Utilizing Human Intelligence, Rather Than Maintaining the Illusion of Free Will

One of my readers has become very interested in applications of the principles of behaviorism, primarily to the functioning of the criminal justice system, but also to various topics that I discussed in my previous five-essay series, Meditations on the Art of Living, particularly matters of theology.


I discussed matters of theology in the essay, “The Essence of the Spiritual Life,” from Meditations on the Art of Living. My reader opined that my commitment to Christianity seems in conflict with my philosophical stance that he characterizes as determinism. Though I am more specifically a behaviorist in the parlance of psychology, it is true that this is well-considered one type of determinism.


Very briefly, with regard to theology, John Calvin was famously a determinist who in his Institutes of the Christian Religion detailed his doctrine of predestination, in which only the “elect” shall gain entrance into Heaven through the redeeming grace of God, rather than via any good works of which humankind is capable.


John and Charles Wesley, progenitors of the Methodist Church, placed more emphasis on good works; and Baptists typically speak in terms of free will choices that God gives people the space to make. So Christians differ on the matter of determinism versus free will, but the determinist strain of Calvin that gave rise to the Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches is one of the strongest within Christian theology. And even free-will Baptists conventionally say that grace comes not through good works but through belief in Jesus Christ and the saving grace that attends such belief.


My own theology is linked to the logic of behaviorist psychology, and to the conviction that any Supreme Deity bearing the trait of omniscience knows every event past, present, and future--- so that the fate of humankind is necessarily already determined in the great cosmic scheme. Closer to earth, in the everyday life of humankind, we must go forward according to that preordained scheme, performing our parts within the Divine Plan.


The actions that we take are only perceptibly “free.” In fact, the best that we can do is to utilize our knowledge of those actions likely to be most rewarding (positively reinforcing) to make the best decisions (not the same as free-will “choices”) possible for ourselves and our fellows.


The psychological reality of behaviorism has huge portent for the criminal justice system, which can only consider cases of criminality, render judgment on individual behaviors rather than individual choices, and assign a penalty that discourages the continuance of the given criminal behavior.


I am personally opposed to capital punishment because it contributes to a climate in which violence inflicted on fellow human beings is accepted as part of life; we are in fact best off when we do everything possible to minimize the perverse spectacles and debasement of humanity that violence brings.


Those who do advocate capital punishment must be clear as to what they are doing according to behaviorist principles: They are somehow arguing that life will be better because a person is put to death for perpetrating criminal acts that arise due to the tenets of operant conditioning, not due to free will choice.


A much better way to deal with criminal behavior is to eliminate the causes of illegal and harmful actions. We do this by creating people who are likely to be broadly and deeply knowledgeable and ethically motivated.


We create ethically motivated people by inculcating in our young people the values that I espouse in Meditations on the Art of Living.


We create broadly and deeply knowledgeable people according to my advocacy for excellent education defined as follows:


An excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting deep and broad knowledge in mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, and the fine arts in grade by grade sequence to all students.


This definition necessarily includes a definition of excellent teachers thusly:


An excellent teacher is a professional of deep and broad knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.


My very interested and responsive reader, noted at the beginning of this article, writes in one of his comments that education does not guarantee ethical behavior. That is surely true. Most especially, having claimed an academic degree as currently granted at any level of education does very little to promote ethical behavior:


Education in the United States is at every level either insubstantial or so highly specialized as to be incomplete in terms of the acquisition of a broad and deep knowledge base across the liberal arts.


But if we were to provide truly excellent education to all of our students, assuring that they graduate with knowledge sets and moral propensities that I have detailed in many articles, we would create much, much better people.


And the creation of more exalted human beings--- responsive to the environmental cues that we through intelligence rather than free will provide them--- would minimize illegal and harmful behaviors and make of our courts of law and penal institutions much more sparsely inhabited places.