Normative behaviourism and experimental critique: Praxis, pre-figuration, principles

This paper improves the ability of normative behaviourism (NB) to deliver timely critique by connecting it to two key ideas in contemporary critical theory –‘praxis’ and ‘prefigurative’ politics. Consider here that, at present, if NB has a specific or characteristic form of critique it is to indict the status quo, in any given context, by saying it fails to do as well as alternative arrangements tested or proven elsewhere (Floyd, 2017). In other words, rather than critiquing a system by saying no one would choose it from the ‘original position’, or under ‘ideal speech’ conditions, it indicts in precisely the same way it vindicates – via comparison to whatever system, so far, has the lowest tendency to produce insurrectionary and criminal behavior. That argument has various merits but also several problems (Floyd, 2023), with one in particular standing out here: What are we to do if even our current ‘best’ systems are in ‘crisis’. For example, what if even ‘model’ social-liberal-democracies are sliding into greater inequality, environmental degradation, and out of control artificial intelligence? Here it seems, we need to move fast, but also pre-emptively, which is why, so far, a key argument for normative behaviourism has been the need to ‘experiment’. That claim though needs developing if our experiments are to be properly guided by theory, in the spirit of praxis, and sufficiently radical and action-guiding, in the spirit of pre-figurative politics. The hope here is that appropriately designed experiments function as effective critiques of a complacent status quo by falsifying, at the least, the claim that certain things are impossible. If, for example, women are brought into politics without the world falling apart, this falsifies certain ideas of patriarchy. If minorities or the poor are brought into politics and the economy survives, this falsifies certain forms of elitism. This logic matters in a world run by the neoliberal logic of ‘no alternative’, as well as a world struggling to decouple growth from both inequality and environmental degradation. Showing alternatives are possible, via experimentation, is thus an important form of critique, both because it can be done quickly, in times of crises, and because it tackles head-on the most common response to any ‘utopian’ vision – ‘well it sounds nice, but it would never work’.