Values and the Scientific Culture of Behavior Analysis Maria R
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The Behavior Analyst 2007, 30, 1–16 No. 1 (Spring) Values and the Scientific Culture of Behavior Analysis Maria R. Ruiz Rollins College Bryan Roche National University of Ireland, Maynooth As scientists and practitioners, behavior analysts must make frequent decisions that affect many lives. Scientific principles have been our guide as we work to promote effective action across a broad spectrum of cultural practices. Yet scientific principles alone may not be sufficient to guide our decision making in cases with potentially conflicting outcomes. In such cases, values function as guides to work through ethical conflicts. We will examine two ethical systems, radical behaviorism and functional contextualism, from which to consider the role of values in behavior analysis, and discuss potential concerns. Finally, we propose philosophical pragmatism, focusing on John Dewey’s notions of community and dialogue, as a tradition that can help behavior analysts to integrate talk about values and scientific practices in ethical decision making. Key words: functional contextualism, naturalistic ethics, pragmatism, radical behaviorism, values As scientists and practitioners, is in our best interest to have behavior analysts must make fre- a working understanding of ethical quent decisions that affect others. systems that support values-based Implicit in our practices are numer- decision making in behavior-analytic ous assumptions about the welfare of practices. To this end, we will con- those we serve and how to best ensure sider two separate philosophical ap- it. Our scientific tradition has yielded proaches to behavior-analytic science a powerful behavioral technology, each with its own ethically relevant and our fields of application are ever consequences. From there, we will expanding. In this tradition, scientific explore the relationship between val- principles have been our guide to best ues and scientific decision making practice. Yet scientific principles from the tenets in each case. Specif- alone may not be sufficient to guide ically, we will examine the reaches our decisions in situations with po- and limitations of both systems in tentially conflicting outcomes. In guiding decision making within situa- such cases, values function as guides tions involving value conflicts and to action and play a key role in ethical dilemmas. Finally, we will helping us work through ethical turn to philosophical pragmatism, quandaries. If it is true that operating focusing on the work of John Dewey, without a lucid set of guiding princi- as a tradition that may help behavior ples can bring about grave conse- analysts build a coherent knowledge quences (Prilleltensky, 1997), then it and ethical system. The first philosophical approach we This is an expanded version of a paper will discuss is B. F. Skinner’s radical presented in a symposium entitled Science and behaviorism, which has been the Human Values (M. R. Ruiz, chair) at the annual meeting of the Association for Behav- philosophical framework of behav- ior Analysis, in Boston, 2004. The first author ior-analytic science for over 60 years. thanks Margaret McLaren of the philosophy In his treatment of values, Skinner department at Rollins College for insights and dismisses the distinctions made by engaging conversation on John Dewey. Address correspondence to Maria R. Ruiz, many philosophers between values Department of Psychology, Rollins College, and facts. In Skinner’s naturalistic 1000 Holt Ave., Winter Park, Florida 32789. ethics, survival emerges as the ulti- 1 2 MARIA R. RUIZ & BRYAN ROCHE mate value and criterion by which to Machiavellian and contextualistic assess the worth of cultures and pragmatism and discuss moral con- individual cultural practices. This siderations that may limit the adequa- leads to a question of practical im- cy of contextualism in guiding scien- portance, that is, can Skinner’s ethical tific decision making in difficult cases. system provide a guide to action for The potential confluence of values scientists, particularly in situations and scientific decision making can be with potentially conflicting outcomes? clearly depicted with a case study We review the work of two critics from feminist science. One defining from within our own field who argue aspect of feminist science is its un- that Skinner’s system cannot provide derstanding of scientific activity as adequate guidelines for resolving eth- political activity, and its willingness ical problems. Staddon (2004) con- to explicitly allow political values to siders research on smoking to illus- help guide choices when faced with trate and argues that Skinner’s system conflict situations. We discuss the requires science to function beyond its work of biologists Longino and Doell scope, making it unworkable. Zuriff (1983) to illustrate how values may be (1987), on the other hand, takes issue used as guides to action in scientific with Skinner’s construction of values decision making when they are made and concludes that his naturalistic explicit, and scientific knowing is ethics cannot adequately justify sur- conceived as participating in a social vivability as a criterion to resolve context. This case study will lead to ethical problems. the final section of the paper in which Next we review contextualism, we consider the philosophical prag- a philosophical framework originally matism of Dewey, whose work we proposed by Pepper (1942) and ad- believe is particularly relevant for our vanced as a worldview for behavior behavior-analytic community. For analysis by Hayes (1993). It is within example, Dewey’s approach to rela- this philosophical framework that re- tivism and pragmatic truth, his re- lational frame theory (RFT) (Hayes, liance on scientific knowing, and his Barnes-Holmes, & Roche, 2001) has orienting assumptions about commu- emerged as an increasingly popular nity and the communal aspects of functional analytic account of lan- inquiry can enrich our own discus- guage and cognitive phenomena. sions concerning the criteria we will Within contextualism the personal use to develop ethical principles for values of the scientist are considered ourselves. What we need, we believe, to be the basis for the development of is serious and open dialogue on how scientific goals. Furthermore, person- we, as a community, can make valued al values are indefensible and entitled ethical decisions and use them as to remain private, and pragmatic guides to scientific action. truth is established when the scientist’s analytic goals are reached. In conflict RADICAL BEHAVIORISM situations, therefore, the fulfillment of the scientist’s value-based personal B. F. Skinner’s treatment of values goals is the criterion by which to begins with an observation about assess the worth of the scientific verbal behavior. Skinner (1971) tells practice. The scientist, in turn, is not us that ‘‘What a given group calls in principle accountable to others in [italics added] ‘good’ is a fact: It is the scientific or broader community. what members of the group find This explicit stance on the scientist’s reinforcing’’ (p. 122). Moreover, he accountability is reminiscent of the suggests that the ‘‘reinforcers that form of pragmatism developed by appear in the contingencies [of a cul- Machiavelli (1515/1947). Thus, we ture] are its ‘values’ ’’ (p. 121). Thus, will consider some parallels between ‘‘any list of values is a list of re- VALUES SCIENCE AND BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS 3 inforcers’’ (1956, p. 35). The items on does not depend upon the prior choice of any a list of values can be classified under value. (1953, p. 432). three headings: personal good, owing Thus, survival is a measure of effective to our biological susceptibility and action taken by a culture. In effect, genetic endowment; the good of Skinner applies a pragmatic truth others, derived from social reinforce- ment for positive social behavior; and criterion to assess a culture’s worth. the good of the culture, and the So, for example, we may say that measures the culture uses to induce a liberal democracy and an Islamic its members to work for its survival. theocracy are both examples of sur- At the center of B. F. Skinner’s vival-worthy cultures due to cultural (1956) analysis of values is his asser- practices that have collectively led to tion that survival emerges as the effective action in each case. Some ultimate value by which to assess may want to argue that the effective the worth of a culture. Survival is the cultural practices that one or both of ‘‘ultimate criterion’’ (p. 36), and he these forms of government rely on for compares the evolution of a culture survival are undesirable, in the same with that of a species. Skinner (1971) sense that slavery is undesirable. Such described it this way: concerns, however true, are irrelevant if the criterion of goodness is the A culture corresponds to a species. We Skinnerian one: ‘‘A culture which for describe it by listing many of its practices, as any reason induces its members to we describe a species by listing many of its work for its survival is more likely to anatomical features. Two or more cultures survive’’ (1971, p. 137). He recognizes may share a practice, as two or more species this position as cultural relativism and may share an anatomical feature. The prac- tices of a culture, like the characteristics of spells out its implications that ‘‘Each a species, are carried by its members, who culture has its own set of goods, and transmit them to other members. … A culture, what is good in one culture may not like