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Date:         Sat, 12 Sep 1992 13:38:58 -0400
From:         psy_delprato@EMUNIX.EMICH.EDU
Subject:      Autonomy

SUBJECT: Autonomy--Referents

[FROM Dennis Delprato (920912)]

Rick Marken (920911.0900)

>The war on autonomy

>After making the mistake of watching the news last night I realized why
>PCT will always have a hard time; people just don't like to believe
>in autonomy for anyone but themselves.

&

Bill Powers (920911.1200)

>[To] Gary Cziko (920911) --

>You made an arbitrary
>change in their environments, but had no means of adjusting that
>change until the result you wanted -- learning French -- matched your
>reference level for it. ...
>In case you think I'm criticizing, I'm not. I think you showed great
>respect for your children's autonomy ....

I recall Rick Marken, perhaps most vocally, taking a position that
the "inner-workings" of the PCT class of models requires an
individual who acts autonomously.  From this, one postulate of
PCT is individual autonomy.

What does this postulate imply?  For starters, I see two basic
states of affairs.  One would be the traditional Western Judeo-
Christian-inspired view first well-stated by Augustine whereby
the individual is totally separate from the world.  Augustine,
the great egoistic apostle, interiorized and personalized the
universe in the interests of personal salvation.  Although
few histories reveal this, Augustine's internalism, with
modifications, remains with us today.  We continue to find
one or another theorist suggesting that the answers as to
why people do what they do, think what they think, experience
what they experience are to be found solely under their skin
(inside the Great boundary of the Skin).  Great developments
in scientific psychology represent (*partial*) movement away
from extreme versions of internalism--dynamic psychiatry (Freud),
environmentalism, behaviorism.  Interactionism (of which
there are unnumbered versions), a recent topic of CSG-L, also
represents attempts to "get outside the skin."  The least
advanced interactionisms (e.g., Bandura's theory in
psychology) bespeak their evolution when they offer a
combination of inside (e.g., cognitive)-and-outside (e.g.,
behavioral) factors as always required for understanding
psychological events.

I do not find that PCT calls for the sort of autonomy
given us by cultural tradition.  The equations are not
restricted to internal variables in the sense of taking
the skin as a Magical boundary.  It is not that what in
the vernacular we refer to as the "environment" or even
"external environment" is always involved.  It is that no
specific, elementary control system is independent in that
a hierarchy (>1) is always involved.  No one control
system (referring to a single collection of basic components--
reference level et al.) is self-contained.  Furthermore,
note that disturbances ("external" variables) must always
be included (one of great contributions of PCT).  Thus,
I find PCT progressive on the venerable internal-external
issue.  It takes neither side *and* does not take a
common interactionist position that there is a sequence
of I-->E, THEN E-->I, THEN I-->E, THEN E-->I.  Self-
proclaimed progressive varieties of this add a mysterious
feedback loop verbally or graphically (e.g., Kanfer).

I am questioning that the "inner workings" of PCT call for
autonomy of the behaver--autonomy with referents going
back to Augustine and still found in mainstream psychology.

Nor, do I suggest that Rick's and Bill's use of autonomy
above calls for an autonomy postulate of the sort found in
mainstream psychology.  I find them saying (a) people have
a right to be left alone unless they harm others and (b)
a fundamental outcome of the way that people function
psychologically is that given certain (unnecessary)
disturbances they may adjust in ways that are unpredictable,
not liked by others, disruptive to themselves....  Thus, the
autonomy is more social than psychological.  The organization
and functioning of the psychological system that incorporates
social variables does bear on what the outcome of politico-
socio disturbances will be, but not because the individual
operates autonomously as an internalist would mean.

So I suggest the second state of affairs (class of referents to
autonomy) to be politico-socio.  As a recommendation it might
read something like: "We know enough about how people adjust to
certain things that are done to them to suggest it is
desirable to follow a policy of minimum intrusion.  In fact,
it might be useful to think of each individual as having a
right to personal autonomy."

Instead of individual autonomy as a basic postulate of
PCT, I find it useful to think of self-control--as
opposed to external control.  Thus, PCT's message here
is that psychological events are under self-control with-
out autonomy (in the traditional, internalistic sense).

Perhaps one test of whether or not autonomy is needed
in PCT is to examine what PCT would be like without this
assumption.

I was most immediately prompted to write this upon reading
Rick's  statement above and thinking that if Rick were
autonomous in the Augustinian way (and how could Rick, above
all, be an Augustinian), then he would blissfully go on his
way not giving a hoot about what anyone else thinks.  He
would exercise his autonomy and thereby--to him--make
everyone a 100% full-fledged perceptual control theorist.
His Augustinian autonomy would free him from the pain and
woe of having to be exposed to non-PCT advocates behind
every nook and cranny.  I am not being facititious, for what
I describe is just the sort of autistic thinking Augustinian
autonomy justified and justifies--You don't like this world?
Verbally create and maintain another having none of the
spatiotemporal characteristic of the one in which we live.

I find that the recent intricate discussion on social control
may relate to the autonomy as I have framed it.  But I'd hate
to have to put it all together.

_______________
A not unrelated addendum:  For some time I have been touting
"noninterventionism," which I believe to be a fundamental
implication of naturalistic cybernetics.  In contrast to all
those who go around seeking to "fix" this and that involving
humans, I suggest we LEAVE THEM ALONE.  Take so-called
psychotherapy.  All 300 or so versions, more if one counts
up "eclectic" attempts, are interventionist.  Do any begin
with the position that THE INDIVIDUAL, FAMILY, OR WHATEVER
NEEDS NO "HELP"?  I've suggested establishing a Center for
Non-Therapy.  Its function would be to show people they need
no therapy.  Trouble is I don't know under which DSM code
this service could be billed.  One thing, such a service
would reduce iatrogenic effects.

So, clearly I am for politico-socio autonomy.

Dennis Delprato
Dept. of Psychology
Eastern Michigan University
Ypsilanti, MI 48197
Psy_Delprato@emunix.emich.edu
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