physiology goes through to transform the outer world into and interpreted set of data which processes, and then acts upon, the stimuli. I do not deny the existence of a world hidden inside the skin, but I refuse to think that because it is out of view, that it is of a different nature from the world outside. I don't think Cognitivists have anything useful to offer. I think that neurologists and Physiologists will fill in the few blanks left by behavior analysis.
I often forget that emotions are often a clue as to what type of consequence I am delivering to teachers, parents, or any I professionally consult with. Tears, throat-clears, red-faces, etc., all tell me that I am introducing punishment of one type or another. Smiles, tears of pride, lighted eyes, etc. tell me that I am providing reinforcement. This type of thinking, on my part (yes thinking is behavior, it is just hard to observe unless I talk out-loud), has been beneficial just today. Circumstances during a meeting became heated with a defensive parent. I began to deliver hard facts followed by compliments and praise (sincere praise). The parents behavior began to change quickly and we ended the meeting on a very positive note.
Does it sound like I was manipulative? Well.. I was. You can't have a world in which you are not controlled by conditions. All one can do is change the controlling conditions. This leads me to "morality." There has been great debate about primary morality. Are there innate sets of behaviors which are "right" or "wrong?" As a behaviorist I have concluded that moral qualities are secondary. Actions & choices are not right or wrong, they are what they are. We attribute rightness or wrongness to conditions secondarily. The reason we all differ in what we call moral is that we make those attributions through a different set of fundamental rules (e.,g., God, mom & dad, experience, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Scripture, etc.). I propose an axiomatic set of rules by which all morality could be rationally judged. Here they are
1. If it helps self and harms other--- Refrain
2. If it harms self and helps other --- refrain
3. If it helps self and helps other --- do it
4. If it harms self and harms other ---- do its opposite
Now, I need to define harm and help, but that is going to take some more tweaking in my head. But if we could, as rule-seeking beings, adopt these fundamental rules I think it could make a solid foundation for a universal moral code. Is it humanism? Thank Baal that the holidays are coming. I need more time to ponder, and edit these thoughts.
Hap
2 comments:
I'm with you (I think) that cognitivists might lose track of actual behavior. And even I hear you that *eventually* all this will be explained by neuroligists and physiologists, but what do we do until then? That *eventually* is a big one and I think must do something until we get there; we must theorize, create metaphors, do everything we can to approximate what might be there. To me this is the genius of being human.
So, for me we need the cognitivist perspective to make in-roads; also the social-constructivists, and postmodernists. But maybe I'm seeing this all from my education/rhetoric perspective. I have to admit we used often used Skinner as a punching bag.
Still, to me behaviorism does oversimplify human motives and human connections. Though I assume Skinner's behaviorism has been replaced by a more complex and theoretcial model, I can't imagine how it would rival a social-constructivist perspective.
And I'm afraid you'll have to engage in these other theories in order to define "help" and "harm."
"...until we get there; we must theorize, create metaphors, do everything we can to approximate what might be there. To me this is the genius of being human."
Your insight is profound, my good man, as usual. However I must disagree with you on theorizing and "metaphorizing." I believe that these have been the fundamental stumbling blocks to progress in this area. Too many bad (a priori) theories have lead to very poor ends (read Freudian, Jungian dynamisms as an example). By creating the humunculus within the beast (id, ego, superego, conscious, selective unconscious, etc.) a of if "unlearning" has had to take place before a real useful understanding could take place.
As for metaphor and abstraction, the result has been the same (what the hell is the Id? Where does it exist in space? How does it act/function?). By "methaphorizing" my own field suffered years of regression into pseudo-science (it still suffers to this day).
So, my view, in the end is that approximating is too fraught with peril to have proven useful. It is, however, inarguably part of the process that has lead us to now.
I agree with Voltaire that it is far better not to know, than to pretend to understand by guessing.
Now, this doesn't make art any less moving to me, or my relationships less satisfying, just more honest for me. What do you think Ron??
HH
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