Do we need to explain Bad Human Behavior?

by Tom Kando

 Let me introduce you to an idea which may seem esoteric, but which can shed light on many of the severe social problems that are plaguing us. My textbook in social psychology, Social Interaction, describes these ideas in detail.

Human beings are problem-solving creatures. When faced with a problem, we first attempt to EXPLAIN it. That is, we try to discover its CAUSE. Science tells us that to explain and to understand a phenomenon means finding out what causes it. Once we find the cause of a problem we can remove it, and thereby remove the problem - which was merely the symptom.

Sociology is about fixing SOCIAL problems, problems that are man-made, problems due to human error and misbehavior - war, racism, injustice, crime, etc.

It is not the primary responsibility of sociologists to cure cancer, or to reverse global warming. Of course, they are tangentially interested in the human BEHAVIORS that contribute to disease and environmental damage, but strictly speaking, these are PHYSICAL issues that belong to the realm of medical and physical science. Sociology is “at home” when it attempts to discover the causes of political, social and psychological misbehavior: crime, war, racism, etc

In their methodology, the social sciences mimic physical science and medicine. If your problem is crime, all you have to do is find the cause(s) of crime, and remove it/them. If a major cause of crime is poverty, then once you remove poverty you ipso facto reduce crime. As with physical illness, the symptom (crime) is cured or ameliorated once its cause (poverty) is removed.

Since it is Sociology’s business to cure dysfunctional human behavior, we are told that sociology must identify the causes of such behavior. This means discovering peoples’ MOTIVES: WHY did he murder or rape her? Why is he a racist? We are supposed to EXPLAIN human behavior.

The problem with this approach is that it is not possible to establish motives empirically. All motives are conjectures.

 * * * * * * *

In the late 19th century, American philosophers and psychologists like William James (1842-1910) developed a philosophy called PRAGMATISM. This new paradigm offered an alternative conception of “motive” and “explanation:”

According to Pragmatism, when it comes to human behavior, its “explanation,” “cause,” or “motive” may be elusive, and even irrelevant!

Most of you are likely to find this statement outrageous. And most people will probably find even more outrageous the corollary of this statement, namely that it is often enough to treat the SYMPTOM of a problem, and not worry about its cause!

Many of you are now probably screaming: How dare you say something so nonsensical! Isn’t it obvious that for every problem there is a cause, and that the only correct scientific way to solve a problem is to find its cause?

In the past, society has relied on many unscientific explanations, including religion, magic, ritual, prayer, soothsaying, divination, augurs, etc. For example, when faced with a persistent drought, a tribe would turn to its high priests, erect holy monuments and perform sacrificial rituals to placate the Gods and enlist their help in bringing forth water. As the Easter Islanders and untold many others discovered, such measures rarely helped. The reason for this was that the response to the problem was not scientific. That is, it did not identify and treat the true cause of the problem.

But remember: I am talking about social problems, dysfunctional human behavior, problems of human psychology. People sometimes misbehave, and sometimes they are unhappy. Psychologists then ask: Why?

Then, they come up with explanations. The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) lists 297 different disorders. For example, one of Freud’s most notorious questions was: What do women want? To which he gave a spectacularly bad answer: They suffer from “penis envy.” 

In 1940, C. Wright Mills wrote a famous article. It provided the new pragmatic theory of motivation: A motive is an explanation of behavior after the fact, NOT a cause occurring before it. It is not something that is located within the acting individual. The quest for “real motives” is futile. Motives are competing explanations for what someone did. As Max Weber said, “a motive is a term in a vocabulary which appears to the actor himself and/or to the observer to be an adequate reason for the conduct.” Kando, 1977: 100).

For example, a mass murder committed by a terrorist can be attributed to mental illness, chemical imbalance, evil, ideological zeal, culture, indoctrination, demonic possession (in past cultures) or something else.

How do we choose from among competing explanations?

The classical/scientific standard for a good explanation is: Is it TRUE, is it empirically factual? But as I said, motives cannot be proven empirically. They always remain conjectures.

Typically, we negotiate, until we arrive at an agreement about the motive/explanation which seems the most acceptable. A major role is played by the prevailing VOCABULARIES of motives at any given time, in any given culture. As Mills notes, the dominant vocabularies in modern society tend to be individualistic, sexual, hedonistic and pecuniary.

Another important criterion to determine whether or not one explanation is better than another is this: Does it help us SOLVE or mitigate the problem? Does it WORK? For example, modern society believes that chemically caused mental illness is often a valid cause of violent crime. This then justifies chemical intervention aimed at altering the perpetrator’s behavior. This is a pragmatic approach.

* * * * * * *

Let me illustrate the point of this article with the case of Donald J. Trump. Let’s diagnose him. A few weeks ago, my sister Madeleine said that Trump is “a genius at sophistry.” I replied that he is “a nincompoop.” Who is right? No one knows.

The only thing that most reasonable people can agree on is that there IS a “Trump Problem.” This problem includes the behavior of the current President, plus the vast support he enjoys from the American Right, and the terrible long-term harm done to the country and to the world.

We have elected the worst president in the history of the United States, this man is the most powerful person on the planet, and he and his minions are causing immense harm to millions of people - to all of humanity. Just think of ONE of the many areas in which this is happening, namely this administration’s environmental policies.

This man - utterly unfit for the job - was elected, remains popular and has a good chance of being re-elected even after the Access Hollywood tapes, even though he won’t divulge his taxes, even after two years of lies, corruption, mismanagement, incoherence and probable crimes.

When disaster strikes, we usually ask: Why?

To explain Trump’s success, we can come up with a list of competing theories:
1. He is a genius
2. Hillary was the wrong candidate
3.White male panic
4. Ballot box fraud (with Russian help)
5. Mass mental illness
6. He is a nobody; “Wizard of Oz” syndrome; the Emperor has no clothes; Mass delusion
7. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Fox News have brainwashed the population
8. The plutocracy bought the election
9. Karma: It is his time, his destiny.
10. Etc.

But causal analysis will not help. It is not possible to determine which of these causes is or are true, and even if it were feasible, the outcome would be irrelevant.

Finally, causal analysis also suffers from the problem of infinite regress:
The problem is the Trump presidency. What caused this?
Identify and treat the cause (so this won’t happen again): a poorly informed electorate. What caused this?
Poor educational system. What caused this?
Insufficient resources allocated to education. What caused this?
Inadequate tax structure. What caused this? Greedy, ultra-capitalist economy.
What caused this? Materialistic and individualistic culture. What caused this?
Etc...

You get my drift. Every cause is also an effect, and for every effect there is a prior cause (at least until you posit the existence of God, the first cause). This is the problem with the causal/deterministic view of the universe. The beauty of Pragmatism, as formulated by the likes of William James, is that it is non-deterministic. In conclusion:

When faced with social problems and dysfunctional behavior, a search for causes is not useful. A more pragmatic approach consists of moving forward and preventing the problem from recurring. For example, our focus needs to be on preventing Trump’s re-election, rather than trying to discover why he was elected.

© Tom Kando 2019;All Rights Reserved

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