Sustainability and Conditional Altruism

Abstract

Bearing in mind what has already been argued in favor of Behavior Analysis’s viable contributions to a society constructed on the maxim of social justice, this chapter sets out to evaluate the current state of its scientific development, the ethical-ideological difficulties that are specifically those of cultural planning, and the technological obstacles that empirical research and theoretical formulations have already identified. Essentially this brief review of the potentialities of the selection by consequences model is not primarily about the interactions of organisms with their environment in their intimate and particular relations, but instead it is about those relations of individuals with their environment that are mediated by other individuals. We dedicate our attention to this last configuration of contingencies, which Skinner called social behavior, pointing to the existence of technology and conceptual material of importance for the consolidation of Behavior Analysis as a concrete strategy for fostering social well-being. Among other cultural planning possibilities, we analyze that of installing altruistic behavior patterns designed to ensure the unfolding of social and environmental sustainability actions to preserve and conserve decent survival conditions for future generations.