Behaviorism and the treatment of animals

In Peter Singer's (1975) book Animal Liberation, he discusses a lot of the terrible treatment of animals in laboratory settings. I am very sympathetic with Singer's goals in the book and even in this chapter; though I would probably differ with him quite a bit on where the costs and benefits of the utilitarian calculus leads us, vis-a-vis the justifiability of a lot of medical and scientific research.

But one thing I want to take issue with (which I was reminded of while reading Benjamin J. Baars's book (1984) The Cognitive Revolution in Psychology, is that Singer lays a lot of the blame for this at the feet of the behaviorist metatheory in psychology. Singer argued that behaviorism was bad because its metatheoretical perspective was that there was no such thing as mind, consciousness, or anything like that, and that this belief system was used to justify a lot of pretty cruel treatment of animals, like torturing, wire-mother-monkeys (Harlow & Suomi, 1970, where infant monkeys were trained to treat a wire monkey as a caretaker, and then the wire monkey would start to stab, shock, and otherwise injure the infant in order to see what it took to break the bonds of attachment).

But here's the thing: behaviorism doesn't just deny the theoretical value of mind and conscious experience for animals; it denies the relevance of those constructs for humans as well! Because of this, I think it would be pretty plausible to argue that behaviorism is the psychological metatheory that is most compatible with those arguing for better treatment of animals. Behaviorism doesn't widen the human-animal gap, it closes it. What counts as suffering? Observable behavior by the organism such that the organism is doing things that lower the probability of a future, painful event. End of story. And that's in principle as observable in animals as it is in humans. And its almost always the case in practice that animals do actually try to avoid painful events if they can help it. Surprise surprise... And if you're a behaviorist, you cannot use excuses like "they don't really feel it, they're just automatons." Behavior is the measure of man, and of animals too.

Now, it may be the case that behaviorists in the past were being illogical and inconsistent in applying their scientific belief system to their personal values. But that's not a problem with the scientific theory. That's a moral failing we all make all the time by not behaving consistently with regard to facts we believe to be true and the values that we claim to hold. But laying that at the feet of the behavioristic world-view shirks the real problem and lets us people off the hook for their moral failings - rather than taking advantage of behaviorists purported belief system as an argument for why they are being immoral in the first place.

Murder, not terrorism

Ok, so this response to a Nigerian man with firecrackers on a plane is really annoying. As a member of academia, I talk to and read plenty of militant leftists on this issue. And being in Nebraska right now, I am reminded or (or beaten over the head with) the typical conservative response to these issues. But I think there is a really obvious and sensible path to follow here.

A "hate America" leftist might respond that America should disband its military empire; stop policing the world and stop protecting American political and economic interests abroad. But this is obviously not going to happen. Very few people agree with this point of view (except perhaps when Clinton was in office...). Its not really hard for me to justify "liberal internationalism" to myself, over the more leftist alternative, and I wont waste the time or space to do so here.

But a shocking number of conservatives, as well as all of the news networks, make an equally bad mistake. By shouting "terrorism" and "threat to our nation's very survival" and by creating all these overbearing rules, they let these extremists get exactly what they want: in addition to occasion murder of American citizens, the extremists achieve additional American suffering, in terms of lost liberties, convenience, and quality of life. By treating them as terrorists and warriors instead of simple criminals and murders, conservatives legitimize and even glorify their attacks. This is both wrong in principle, and wrong because its consequence is raising the likelihood of more attempted murder.

The correct action is to treat this as a simple criminal case, with no glory. Change American lifestyle the minimal necessary to prevent or limit the damage of future attacks. Make it boring and pointless, rather than glorifying, to be an attempted mass-murderer.