Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!gollum!rolandi
From: rolandi@gollum.UUCP (wgr)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Free will and responsibility.
Message-ID: <255@gollum.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jun 89 17:51:44 GMT
Reply-To: rolandi@gollum.UUCP (Walter G. Rolandi)
Organization: e&m columbia
Lines: 29


In response to Gilbert Cockton's:

>I know of no behavioural modification programs where
>the patient is not briefed on the therapy and does not have to be
>'motivated' by means other than the narrow reinforcement repetoire of
>behaviourism.  I would be interested in the names of practicing
>behavioural therapists who do not require the active involvement of the
>patient's 'will' in order to get somewhere.

What are you saying?   If you mean to imply that one's behavior cannot
or will not be subject to modification without the awareness of the
"patient" (a medical term--not in use among behavioral folks), then you
are wrong.  The thrust of behaviorism is simply that behavior is caused.
One may or may not be able to accurately indicate the environmental causes
of one's behavior.  Those environmental causes may or may not be by the
design of some behavior modifier.

Your terms "the narrow reinforcement repertoire of behaviorism" and "active
involvement of the patient's 'will'" imply a thoroughly confounded 
understanding of terminology and issues associated with the experimental 
analysis of behavior.   What are you talking about here?


Walter Rolandi
rolandi@ncrcae.Columbia.NCR.COM
(insert your feed here)!ncrlnk!ncrcae!rolandi
NCR Advanced Systems Development
Columbia, SC  USA