The major premise of Beach’s article is the need to analyze the reasons for the vitality of a concept that has stood the test of time without objectively testing it. The next objective of the article is to evaluate the concept of intuition as it relates to the science of behavior. Beach concerns himself with the problem that behaviorists often just name or label instincts and he cautions what will happen when this phenomenon assumes that no learning is involved in this process.
Beach states that from the beginning, instinct has been defined and discussed in terms of its relation to reason and the human soul. During the fourth century B.C. the Greek philosopher Heraclitus stated that there are two types of creation. Men and gods were the products of rational creation, and irrational beings were in a separate category of living creatures. Heraclitus observed that only gods and men possess souls. This close relation between rational powers and the possession of a soul would be reaffirmed again during the next 2500 years. Heraclitus in all actuality laid the groundwork for the development and concept of instinct.
Philosophers of the first century A.D. held that men and gods belong to one community since they are rational beings. All animals were excluded since they are not creatures of reason and their most complex behavior takes place without reflection, as stated by Seneca. Neither Heraclitus nor the Stoics based these conclusions upon objective evidence. They assumed that animals lack a rational soul. Aristotle placed man above the Indian elephant, with superior intellectual powers, but none distinct from those of other species.
In the thirteenth century Albertus Magnus removed man from the scale stating he is unique because of the gift of reason and the immortal soul. He states that animals are directed by their natural instinct and cannot act freely. St. Thomas Aquinas, a student of Albertus supports this distinction stating that animals possess this sensitive soul. He also states that the rational soul is “directly implanted in the fetus at sometime before birth,” and that “the behavior of man then, depends upon reason, whereas all animals are governed by instinct.” These scholars were not concerned with factual evidence. Beach states that we need to question why Descartes felt that man is the reasoned, and all other living creatures are just machines with flesh and blood. Albertus and Descartes argue that the theological system is based on life after death; and that possessing a soul is not enough. They state that each man must earn the right of his soul’s salvation. According to them this depends upon reason when differentiating good from evil, and of behavior which is sinful from which is not.
Beach summarizes that the concept of instinct has descended from early philosophers that separated man from the rest of the living world and that only they seek “divine affinity.” They also state that man alone has the power of reason. By the process of elimination the behavior of animals was ascribed to their instincts which occur naturally. Pre-scientific concepts of instinct were made without facts, and were based on demand of the present philosophical systems and the supernatural. These philosophers believed that the possession of reason and of the soul was linked to the hope of eternal life. There was a general tendency to adopt the pre-scientific points of view regarding instinct until Erasmus Darwin expressed is theory that all behavior is a product of experience, however, his grandson Charles Darwin disavowed this view. Charles Darwin made the concept of instinct a cornerstone of his theory on evolution by means of natural selection. Darwin and his followers came up with two types of evidence. One type of evidence is for the purpose of proving the existence of instincts in humans, and the other pertained to rational behavior in sub-human species. The nineteenth century literature shows that the concept of instinctive behavior was accepted not because of facts or validity from testing but because it filled a need in the theoretical system. This way of thinking leads to the tendency to confuse naming with explaining. Some psychological writers of this time used this concept of instinct to explain behaviors, resulting in a revolt to use instinct in any theory.
Beach criticizes against the use of ‘instinct’ to explain animal behavior with three reasons for its failure. He states that behaviorists such as Kuo deny instincts but admit to the existence of unlearned “units of reaction,” or simple reflexes, which provided fatal to his thesis. Now arguments were made as to the degree of complexity permitted in an unlearned response. Having stated that only unlearned reactions consist of few simple reflexes, opponents of the instinct doctrine used learning to explain all other behavior. The third criticism Beach notes in the anti-instinct argument was derived from a concept of the process of heredity. Admitting that genes can affect “morphological characters” he denies that heredity influences behavior at the same time. These conclusions and theories were made more with reasoning than with actual observation of newborn children or animals in a laboratory.
A.) Beach’s view of the relative contribution of genes and environment in determining behavior is that the study of the effects of controlled breeding casts doubts upon the validity of any classification system which describes one type of behavior as genetically determined and another as experientially determined. By manipulating the genotype it is possible to alter certain types of learning ability. As far as present evidence shows the influence of genes on learning is as important as any genetical effect upon other behavior patterns considered instinctive. Thus there is no reason to assume that so-called instinctive reactions are more dependent on heredity than those responses that are non -instinctive. This being said, genetical determination is not a differentiating criterion.
B.) Beach states that studies emphasize the important fact that post-natal behavior is affected by factors acting upon the organism before birth. He states that as Sontag points out, this is true of human beings as well as lower species. Another fundamental principle illustrated is that the uniformity of behavior which characterizes highly inbred strains of animals cannot be ascribed only to homozygosity, but depends on minimal variability of the prenatal environment. This principle implies that behavioral similarities and differences observable at birth are in part a product of intrauterine effects. Beach also states that no bit of behavior can be fully understood until its ontogenesis has been described. Had psychologists in the past recognized this fact, much of the debate of unlearned behavior could have been avoided. Two examples that Beach uses to illustrate the importance of learning on so-called ‘instinctive’ behaviors are the swimming behavior of the larval amphibians and the gravid female moths and their laying patterns. Carmichael studied the swimming behavior of larval amphibians in which he reared embryos in a solution which paralyzed the striped muscles but permitted normal growth. Animals that were prevented from practicing the swimming response were capable of normal swimming when placed in pure water. To demonstrate that practice is not essential for the appearance of a response is only the beginning of the analysis. The second example is in the gravid female moths. These moths lay there eggs on the leaves of the hackberry plant and die shortly after. The eggs hatch, the larvae eats the leaves and eventually becomes mature. Females of a new generation select hackberry leaves on which to deposit their eggs. Another race of moths prefers apple leaves. When eggs of the apple-preferring type were transferred to the hackberry leaves, the larvae thrived on the new diet. Thirty percent of the females developing from these larvae show a preference for hackberry leaves when it is time to deposit their eggs. It appears likely that the adult moth’s choice is influenced by the chemical composition of the food consumed during the larval period. This data if the interpretation is correct, illustrates the fact that the complex behavior pattern may be “unlearned” and still depend on the previous history of the individual.