TYPES OF DETERMINISM

DETERMINISM AND SOCIAL CONDITIONING

Social conditioning refers to the sociological process of training individuals in a
society to act or respond in a way approved by that society and by peer groups within
the society. Manifestations of social conditioning are seen in social patterns and social
structures including education, entertainment, popular culture, and family life. The
social structure in which an individual finds him or herself influences and can
determine his/her social actions and responses.
The idea that the human self is an extension of its society dates back to ancient Greece,
and was integral to the internal logic of both Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics.
What is remarkable about the contemporary view of the effect of culture on human
behaviour is its radical, one-dimension of society as literally "creating" humanness.
This doctrine states that people think and act in accordance with their social
conditioning rather than through genetic predisposition or a real freedom of choice, and
that human action has a distinctly social cause.
Criticisms of social determinism
1. It is far too general in scope to be a reliable explanation of human behaviour. For
example, numerous psychological and sociological studies have been carried out to
"prove" that exposure to television violence predisposes children to accept or emulate
violent behaviour. But these correlative studies could just as easily "predict" such
nonaggressive undesirable behaviours as employment instability, drug consumption,
and nonviolent criminal offenses. Both Genghis Khan and Adolf Hitler managed to
exhibit quite a bit of aggressive behaviour without having watched television--indeed, if
they had, they might have become glued to the screen and lost interest in wars of
conquest!
2. Some scholars have pointed out that aspects of society exist because of human
actions and not vice versa. As economist Ludwig von Mises pointed out, people do not
drink simply because breweries and distilleries exist; rather, breweries and distilleries
exist because many people drink!

3. There is evidence that environment and conditioning have only limited roles in
shaping human behaviour. Social determinists have argued that the differences in
behaviours, attitudes and aptitudes of boys and girls only exist because of the way they
have been brought up by their parents and viewed by society; ie they have been socially
conditioned to act in certain ways. Girls are encouraged to be quiet, nurturing and kind
with dolls, books and toy kitchens; boys are encouraged to be more boisterous and
noisy, even aggressive, with guns, cars, footballs and toy soldiers. However, recent
studies have questioned this view, suggesting that men and women are physiologically
different in thought and behaviour. (Interestingly, the religious idea of men and women
being created separately and with different roles seems to agree with this basic
physiological difference.)
EXAMPLE:
One goal of the Israeli kibbutz movement was to break down barriers between the
sexes. But studies have shown that, despite seeming initial success, after a few years
traditional gender roles crept back. The women mainly had conventional female jobs,
and mothers no longer wanted their children to be raised communally. Girls had been
required by the kibbutzim to dress and shower with boys, in the belief that sex
differences could be broken down by reeducation. But it was found that post-pubescent
girls resisted this practice despite their unisex conditioning. It was also found that the
young children would spontaneously claim such things as toys and towels as private
property, and quarrel about these matters just as children in other cultures do, even
though their parents were allowed no private property. Only when the children reached
adolescence did they begin to recite the official ideology of the kibbutzim, which had by
then been drummed into them.
4. Antony Flew has argued that, if everything is assumed to have a cause, then the
things we believe to be causes themselves cannot be true causes, but only effects of
previous causes. Only that which is uncaused can be a first cause. This being the case,
social determinism must essentially maintain that everything was ultimately caused
billions of years ago by the Big Bang (or a Supreme being), which would make it rather
pointless to study human behaviour.
5. Although social determinism claims to explain the behaviour of all members of a
given culture, in reality it is applied very selectively. As Paul Hollander puts it, "only
the behaviour of the 'underdogs' is socially determined and hence their responsibility

for their actions and attendant moral accountability are reduced." This "selective social
determinism" relieves "some groups of responsibility for their behaviour but not
others." While the poor are exonerated for their actions, the middle class is held fully
responsible for its "greed" and "conspicuous consumerism," and it is not often
maintained that their environment "drove them to it." Ordinary crimes are sometimes
explained in terms of deprivation, but not "hate" crimes, even when the perpetrators
are themselves poor.
ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINISM
Environmental determinism, also known as climatic determinism or geographical
determinism, is the view that the physical environment, rather than social conditions,
determines culture. Those who believe this view say that humans are strictly defined
by stimulus-response (environment-behaviour) and cannot deviate. Environmental,
climatic, and geographical factors alone are responsible for human cultures; individual
decisions and/or social conditions have virtually no impact on cultural development.
It was long believed that aspects of physical geography, particularly climate, influenced
the psychological mind-set of individuals, which in turn defined the behaviour and
culture of their society. For example, tropical climates were said to cause laziness,
relaxed attitudes and promiscuity, while the frequent variability in the weather of the
middle latitudes led to more determined and driven work ethics. Another example of
environmental determinism would be the theory that island nations have unique
cultural traits solely because of their isolation from continental societies.
Environmental determinism's origins go back to antiquity:
a. it is first encountered in a fifth-century medical treatise ascribed to Hippocrates:
Airs, Waters, Places .
b. In Roman times it is found in the work of the Greek geographer Strabo who
wrote that climate influences the psychological disposition of different races.
c. In ancient China it is found in the Works of Guan Zhong (2nd century BCE) :
"Now the water of [the state of] Qi is forceful, swift and twisting. Therefore its
people are greedy, uncouth, and warlike," and "The water of Chu is gentle,
yielding, and pure. Therefore its people are lighthearted, resolute, and sure of
themselves."

d. the medieval Afro-Arab writer al-Jahiz explained how the environment can
determine the physical characteristics of the inhabitants of a certain community,
e.g. black skin originating in areas of black basalt.
Environmental determinism rose to its most prominent stage in modern geography
beginning in the late 19th Century when it was revived by the German geographer
Friedrich Rtzel who was greatly influenced by Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859.
One of Rtzels students, Ellsworth Huntington introduced a subset of environmental
determinism, called climatic determinism in the early 1900s. His theory stated that the
economic development in a country can be predicted based on its distance from the
equator. He said temperate climates with short growing seasons stimulate
achievement, economic growth, and efficiency. The ease of growing things in the tropics
on the other hand hindered their advancement.
However, between 1920 and 1940 environmental determinism came under repeated
attacks as its claims were found to be severely faulted at best, and often dangerously
wrong. Geographers reacted to this by first developing the softer notion of
"environmental possibilism," and later by abandoning the search for theory and causal
explanation for many decades. Later critics charged that determinism served to justify
racism and imperialism. Regardless of its decline however, environmental determinism
was an important component of geographic history as it initially represented an
attempt by early geographers to explain the patterns they saw developing across the
globe.

RESPONSES TO ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINISM

1. Carl Sauer (1924) and said that environmental determinism led to premature
generalizations about an areas culture and did not allow for results based on
direct observation or other research.
2. French geographer Paul Vidal de la Blanche suggested that the environment sets
limitations for cultural development but it does not completely define culture. Culture
is instead defined by the opportunities and decisions that humans make in response to
dealing with such limitations. He called this view geographical possibilism.

3. Aspects of environmental determinism could be seen as encouraging racial

stereotypes and promoting imperialism.

GENETIC (BIOLOGICAL) DETERMINISM

Genetic determinism is the theory that our genes and genetic makeup determine every
aspect of our being and personality. Because we already know that aberrations in
certain genes can lead to various forms of physical and mental disease in humans, we
can say with some certainty that people are physically determined by their genes. But

genetic determinists want to extend this further, by claiming that even our behaviour
is determined by our genes.
Many people believe that a person's environment, social factors and other factors from
the environment influence a person's likes, dislikes and other preferences. However,
genetic determinists believe that all of these things are predetermined and that
environment and social factors cannot influence or change them. Everything from
music tastes to predisposition to commit crimes like murder is laid out in our genetic
makeup. Customs, education, expectations and all other variables are not considered.
In this line of thinking, we are but victims of our genetic makeup, and any effort to
change our moral nature or behavioural patterns is useless. This is sometimes termed
"puppet determinism," meaning metaphorically that we dance on the strings of our
genes.
The idea that an organism's growth and instincts are genetically determined can be
traced back to Austrian theorist August Weismann, who proposed in the 1890s that the
key actors in the struggle for survival are not organisms but their genes, which he
called determinants. Since the fittest determinants would be whichever ones correlate
to the most useful phenotypic traits, germinal selection would result in the fittest
organisms surviving and reproducing. Weismann referred to the chemical carrier of
these determinants as the germ plasm, now known to be DNA.
There are two principle forms of genetic determinism:
a) Genetic Fixity: Sphexishness
This is the theory that the genes of parents inevitably determine the characteristics of
their children. Dan Dennett [1996] calls this simple form of determinism
SPHEXISHNESS from his example of the digger wasp, Sphex ichneumoneus:
"When the time comes for egg laying, the wasp Sphex builds a burrow for the purpose
and seeks out a cricket which she stings in such a way as to paralyze but not kill it. She
drags the cricket into the burrow, lays her eggs alongside, closes the burrow, then flies
away, never to return. In due course, the eggs hatch and the wasp grubs feed off the
paralyzed cricket, which has not decayed, having been kept in the wasp equivalent of
deep freeze. To the human mind, such an elaborately organized and seemingly

purposeful routine conveys a convincing flavor of logic and thoughtfulness--until more

details are examined. For example, the Wasp's routine is to bring the paralyzed cricket
to the burrow, leave it on the threshold, go inside to see that all is well, emerge, and
then drag the cricket in. If the cricket is moved a few inches away while the wasp is
inside making her preliminary inspection, the wasp, on emerging from the burrow, will
bring the cricket back to the threshold, but not inside, and will then repeat the
preparatory procedure of entering the burrow to see that everything is all right. If
again the cricket is removed a few inches while the wasp is inside, once again she will
move the cricket up to the threshold and re-enter the burrow for a final check. The
wasp never thinks of pulling the cricket straight in. On one occasion this procedure was
repeated forty times, always with the same result."
CRITICISM OF GENETIC FIXITY
This very simply determined behaviour may be interesting to observe in insects, but
surely human behaviour is much more complex. Genes, of course, do influence human
development. The differences between humans and chimps are almost entirely genetic.
However, even the completion of the human genome project will not enable scientists to
predict how a child will develop. Indeed, even a complete knowledge of a child's genes
and developmental environment would not allow complete understanding: chance also
plays a significant role in development.
b) Innate Capacity
The second variety of genetic determinism is a slightly more sophisticated theory of
innate capacity, according to which people are like buckets waiting to be filled
(Lewontin, 1991). In an impoverished environment, all people will end up with similar
characteristics (wealth, knowledge, etc.); but in an enriched environment, those who
naturally have big buckets will end up with more than those with small buckets could
possibly hold. For example, people who are malnourished will show smaller individual
differences in height than those who are well nourished.

The Doctrine of Statistical Variation

All individual differences can be classified as either genetic or environmental in some
proportion (Lewontin, 1991). For example, it might be said that 80 percent of the

variance in children's performance on I.Q. tests is due to genetic influences, and only
20 percent is due to environment. Even a radical change in environment will have only
a modest effect on performance.
CRITICISM OF STATISTICAL VARIATION
However, a change in environment can have an enormous effect, as can be seen from
the following examples:
i) An ordinary student in primary school today can add a column of numbers much
faster than even the most intelligent ancient Roman mathematician, who had to deal
with cumbersome X's, V's, and I's. Further, the same student, using an inexpensive
calculator, can multiply two five-digit numbers faster than even the most intelligent
mathematician a century ago (Lewontin, 1991).
ii) Heritability does not imply immutability. This can be seen from the example of PKU
(phenylketonuria), a form of retardation. PKU can be cured by stopping people from
eating phenylalanine. One hundred years ago the proportion of genetic variation in
acquiring PKU was 100 percent; now individual differences in acquiring PKU are
almost completely non-genetic (Plomin, DeFries, & McClern, 1990).
Further Considerations
Genetics now enables us to reconstruct the genetic make-up of certain individuals. In
other words, genetic determinism does not just show us how we are victims of our
genes; it also shows us how we can use the knowledge of our genes in order to change
them and, therefore, change ourselves. This understanding of GENETICS and human
freedom, or unfreedom as it were, illustrates the extent to which genetic determinists
place the influence of nature (biology and genetics) over nurture (society and family).
The fundamental premises of genetic determinism, therefore, come to be that:

We are victims of our genes and have no ultimate freedom, and

With proper knowledge, we can take charge of our genes so that we are no longer
their victim, but rather, are their architect. This premise has been termed
"Promethean determinism," meaning that with the proper knowledge we can
take charge of our genetic and, therefore, moral/ behavioural makeup.

Nature vs. Nurture Intelligence

Nature vs. nurture refers to the ongoing argument surrounding the influences of
genetic and environmental factors on a person's development. Nature advocates believe
that genetics determine a person's characteristics, while nurture advocates believe that
a person's environmental factors determine characteristics and traits.
This debate has been going on for many years. Some research suggests that rather
than personality and traits being determined by either nature or nurture principles,
they are actually determined by a combination of the two.
Biological Approach to Free Will and Determinism
A biological approach to free will and determinism suggests that even our actions and
what we decide to do in everyday life are predetermined by genetics.
Serial killers: Is it nature or nurture? This question has been exhaustively examined
by researchers for years. If genetics determine our personality and actions, many
wonder what leads people to lives of crime and hate.
Those who study biological determinism search for answers to many questions like this
and seek to find a link between genetics and:

addiction
intelligence
mental illness
obesity
risky behaviour
sexual preference.

PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERMINISM
FREUD
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) claimed that human beings are determined, even in the
womb, by their unconscious minds and by various natural drives that society has made
them repress.
E.g. the Oedipus complex states that all sons are basically in love with their mothers,
while the Elektra complex states that all daughters are basically in love with their
fathers.
Because incest is forbidden in most societies, these unconscious, yet natural, drives
must be repressed, causing human beings to be affected in different ways. Therefore, if
parents give too much, too little or the wrong kind of love to their children, the entire

mental and emotional lives of the children can be affected to the point where they
become neurotic and psychotic.
This theory has been used many times in defending criminal killers when for
example the defence claims that a certain man who has raped and killed women has
done so because they all resembled his mother, and that his unconscious hatred of her
compelled him to commit his crimes. Just as this man was determined by his
unconscious drives of love and hate for his parents to perform terrible acts, so a
Freudian would argue all humans are determined by their inner drives and
unconscious motivations to behave in the ways they do.
CRITICISM OF FREUD
His theory is too generalised to have any basis in fact, i.e. Freud has taken his
experiences with a few abnormally disturbed patients as a basis for establishing
theories that apply to all human beings.
Behaviourism
Behaviourism is another kind of psychological determinism. Key researchers such as
Watson, and Skinner believed that the environment could be changed to mould an
individual to behave in any way they please. Both based their ideas on the work of
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), the Russian psychologist who first developed the concept of
conditioned reflex. In his experiments with dogs, Pavlov discovered that they would
react to the sound of a bell by salivating, if he conditioned them to do so by ringing the
bell every time he gave them food. Once the dogs were conditioned, Pavlov would ring
the bell without food and they would still salivate. he suggested that all animals,
including humans, could be conditioned by various external factors.
James Watson first related the ideas of Pavlovs classical conditioning to humans: Give
me 5 babies and Ill make one a businessman, one a cook, one a football star, one an
actor, and one a criminal. His most famous work is baby Albert. He conditioned poor
little Albert to reject white fluffy things by continually including LOUD NOISES upon
the introduction of the white fluffy thing. Soon enough, the fluffy white thing alone
would make little Albert upset. This research introduced the idea of stimulus
generalization. Not only the white bunny (for example) would scare the poor baby.
White fluffy pillows, etc could also raise fear from Al.

SKINNER(1904 -1990)
Skinners theory was more complex human beings are totally physical beings and the
behaviour they exhibit is strictly the result of years of haphazard conditioning from
their environments physical, social and cultural. All traditional ideas about soul, self,
and psyche are merely superstition, based on a lack of scientific knowledge. Freedom is
an illusion, and once we realise this we can eliminate all of humanitys problems. Now
that we have a complete science of human behaviour, we can create the perfect world.
CRITICISMS OF SKINNER AND WATSON
1, Skinner believes that humans are strictly material or physical beings, possessing no
mind, self, soul or ego. Many disagree with this.
2. The fact that conditioning works under some circumstances does not mean that
humans merely react to external stimuli all the time, or that conditioning always
works, or even that it should be applied in all circumstances. For example, a little baby
like Albert will be more suggestible than an older child or adult.