FREEDOM, DETERMINISM & RESPONSIBILITY
A Computer Tutorial
Table of Contents:
This interactive instructional program contains a total of 2042 instructional frames in 63 instructional sets, averaging approximately 32 frames per unit. These sets are organized into the following nine instructional units.
Unit 1
Science, technology, and the role of the environment
Set 1 - 39 frames
Set 2 - 46 frames
Set 3 - 31 frames
Set 4 - 39 frames
Set 5 - 33 frames
After completing Sets 1-5 the user of this program will be able to paraphrase the following assertions and relate them to practical applications:
1. Almost all of our problems involve human behavior.
2. To solve many of our problems we need a technology of behavior.
3. The role of the external environment in our lives is often subtle--it selects, rather than pushes or pulls.
4. The role once given to the mind, the will, feelings, and traits of character is beginning to be traced to accessible conditions, paving the way for a technology of behavior.
5. A technology of behavior must replace firmly entrenched prescientific views of human activity if the world is to be saved from the consequences of current potentially disastrous trends.
6. A scientific conception of human behavior shifts credit, blame, and responsibility to the environment rather than an inner locus.
7. An available technology of behavior raises the issue of what is to be done with it.
Unit 2
Freedom and techniques of control.
Set 6 - 29 frames
Set 7 - 29 frames
Set 8 - 31 frames
Set 9 - 24 frames
Set 10 - 23 frames
Set 11 - 38 frames
Set 12 - 41 frames
Set 13 - 48 frames
After completing Sets 6-13 the user of this program will be able to paraphrase the following assertions and relate them to practical applications:
1. Many behaviors attributed to the will to be free can be shown to be avoidance or escape from evasiveness.
2. The struggle for freedom is concerned with stimuli arranged by other people, not the natural environment.
3. The "literature of freedom" is concerned with weakening or destroying the power of those who control.
4. It is a mistake to define freedom in terms of how we feel.
5. Techniques of positive control are less likely to breed disaffection or counterattack but may still have aversive consequences.
6. All forms of control have been called wrong and the advantages of social control have, therefore, often been overlooked.
7. The literature of freedom does not prepare one to look for and change the sources of control.
Unit 3
Punishment and its consequences.
Set 14 - 18 frames
Set 15 - 18 frames
Set 16 - 28 frames
Set 17 - 22 frames
Set 18 - 37 frames
Set 19 - 39 frames
Set 20 - 15 frames
Set 21 - 11 frames
After completing Sets 14-21 the user of this program will be able to paraphrase the following assertions and relate them to practical applications:
1. A person is least free or dignified when under the threat of punishment.
2. The literatures of freedom and personal-worthiness actually support the use of punishment.
3. Punishment does not truly weaken behavior.
4. Defenders of personal freedom and personal worth object to the explicit design of the human social environment because it would lead to automatic goodness.
5. Under punitive contingencies a person appears to be free to behave well and to deserve credit when he does so.
6. Designed positive contingencies can replace punishment but they destroy the illusion of autonomy.
7. The environmental determinism point of view leaves no room for moral struggle and credit for inner virtues.
8. Failure to accept that the environment is the source of all control prevents the intentional design of a better world.
Unit 4
Weak forms of control.
Set 22 - 46 frames
Set 23 - 43 frames
Set 24 - 25 frames
Set 25 - 45 frames
Set 26 - 28 frames
Set 27 - 23 frames
After completing Sets 22-27 the user of this program will be able to paraphrase the following assertions and relate them to practical applications:
1. Freedom and self-worth are preserved only when weak forms of control are used.
2. Those who use weak forms of control thereby escape criticism for controlling, because they cannot be blamed when things go wrong.
3. The absence of control (permissiveness) allows other factors to control behavior.
4. Subtle control permits the individual to claim maximum credit for what is done.
5. A dependency upon things, rather than people, originates in social contingencies, yet this form of control is usually misconstrued as "internal."
6. There is much to be gained by minimizing current control by other people.
7. Earlier contingencies are responsible when the individual behaves appropriately for little apparent reason.
8. More effective positive control measures are possible, and progress toward a better world could improve of they were used, but the defenders of individual freedom and personal worth refuse to recognize them.
Unit 5
Human values and how control is used.
Set 28 - 34 frames
Set 29 - 28 frames
Set 30 - 41 frames
Set 31 - 35 frames
Set 32 - 33 frames
Set 33 - 36 frames
Set 34 - 24 frames
Set 35 - 47 frames
After completing Sets 28 35 the user of this program will be able to paraphrase the following assertions and relate them to practical applications:
1. The struggle for freedom has led to the defense of internal originating action rather than changing the circumstances of life.
2. A powerful technology of behavior could help solve world problems but it is opposed because it emphasizes the role of the environment rather than inner qualities.
3. The opposition also questions the values of those who would use a powerful technology.
4. The values of a culture are often in opposition to the values of the individual.
5. Certain ways of controlling the individual promote the welfare of the culture, but they may also conflict with the individual's values.
Unit 6
Cultural practices and their maintenance.
Set 36 - 48 frames
Set 37 - 25 frames
Set 38 - 32 frames
Set 39 - 33 frames
Set 40 - 41 frames
After completing Sets 36-40 the user of this program will be able to paraphrase the following assertions and relate them to practical applications:
1. A culture determines much of the behavior of those who live in it.
2. Cultural practices are selected by their contribution to the culture and passed on to future generations.
3. Practices evolve which induce members of a culture to work for its support.
4. Working to promote a culture cannot be sustained by personal goods alone, the culture must contrive reasons.
5. The survival of a culture is not a consequence that can be made contingent upon the behavior of individuals because they perish before it occurs.
6. A culture which FOR ANY REASON induces its members to work for its survival is more likely to survive.
7. Designed practices accelerate the good of a culture and a science and technology are important "mutations" in the evolution of a culture.
8. Practices which bring people under more and more of the consequences of their behavior promote the culture most.
Unit 7
Intentional planning of cultural practices.
Set 41 - 28 frames
Set 42 - 34 frames
Set 43 - 30 frames
Set 44 - 37 frames
Set 45 - 40 frames
Set 46 - 22 frames
Set 47 - 37 frames
Set 48 - 39 frames
Set 49 - 23 frames
Set 50 - 19 frames
Set 51 - 15 frames
Set 52 - 13 frames
After completing Sets 41-52 the user of this program will be able to paraphrase the following assertions and relate them to practical applications:
1. A culture is like an experimental set of contingencies.
2. The technology of behavior is ethically neutral, but it can be used to work for survival.
3. Cultural design should focus upon objectives that are behavioral.
4. The contingencies responsible for those who design a culture must be examined.
5. All control is reciprocal, and the process is essential to the evolution of a culture.
6. The interchange between control and counter-control is disturbed by the literatures of freedom and personal credit they interpret counter-control as suppression rather than correction of controlling practices.
7. The literatures of freedom and dignity could prove to be lethal cultural practices if they prevent the application of behavioral technology to solve world problems.
Unit 8
Environmental determinism and cultural development.
Set 53 - 53 frames
Set 54 - 24 frames
Set 55 - 21 frames
Set 56 - 45 frames
Set 57 - 42 frames
Set 58 - 46 frames
Set 59 - 20 frames
Set 60 - 33 frames
After completing Sets 53-60 the user of this program will be able to paraphrase the following assertions and relate them to practical applications:
1. An experimental science of behavior shifts the determination of behavior from sources inside the person to the environment.
2. The environment is responsible for both the evolution of the species and the repertoire acquired by each member.
3. From the scientific point of view, environmental contingencies have now taken over the functions of the will or the mind.
4. The abolishment of explanations referring to free will and an initiating mind is a step forward.
5. A scientific view of the human being promotes practices which modify environments, which in turn control the individual.
6. The evolution of a culture is like a gigantic exercise in self-control.
7. Humans have not yet seen what they can make of themselves.
Unit 9
Freedom, determinism, responsibility and a science of behavior.
Set 61 contains 27 frames summarizing and reviewing the following scientific concepts:
Objectivity
Control
Mechanism
Physical world
Randomness
Science
Relationship
Quantum mechanics
Manipulation Search
Functional relationship Origin
Cause Selection
Lawfulness Operationalism
Predictability
Set 62 contains
45 frames discussing the following philosophical concepts:
Materialism
Physical (materialistic) determinism
Cultural determinism
Sociobiological determinism
Economic determinism (Marxism)
Psychological determinism
Theological determinism
Fatalism
Psychological dualism
Set 63 contains 43 frames integrating prior unit objectives into the discussion of the following philosophical concepts:
Determinism/libertarianism
Responsibility
Personal freedom
Cultural Design