Behavior Analysis and the Good Life

Henry D. Schlinger, Jr.

Keywords: behavior analysis, Aristotle, good life, B. I further argued that the main reason psychol- F. Skinner ogy has made such little progress is its continued For this reason also the question is asked, whether hap- emphasis on mental or cognitive events; in other piness is to be acquired by learning or by habituation or words, psychology has not escaped the philosophi- some other sort of training, or comes in virtue of some cal dualism from which it sprung. Additionally, divine providence or again by chance. Now if there is psychology has relied on research methods that any gift of the gods to men, it is reasonable that hap- have precluded the discovery of cause-and-effect piness should be god-given, and most surely god-given relations, which are necessary for technological of all human things inasmuch as it is the best. But this innovation and application. question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry; happiness seems, however, even if it is not god- A notable exception to psychology’s failure sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process to become a science, and one that can claim to of learning or training, to be among the most god-like have significantly improved the lives of humans things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue by offering practical solutions to behavioral seems to be the best thing in the world, and something problems, is the discipline of behavior analysis. godlike and blessed. (Aristotle 350 BCE) Furman and Tuminello (2015) argue specifically that the applied branch of behavior analysis—ap- plied behavior analysis (ABA)—has enabled some people diagnosed with autism to recover and, atural scientists (i.e., physicists, thus, to flourish in Aristotelian terms. I would go chemists, and biologists) can claim to further and suggest that ABA has enabled a much have contributed significantly to the im- N wider range of individuals to flourish by reducing provement of the human condition through such problematic behaviors and increasing healthy, technological advances as electricity, the steam productive behaviors. This has happened because engine, antibiotics, vaccinations, semiconductors, Watson’s (1913) prescription for behaviorism as and gene therapy, to name a handful. Unfortunate- “a purely objective experimental branch of natural ly, with very few exceptions, psychology cannot science” (p. 158) came to fruition. Specifically, boast similar claims. In fact, as I argued several beginning in the 1930s, behavior analysts discov- years ago, psychology has not kept its promise to ered a set of basic principles or laws governing become a science. Specifically, “psychology has the relationship between environment (defined produced very few noteworthy discoveries: it has broadly as all the stimuli that affect behavior at a offered few if any satisfactory explanatory con- given moment) and behavior. In the 1960s, these cepts and, therefore, has not advanced in the same laws began to be applied to ameliorate a wide way as the other sciences” (Schlinger 2004, 124).

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range of behavioral problems in both typical words, we still do not know what caused her to and atypical populations. In this commentary, I behave in those ways, and without knowing the would like to suggest that behavior analysis can causes, it would be difficult to teach others to act be applied even more widely in society to create in similar ways. But this is exactly where behavior conditions that will encourage people to flourish analysis can help. as Aristotle defined it. According to Furman and Tuminello, for Behavior Analysis and “Aristotle, human flourishing requires perform- Flourishing ing certain sorts of actions—acts that fulfill our function as humans” (2015, 253). Although The first step in a behavior analytic approach to many actions could be said to fulfill our function getting people to flourish is to identify the behav- as humans, according to Aristotle, reason, which iors that lead us to say that someone is courageous, distinguishes humans from nonhumans, and which friendly, modest, patient, intuitive, prudent, wise, led to what eventually became Cartesian dualism, and so on. We do so by asking what behaviors is central among them. Furthermore, the two must occur for society to describe a person with realms in which reason operates are matters of these modifiers. Then, the behaviors themselves character (e.g., courage, friendliness, modesty, pa- must be described in terms that would not only tience, temperance, and truthfulness) and matters permit us to observe them, but to agree that they of thought (e.g., intuition, scientific knowledge, have occurred. This latter requirement is known craftsmanship, prudence, and wisdom). Thus, as interobserver reliability. If two or more people for Aristotle, for humans to flourish, they must cannot agree whether a behavior has occurred, it live virtuous lives of both character and thought. would be difficult to teach that behavior. Although the natural science of behavior analy- Of course, simply identifying behaviors is not sis might seem at first glance to be incompatible sufficient to get people to engage in them. Phi- with Aristotelian philosophy, they have at least one losophers have struggled for centuries with the feature in common: the emphasis on behavior or question of how to flourish, or become happy. action. For Aristotle, flourishing requires perform- For example, Alexander Bain recommended the ing certain actions, and behavior analysis is the “voluntary repetition of morally desirable actions science that can explain why we act the way we if they are to become habitual and automatic” do. The problem with Aristotle’s concepts of char- (Fancher 1996, 254). Following from Bain, the acter and thought, and with such terms as cour- American psychologist/philosopher William age, friendliness, prudence, and wisdom, is that James, who suffered from depression, willed they are not scientific concepts and do not specify himself to think more positive and less depressive any actual behaviors. In the absence of knowing thoughts, that is, from a behavioral perspec- exactly what behaviors define these abstract con- tive, to talk (to himself) more positively and less cepts, it is almost impossible to achieve the goal negatively. Both Bain and James are intellectual of getting people to engage in the behaviors that descendants of Aristotle who said the following: would lead us to say that they are flourishing. A Virtue, then, being of two kinds, intellectual and related problem with these concepts is that using moral, intellectual virtue in the main owes both its birth them to explain behavior often results in circular and its growth to teaching (for which reason it requires reasoning. Consider an example by Furman and experience and time), while moral virtue comes about Tuminello in which a woman is confronted with as a result of habit, whence also its name ethike is one a dangerous situation and then behaves in such that is formed by a slight variation from the word ethos (habit). From this it is also plain that none of the a way that enables her to remain safe, but also moral virtues arises in us by nature; for nothing that to contact the police. It would be circular to say exists by nature can form a habit contrary to its nature. that she moved to a safe place and contacted the (Aristotle, 350 BCE) police because she was courageous; these acts In this quotation, not only does Aristotle at- are what lead us to call her courageous. In other tribute intellectual virtue to learning and moral Schlinger / Behavior Analysis and the Good Life ■ 269

virtue to habit, at the same time he offers an early which have been replicated numerous times in the commentary on the nature–nurture issue coming ensuing decades. Applied behavior analysts have down squarely on the side of nurture. However, now tackled a broad array of behaviors, includ- it is not easy to simply will one’s self to behave ing chronic pain, addiction, self-injury, academic in a way different from a lifetime of behaving in skills, and sustainable behaviors in diverse popu- contradictory ways, and most people will fail in lations, including nonhuman animals, infants, such an attempt. the developmentally disabled, psychotics, school Thus, the second step to behaving in a virtu- children, the elderly, employees in business and ous manner is to structure the environment so as industry, and people in the community, to men- to increase the likelihood of virtuous behavior. It tion but a few. is perhaps no surprise, then, that definitions of Manipulating suspected variables that deter- flourishing include developing in a healthy way mine an individual’s behavior is not sufficient, as the result of a favorable environment. Because however, because there is no assurance that the behavior analysis is the science of environment– manipulation will work or that, if the behavior behavior interactions, the technology derived does change, it was a result of the manipulation. from the science—ABA—involves altering an in- Therefore, a final step in the process of getting dividual’s environment (defined previously) to pro- people to flourish is derived from the analysis part mote healthy, productive behaviors and to reduce of ABA, and requires experimentation to confirm unhealthy, unproductive ones. Before moving on, that the behavior did in fact change significantly it is important to point out three important impli- and that the change was due only to the interven- cations of a behavioral conception of environment tion. Experimentation is, thus, the hallmark of the that distinguish it from traditional, nonscientific science of behavior analysis and its technological conceptions: 1) the environment is both outside application. and inside the individual because it consists of all The idea of experimentation to achieve the good of the stimuli that affect behavior at a given mo- life was perhaps no better illustrated than in Skin- ment, and some of those stimuli reside inside the ner’s (1948/1976) novel, Walden Two. Although individual, 2) and each individual’s environment Skinner was intrigued by utopian literature and changes from moment to moment, ergo, 3) no two by Thoreau’s Walden, his vision in the book was individuals can ever have the same environment. different. According to Altus and Morris (2009), Applied behavior analysts change behavior by “Skinner’s utopian vision was not any of Walden altering individuals’ environments, primarily by Two’s practices, except one: the use of empirical manipulating the consequences of their behavior. methods to search for and discover practices that The foundational law of behavior analysis is the worked,” and “applied behavior analysis is a Law of Effect, originally stated by the American measure of the success of Skinner’s utopian vision: psychologist E. L. Thorndike (1898), which to experiment” (p. 319). Thus, early in his career, says simply that behavior is determined by its Skinner, the founder of the experimental analysis consequences or the effects it produces on the of behavior and the philosophy of that science, environment. Subsequent to Thorndike’s simple radical behaviorism, was interested in extrapo- experiments, another American psychologist, B. F. lating from the basic science to changing human Skinner, discovered a sensitive dependent variable environments so that people would be more likely and an array of environmental independent vari- to engage in behaviors that would enable them to ables that reliably cause behavior by developing a flourish. As Skinner wrote in the preface to the sophisticated experimental paradigm that is in use 1976 reprinting of his book: today not only by experimental behavior analysts, Either we do nothing and allow a miserable and but by many neuroscientists as well. As a result, probably catastrophic future to overtake us, or we Skinner quantified the Law of Effect as the Law use our knowledge about human behavior to create a of Reinforcement and discovered several more social environment in which we shall live productive basic laws of environment-behavior interactions, and creative lives and do so without jeopardizing the 270 ■ PPP / Vol. 22, No. 4 / December 2015 chances that those who follow us will be able to do the References same. Something like a Walden Two would not be a Altus, D. E., and E. K. Morris. 2009. B. F. Skinner’s bad start. (p. xvi) utopian vision: Behind and beyond Walden two. The Behavior Analyst 32, no. 2:319–35. Aristotle, 350 BCE/1999 Nicomachean ethics, trans. Conclusion W. D. Ross. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada: Batoche In a nutshell, then, the behavior analytic ap- Books. Online: http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/ proach to the good life involves identifying be- econ/ugcm/3ll3/aristotle/Ethics.pdf Fancher, R. E. 1996. Pioneers of psychology, 3rd edition. haviors that society defines as flourishing and the New York: W. W. Norton. environments that promote such behaviors, and Furman, T. M., and A. Tuminello. 2015. Aristotle, then arranging conditions in the environment to autism, and applied behavior analysis. Philosophy, encourage them to occur more often. Thus, as Psychiatry, & Psychology 22, no. 4:253–61. behavior analysts, our task is not to get people Schlinger, H. D. 2004. Why psychology hasn’t kept its to be more friendly, patient, truthful, prudent, or promises. Journal of Mind and Behavior 25, no. wise, but to figure out what behaviors lead us to 2:123–44. Skinner B. F. 1948/1976. Walden two. New York: call someone friendly, patient, truthful, prudent, Macmillan. and wise, and then create environments that will Thorndike, E. L. 1898. Animal intelligence: An experi- encourage and support such behaviors. This seems mental study of the associative processes in animals. consistent with Aristotle’s view that happiness, or Psychological Monographs: General and Applied 2, flourishing, must be defined in terms of activity no. 4:i–109. (i.e., behavior), and that virtue comes about as a Watson, J. B. 1913. Psychology as the behaviorist views result of learning and habit. Aristotle’s idea that if it. Psychological Review 20:158–77. one engages in desirable behaviors often enough they become habitual, and that this is more likely to happen in supportive environments, can be practically and scientifically realized through a program of ABA.