Behavior analysis and cultural design: utopia or dystopia?

• Grant number: 14/02981-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: June 01, 2014
• End date: September 01, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Experimental Psychology
• Agreement: Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
• Principal Investigator: Júlio César Coelho de Rose
• Grantee: Cesar Antonio Alves da Rocha
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 17/09680-5 - Cultural design in Walden Two: a critical analysis of B. F. Skinner's utopian thinking, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

Introduced as the philosophy that underlies Behavior Analysis, Radical Behaviorism offers a particular epistemological proposal. In this sense he guides scientific practice in behavior analysts by regulating methods and truth criteria adopted by this scientific community. But beyond epistemology, other philosophical branches, such as ethics and politics, seem to find parallel in Radical Behaviorism. Philosophical questions of this magnitude become especially relevant in the context of technological developments of Behavior Analysis. "Cultural design" is the expression used by Skinner to designate a proposed technology derived from its science. Skinner bets in this technology the highest hopes of producing a better world, and expressed it in detail in his novel Walden Two. But the idea of a planned culture meets a lot of resistance, given the fear that the centralization of power in the hands of planners culminates in tyranny. But if, on the one hand, many dystopian fiction narratives denounce the oppressive potential of misuses of technology, on the other hand, Skinner believes that the deconstruction of anti-utopian arguments is an important task and it deserves to be driven. Considering this, the present research intends to investigate some of the epistemological, ethical and political controversies that cross the idea of a planned culture in order to answer the question: "cultural design: utopia or dystopia?" (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

CÉSAR ANTONIO ALVES DA ROCHA. Skinner e Feyerabend sobre o Método e o Papel da Ciência em uma Sociedade Livre. Trends in Psychology, v. 25, n. 3, p. 913-926, 2017-09-00. (14/02981-1)