Download Freedom and Responsibility

Freedom and Self-Determination:
Insights from Social Learning Theory
by
Brian Babcock
May 14, 2001
Psychology 166
Professor Albert Bandura
The central question of moral philosophy, and arguably the central question of human
life, is the question of how one should best live. To the extent that human beings exercise
control over the course of their lives, every person must come to terms with this question either
explicitly or implicitly. Indeed, every human life represents an implicit answer to this question,
serving as a potential model for others to follow or to avoid. The answer to this question—what
is the nature of the well-lived life—is far from clear. Moral philosophers since Socrates have
struggled to craft their own descriptions of what it means for a human being to live the good life,
producing a stunning variety of differing conceptions of the good. Perhaps the only thing that is
non-controversial is that there are as many different conceptions of the good as there are human
beings. In modern society, respect for individual dignity has led us to hold up individual selfdetermination—the right of all people to make their own decisions about the way they would like
to lead their lives, based on their own individual interests, talents, and values—as a fundamental
value.
The freedom of individuals to live their lives as they choose is the most fundamental
value of political liberalism, which has become the dominant political philosophy of the modern
era.
The historical record has taught us humility; having witnessed the oppressiveness of
totalitarian regimes, we are not likely to forget the evils that often result when one person or
group attempts to impose a single way of life on others, even with the best of intentions. Few
serious contemporary thinkers would have the hubris to proclaim their own preferred way of life
as unequivocally the best way of life for all people. Our regard for the diversity of humankind
leads us to recognize that coercive social controls aimed at directing human behavior toward
particular ends are inherently dangerous and morally suspect.
The liberal ideal is that
governments should set aside as inviolate a certain limited set of universal liberties that allow
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people to formulate and pursue their own conception of the good, free from persecution or
coercion, so long as they do not interfere with the ability of other people to do the same. So long
as they do not infringe upon the basic liberties of others, people should be left to their own
devices as much as possible so as to give them the freedom to determine the individual courses
of their own lives.
Although the statement that freedom is an important right that must be protected seems
on the face of it to be simple and uncontroversial (the writers of the Declaration of Independence
went so far as to call it a self-evident truth), as soon as one looks closely at the statement in order
to figure out what it means, matters suddenly become more complicated. What does it mean to
say that human beings are free to determine the course of their lives, and how should one go
about ensuring that they have that freedom? The commonly accepted definition of freedom is
autonomy: self-direction, or the absence of external control or coercion.
Unfortunately, it is
highly implausible to state that human beings are, or ever could be, completely self-determining.
At the most basic level, people are part of the physical world and therefore are subject to the
physical laws of nature. Even more importantly, people are part of a social world, and the
behavior of others has a significant effect on the success or failure of their life projects. The
influence of the physical and social environment on human life cannot be discounted or wished
away; before one can sensibly speak of freedom, one needs to formulate a plausible theory of
human agency, which must necessarily be set within a theory of the causes of human behavior.
In order to make sense of the statements of moral philosophy or to understand how we should
realize the ideals expressed therein, we must have recourse to psychological theory.
Many theories of the causes of human behavior have been proposed that seem to leave no
room for self-determination or freedom of action. Mechanistic materialism, radical behaviorism,
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psychoanalytic theory, and static theories of personality as a collection of immutable character
traits all fall into this class. In the first part of this paper, I will examine each of these theories in
turn and argue that each is inaccurate or irrelevant for the analysis of human behavior. I will
present social learning theory as a more satisfactory alternative theory of human behavior that is
both descriptively accurate for explaining behavior and also allows plenty of latitude for
individual self-determination. In the remainder of the paper, I will explore how one can make
sense of the notion of human freedom within the context of social learning theory and discuss the
social policy implications of the application of this interpretation of freedom to the prescriptions
of political liberalism.
The language that we use in everyday life to speak about causes of behavior can be
divided into two different and seemingly incommensurable realms. Sometimes we speak about
causality in terms that invoke the necessity of physical laws (e.g. “The sudden gust of wind
caused him to lose his balance.”) On other occasions, we use language that refers to mental
states such as intentions, desires, and emotions as having a causal relation to action (e.g. “She ate
because she was hungry.”) The empirically observed laws of physics and the other natural
sciences provide an explanation for how physical bodies are acted upon by other physical bodies,
and since we ourselves possess physical bodies, we are certainly not exempt from these laws.
The laws of physics, however, make no mention of mental states; the difficult problem for any
theory of human behavior is to place the mental states that everyday language presents as having
causal power within the same framework as physical law, or alternatively to convincingly argue
that we are mistaken to speak of mental states as being causes of behavior.
Contemporary approaches to the philosophy of mind generally accept that mental
phenomena arise from chemical activity within the neurons of the brain. Modern neuroscience
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has shown that much to be true. At first glance, adopting a “materialistic monism” that reduces
mental states to physical phenomena seems to argue for a mechanistic view of human action.
Since the laws of nature are implacable in their necessity and human beings are physical beings
subject to natural laws, the mechanistic materialist argument runs, it is therefore nonsensical to
speak of human freedom, since that would imply that human beings could somehow escape the
deterministic laws of physics.
The problem with this argument is that it makes what the philosopher Gilbert Ryle refers
to as a “category mistake.” The argument takes a concept, the determinism inherent in the laws
of physics, that applies at one level of discourse and misapplies it to a wholly different level of
discourse. Discourse about mental states takes place at a very different level than descriptions of
electrical discharges in brain cells. Even if we agree that mental states can be reduced to brain
chemistry, chemistry has little or no predictive or explanatory power when it comes to human
behavior, and therefore it is quite useless as a theory of the causes of human action. 1 Physicists
attempting to explain the motion of celestial bodies do not speak in terms of quantum mechanics,
but instead use Newtonian mechanics (perhaps modified by Einstein’s theories of relativity),
although they would agree that the latter is in principle reducible to the former. In the same
manner, accepting that the human mind works through physical processes does not invalidate the
use of mental phenomena in a theory of human behavior if speaking in terms of desires, beliefs,
intentions, and the like produces a more useful and practically applicable theory.
At this
conceptual level, the notion of human freedom should be understood in terms of the ability of
reflective thought, goal setting, the formation of intentions, etc. to affect behavior. If we observe
that the antecedent formation of the intention to perform a particular action is predictive of the
1
The cause of many mental illnesses can be attributed at least partially to chemical imbalances in the brain, but for a
general theory of human behavior, one must turn to the psychologists rather than the chemists.
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eventual performance of the action, then it makes sense to speak of the performance being
caused by the intention, and thus to argue for the reality of human freedom. None of this is in
any way affected by the fact that the atoms in the brain may be obeying deterministic physical
laws all the while.
Mental states and cognitive activity are perfectly natural to us, and we have no trouble
understanding what is meant when intentions, emotions, etc. are referred to in ordinary language.
From the point of view of the empirical scientist, however, these mental phenomena are
somewhat troubling because they are difficult to empirically observe and record. The natural
(and laudable) suspiciousness of scientists has led radical behaviorists such as B. F. Skinner to
apply Ockham’s razor to cognitive phenomena. The radical behaviorists argue that human
behavior can be entirely explained using the principle of classical and operant conditioning,
without having any recourse whatsoever to the suspect notion of mental states, and that therefore
mental states serve no purpose in the description of human behavior and thus, by the principle of
parsimony, have no place in behavior theory.
The argument of the radical behaviorists would be more convincing if behaviorist
explanations of human action on the basis of environmental influences alone were more
successful at accurately describing human behavior.
The human mind is undeniably
complicated, and while in certain restricted circumstances simple conditioning may provide a
satisfactory explanation for how people behave, in general behaviorist theory is woefully
inadequate at capturing the intricacy of human activities. The evidence suggesting that cognitive
mediation of experience plays an important role in modulating human behavior is extremely
strong. To give one example, behaviorism cannot easily account for the fact that human beings
are capable of learning by reading books or observing the experiences of others. (Indeed, this
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mode of learning is much more common than learning through direct personal experience.) The
radical behaviorists are over-enthusiastic in their application of Ockham’s razor; the
preponderance of psychological evidence affirms our common sense in holding that mental states
are very real and play an important role in determining behavior.2
Psychoanalytic theory is another very influential theory of the causes of human behavior
that argues against the relevance of cognitive phenomena in descriptions of the causes of
behavior. According to psychoanalytic theory, the fundamental, underlying causes of human
behavior are to be found in the dark recesses of the unconscious mind. Although conscious
mental states and cognitive activity may appear to be the immediate cause of behavior, according
to psychoanalytic theory, both the behavior and the mental states are merely epiphenomena,
symptoms of the underlying unconscious causes. Under the psychoanalytic model, human
freedom is only illusory; we cannot escape the destiny thrust upon each of us by the structure of
our unconscious minds, built up through childhood experiences. Psychoanalytic theory argues
that direct attempts to modify behavior are misguided, because they do not address the
underlying unconscious causes of behavior. Even if a behavior-change program manages to
change one particular behavioral manifestation of some unconscious conflict, that conflict will
soon express itself once more through some other pattern of behavior that could be even less
desirable than the original behavior that was changed.3
As a scientific theory, psychoanalytic theory has a number of shortcomings. The first is
that it lacks predictive power and by its very nature cannot be falsified.
Psychoanalytic
explanations of behavior often have an annoying circularity about them—from aggressive
behavior, the psychoanalyst infers an aggressive impulse, and then uses the aggressive impulse
2
See Bandura (1977), 10-12
For a discussion of the empirical inadequacy of this “symptom substitution” criticism of behavior therapy see
O’Leary and Wilson, 13.
3
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to explain the aggressive behavior!4
Furthermore, the same unconscious drives are often
supposed to be able to produce a wide variety of behaviors, including behaviors that are
diametrical opposites (e.g. either aggressiveness or passivity). With rules such as these, it is hard
to imagine what sort of evidence could be observed that would be accepted by psychoanalysts as
demonstrating the falsity of their theory. According to Karl Popper’s influential definition, a
theory that is not falsifiable cannot claim to be a scientific theory.
A further problem with psychoanalytic theory is that it fails to give rise to effective
methods to modify behavior or enhance human freedom. In order to modify a person’s behavior,
psychoanalytic theory suggests, the only effective thing that can be done is have that person go
through psychoanalysis with a trained psychotherapist. Unfortunately, there is little empirical
evidence that even prolonged psychotherapy has very much effect on behavior. The evidence in
support of the effectiveness of psychotherapy tends to be based on subjective judgments of the
therapist or the patient; arguably, this type of evidence goes more to show the ability of
therapists to convince themselves and their patients of the truth of their theory than it does the
ability of psychotherapeutic practice to actually achieve behavior modification. Furthermore,
lacking carefully controlled studies, any positive effects attributed to psychotherapy might just as
well be attributed to the passage of time—after all, people usually have recourse to
psychotherapy at times of peak emotional distress, and the human psyche has a remarkable
ability to repair itself with time (to which folk wisdom aptly ascribes the power to heal all
wounds).5
Despite its widespread popularity for much of the 20th century, then, psychoanalytic
theory has many shortcomings as a scientific theory of the causes of human behavior. Empirical
4
5
Bandura (1977), 2
Ibid., 4-5
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research has failed to convincingly demonstrate the predictive ability or therapeutic power of
psychoanalytic theory, and therefore its usefulness as a way of thinking must be seriously
questioned. The principle of parsimony, the indiscriminate use of which by radical behaviorism
I earlier condemned, might more defensibly be applied to the unconscious drives postulated by
psychoanalytic theory.
The unconscious by its very nature denies direct observation, and
attempts to make actionable inferences about the unconscious based on observable behaviors
have not convincingly been shown to be successful. For this reason, it’s not clear that references
to the unconscious have any value as part of a theory of the causes of human behavior.
While psychoanalytic theory attempts to explain human behavior as arising from
unconscious impulses, and radical behaviorism attempts to explain all behavior as arising purely
from direct conditioned responses to environmental stimuli, other theories give at least some
place to differences in individual personality in the catalog of causes of behavior. One line of
thinking that goes back at least to Aristotle holds that human behavior can be explained by basic
dispositions or character traits that cause the same person to behave similarly in a wide variety of
situations over time. For example, a person with an irascible disposition will tend to react by
getting angry in any situation that might be prone to provoke anger. This type of theory leaves
limited room for individual freedom of action, because it emphasizes the role of long-term,
essentially static character traits in determining behavior.
Research conducted by Daryl Bem in the 1970s attempted to demonstrate the existence of
such character traits by seeking out consistencies in behavior that individuals exhibited across a
number of different situations. The findings of this research were far from conclusive; the
researchers claimed that they found evidence of broad-ranging consistencies in behavior, but
various methodological issues made the results difficult to interpret. One problem with the
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notion of character traits is that, while a person may exhibit similar behavior in a variety of
situations where that behavior is functional, the same person is likely to behave very differently
in a situation where the same behavior is nonfunctional. Since certain patterns of behavior, such
as amiability or intelligence, are functional across a wide variety of circumstances, it is not
surprising that many individuals would consistently exhibit amiable or intelligent behavior. If
the predictive power of a character trait theory only extends as far as the set of situations where
particular character traits are functional, then character trait theory has little to add beyond what
behaviorism would predict.6
As the preceding analysis of various theories about the causes of human behavior has
demonstrated, although theories have been proposed that would deny that individuals can
exercise meaningful self-determination, no such theory has convincingly overcome our commonsense belief that people do exercise some measure of agency in determining their destinies.
However, the optimistic viewpoint of some existentialists, who proclaim the complete autonomy
of the individual, is equally incomplete. Devastating deconstructions of the notion of a detached,
unencumbered self that acts as a pure subject, removed from the inevitable situatedness of
human existence, have convincingly shown that human selves are necessarily found in an
“always already socialized” state. The contingencies of a person’s environment, both social and
natural, have a pronounced effect on that person’s beliefs, values, and actions. To satisfactorily
describe the complexity of human behavior, any theory of human agency must manage to
encompass both personal and environmental determinants of behavior, reconciling the
autonomous Enlightenment view of the self with the discursively constructed post-modern self of
the deconstructionists.
6
Ibid., 7-8
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A simple unidirectional causal model that accounted for the effects of both environmental
influences and internal personal factors on behavior would be a step in the right direction, but
such a model would still be incomplete.
Ultimately, of course, the social environment is
constituted from the aggregate of individual behavior, and one’s experience of one’s
environment is shaped by one’s internal cognitions and other mental states, so the determinism
between the triad of personal factors, environmental factors, and behavior is reciprocal. Social
learning theory combines the best feature of behaviorism and other theoretical approaches,
emphasizing that mutual relationships of determination and reinforcement exist between the
three terms of the “person, environment, behavior” triad. Social learning theory grows out of the
behaviorist tradition, but it distinguishes itself from simple behaviorism by paying particular
attention to the role played by cognitive mediation of environmental stimuli in the acquisition of
learned patterns of behavior.
The fundamental insight of social learning theory is that the cognitive powers of human
beings allow us to process information in a variety of complex ways, learning from and adapting
to our environment and influencing our own mental states and our environment at the same time.
The power of symbolic representation allows us to abstract from and generalize our experiences;
the power of forethought allows us to anticipate long-term consequences of our behavior; the
power of vicarious learning allows us to benefit by using others as models and observing their
experiences; and the self-regulating power of cognition allows us to generate either rewarding or
aversive consequences for our behavior to supplement extrinsic forms of motivation. It is this
last cognitive power, the extensive self-regulatory capability that human beings possess, that is
most germane to discussions of freedom and self-determination.7
7
See Bandura (1986), Chapter 1
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As I argued earlier in this paper, if one defines freedom as autonomy, understood to mean
the absence of external determinants of behavior, then to speak of human freedom is a
meaningless conceit. This definition of freedom, however, is surely too demanding; while it is
unreasonable to expect that people will have complete and total control over their behavior and
experiences, any person who is able to exercise a large measure of self-influence over his or her
behavior can certainly be said to possess a considerable degree of freedom of action. Social
learning theory, through its emphasis on the ability of people to selectively reinforce their own
behaviors through cognitively-generated self-regulatory mechanisms, makes a powerful and
defensible claim about the capability of human beings to influence and modify their own
behavior.
While people are able to achieve partial self-determination, however, the freedom that
they possess is neither as complete nor as straightforward as the naïve simplification of the fully
autonomous self might suggest. Internal personal factors are only one part of the network of
causes that determine human behavior; there are many factors outside of our control that are
equally important as determinants of our behavior. Given the importance that modern society
attaches to the freedom of individuals to determine their own destinies, this raises the question of
how we can best ensure that members of society are able to exercise this freedom to the greatest
degree possible. What determines the degree to which the exercise of self-influence can be
successful? A simplistic view of human nature might lead one to believe that people will
achieve the maximum degree of self-determination if they are left alone and no attempts are
made to influence their behavior in any way. The more sophisticated perspective on human
functioning that is achieved by the application of the lessons of social learning theory, however,
suggests otherwise.
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Social learning theory views self-influence as an achievement rather than as a matter of
course. In a situation where multiple patterns of behavior are possible, the ability of a person to
exercise control over which behavioral course he or she will pursue is based on a number of
things. First, the situation must be relatively free of coercive controls, or else many of the
seemingly available patterns of behavior may be for all practical purposes impossible to pursue.
Second, the person must possess all the necessary capabilities, knowledge, and skills to
successfully carry out the various behavioral performances. Intricate or complex behaviors can
often require a non-trivial amount of learning (either through practice or vicarious learning) in
order to enact them proficiently. Third, the person must not be incapacitated by fears or
inhibitions that sharply restrict the array of feasible behavioral options. Fourth, and perhaps
most important, the person must possess the appropriate self-efficacy beliefs, providing the
confidence that he or she will be able to cope competently and effectively with the demands of
the situation.
Practitioners of social learning theory have demonstrated convincingly that behavior
change programs can use behavioral modeling, guided mastery achievement, self-directed
mastery, and other similar techniques motivated by social learning theory to build personal
capacities, reduce debilitating fears and inhibitions, and raise the level of self-efficacy beliefs. If
the extent of a person’s freedom is measured by the availability to that person of a variety of
behavioral options and by that person’s ability to reflectively determine which of the options he
or she will pursue, then it appears that the maximum amount of freedom is provided not merely
by the negative step of avoiding coercive social controls, but also through the addition of positive
programs to develop and strengthen the cognitive skills and patterns of belief that tend to enable
successful self-influence.
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It may perhaps feel counter-intuitive that the application of technologies of behavioral
change could have the effect of increasing individual freedom. To many people, the idea of
applying psychological techniques to change behavior invokes the dystopian worlds of “A
Clockwork Orange”, “1984”, and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. In reality, however, the
techniques championed by social learning theory generally tend to work to expand the choices
available to an individual rather than to limit them. Indeed, by modeling novel alternative forms
of behavior that may be outside the experience of many members of society, the ideas of
behavior therapy can be applied to encourage the kind of creativity and diversity in life choices
that lead to a healthy, innovative society and allow the less privileged members of society to
imagine a way out of the vicious generational cycle of poverty and oppression. In this sense,
techniques like behavior modeling can be important instruments of social justice by attacking
what Stuart Hampshire has called the “fallacy of false fixities.” In his book Innocence and
Experience, Hampshire writes, “Every person and every social group is to a greater or lesser
extent blind to many of the injustices of its time, because its own culture and education,
supporting a particular way of life, represents embedded and distinctive features of this way of
life as unavoidable features of human life in general.”8 All too often, the most important factor
that prevents people from making changes that better their own lives and the lives of the people
around them is a simple lack of imagination that fails to recognize the existence of viable
alternatives to their everyday practices. Exposing people to models of alternative forms of
behavior arms them with raw materials to develop, through the cognitive processing and
recombination of the various modes of behavior to which they are exposed, creative and
innovative ways of living.
8
Hampshire, 59
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Of course, the potential negative consequences of using psychological insights for social
control are real and cannot be ignored. Fortunately, human beings are remarkably versatile at
resisting attempts to manipulate them to engage in nonfunctional behavior with personally
aversive consequences, and the reciprocal nature of all human interactions means that control is
never one-directional: people who are the objects of attempted manipulation simultaneously
participate in modifying the behavior of the would-be-manipulators and the situation that
allowed for manipulation.9 Because people can exercise self-influence to resist attempts to
influence their behavior in undesirable ways and reinforce attempts to induce in them functional
patterns of behavior, heightened understanding of the mechanisms of human behavior and the
application of that understanding will tend to assist those who attempt to use that knowledge for
social good more than it will aid those who would use psychological knowledge for anti-social
ends.
The lessons of social learning theory can be used to fine-tune existing social programs
such as the public education system that attempt to enhance the opportunities for freedom and
self-determination.
For example, the knowledge that self-efficacy beliefs instilled through
mastery experience can be generalized most easily to situations that resemble the one in which
the original mastery experience occurred suggests the importance of tailoring curriculums and
example problems toward the life situation of the students. (Similarly, vicarious learning from
modeled behavior takes place most rapidly and effectively when the observers view the models
as similar to themselves and the situations in which the behavior is modeled resemble real-life
situations in which the behavior must be applied.) The use of social learning theory to help us
understand the ways in which unintentional but systematic biases in our educational system
perpetuate inequalities in educational attainment is just one example of the ways in which an
9
Bandura (1977), 209
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understanding of psychological principles can lead to institutional reforms that lead to a more
just society.
In the course of this paper, I have examined the ways in which the theoretical lens
through which the causes of human behavior are viewed impacts the interpretation of ethical
statements about the importance of freedom and individual self-determination. After considering
several psychological theories that provided neither a satisfactory account of human freedom nor
an adequate explanation of the causes of human behavior, I gave an overview of social learning
theory and argued that it is successful on both counts where the other theories failed. Using the
tenets of social learning theory as a point of departure, I argued that, counter to what one might
expect, the best social policy for promoting human freedom is not to take a completely laissezfaire approach to society, but rather to seek actively to build the capabilities and skills that enable
people to effectively negotiate difficult life situations. This recommendation is not without its
dangers; the potential certainly exists for the misuse of psychological technologies of behavior
modification. To make thoughtful and cautious use of such technologies, however, appears to be
a better choice than to steer fearfully clear of them. After all, the unscrupulous will have no
compunction about using whatever techniques of social control they can to advance their
personal ends; the best antidote we have is to spread as widely as possible the life skills that
allow freedom and justice to hold broad sway throughout society, providing individuals with
access to the best cognitive tools available for the self-directed pursuit of a satisfying, fulfilling,
meaningful life, however they may choose to define it.
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References:
Bandura, A. Social Learning Theory. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1977.
Bandura, A. Social Foundations of Thought and Action:
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1986.
A Social Cognitive Theory.
Hampshire, Stuart. Innocence and Experience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989.
O’Leary, K. D. and Wilson, G. T. Behavior Therapy: Application and Outcome.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1987.
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