Behavior Analysis and the Good Life

For this reason also the question is asked, whether happiness is to be acquired by learning or by habituation or some other sort of training, or comes in virtue of some divine providence or again by chance. Now if there is any gift of the gods to men, it is reasonable that happiness should be god-given, and most surely god-given of all human things inasmuch as it is the best. But this question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry; happiness seems, however, even if it is not god-sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process of learning or training, to be among the most god-like things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue seems to be the best thing in the world, and something godlike and blessed.

(Aristotle 350 BCE)

Natural scientists (i.e., physicists, chemists, and biologists) can claim to have contributed significantly to the improvement of the human condition through such technological advances as electricity, the steam engine, antibiotics, vaccinations, semiconductors, and gene therapy, to name a handful. Unfortunately, with very few exceptions, psychology cannot boast similar claims. In fact, as I argued several years ago, psychology has not kept its promise to become a science. Specifically, “psychology has produced very few noteworthy discoveries: it has offered few if any satisfactory explanatory concepts and, therefore, has not advanced in the same way as the other sciences” (Schlinger 2004, 124). I further argued that the main reason psychology has made such little progress is its continued emphasis on mental or cognitive events; in other words, psychology has not escaped the philosophical dualism from which it sprung. Additionally, psychology has relied on research methods that have precluded the discovery of cause-and-effect relations, which are necessary for technological innovation and application.

A notable exception to psychology’s failure to become a science, and one that can claim to have significantly improved the lives of humans by offering practical solutions to behavioral problems, is the discipline of behavior analysis. Furman and Tuminello (2015) argue specifically that the applied branch of behavior analysis—applied behavior analysis (ABA)—has enabled some people diagnosed with autism to recover and, thus, to flourish in Aristotelian terms. I would go further and suggest that ABA has enabled a much wider range of individuals to flourish by reducing problematic behaviors and increasing healthy, productive behaviors. This has happened because Watson’s (1913) prescription for behaviorism as “a purely objective experimental branch of natural science” (p. 158) came to fruition. Specifically, beginning in the 1930s, behavior analysts discovered a set of basic principles or laws governing the relationship between environment (defined broadly as all the stimuli that affect behavior at a given moment) and behavior. In the 1960s, these laws began to be applied to ameliorate a wide range of behavioral problems in both typical and atypical populations. In this commentary, I would like to suggest that behavior analysis can be applied even more widely in society to create conditions that will encourage people to flourish as Aristotle defined it.

According to Furman and Tuminello, for “Aristotle, human flourishing requires performing certain sorts of actions—acts that fulfill our function as humans” (2015, 253). Although many actions could be said to fulfill our function as humans, according to Aristotle, reason, which distinguishes humans from nonhumans, and which led to what eventually became Cartesian dualism, is central among them. Furthermore, the two realms in which reason operates are matters of character (e.g., courage, friendliness, modesty, patience, temperance, and truthfulness) and matters of thought (e.g., intuition, scientific knowledge, craftsmanship, prudence, and wisdom). Thus, for Aristotle, for humans to flourish, they must live virtuous lives of both character and thought.

Although the natural science of behavior analysis might seem at first glance to be incompatible with Aristotelian philosophy, they have at least one feature in common: the emphasis on behavior or action. For Aristotle, flourishing requires performing certain actions, and behavior analysis is the science that can explain why we act...