Phl 303
Lecture 13: Critique of Skinner

Today's Lecture: Critique of Skinner

I. Skinner and Survival Value
II. The Cognitive Revolution

I. Skinner and Survival Value

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

Raises two questions:

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

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.

What are the criteria or principles that determine when a culture has survived?

2. Is survival value especially gripping, given behaviorism?

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

Possible confusion: 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.

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 group 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).

2. Confuses the nature of 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.

   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, ect.

II. Cognitive Revolution

Two scientific challenges to behaviorism:

1. 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.

The body is a non-linear, chaotic system.

The Butterfly Effect.

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.

2. Chomsky's linguistics

Representing human beings as computers (Turing machines).

Potentially infinite memories -- idealization.

Performance vs. competence.

Equivalent to: efficient vs. final causation.

Competence: what the mind is supposed to do.

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