Is the Ludovico Technique Moral?

We are all aware of the fact that Alex Delarge, the main character in the film "A Clockwork Orange" experienced a horrific treatment while in prison called the Ludovico technique. This technique used classical conditioning to prevent Alex from commiting any acts of violence or rape. The scientists would inject Alex with a serum that would made him experience episodes of nausea and helplessness kind of like drowning. After he was injected they made him watch series of violence and rape. The result of the conditioning was that it rendered Alex unable to committ acts that he loved to committ. My question for you, which is the basis of my blog, is this: if we had the capability of providing prisoners in our prison system today with the Ludovico treatment would we? Because if you really think about it, the Ludovico technique is a microcosm of our prison system. Instead of associating acts of violence and rape with a feeling of helplessness, nausea, and drowning our prisoners associate their acts with shanks, cell bars, horrid beatings, and sodomy. Think about it this way what would you rather experience this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k6CZYUxc0M

or this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzIVc_uY1t4

Just an interesting thing to comtemplate I think.

Although not exactly what I envisioned, A Clockwork Orange displayed some of the psychological ideas we saw in class, including behavioral psychology. Alex, the protagonist, who rapes and kills for fun at the age of 16, is thrown into a brainwashing therapy which forces him to be sick while watching movie after movie of sexual assault and violence, even to the tracks of his beloved...

Ludvig van Beethoven. Similarly to the promises of John B. Watson in 1913 that investors could be forced into new habits through associations of certain objects with certain end results, the government in A Clockwork Orange try to force Alex's brain to associate rape and violence with his artificially induced sickness, promising a new era of peace and non-violence (narrated all in a first for movies!).

Conditioning of the Human Mind

In this video, Alex is shown being conditioned by being forced to watch gruesome scenes of violence, similar to what he had done before. By making him watch these videos until he says he's feeling sick forces him to associate violence with nausea. After this occurs, the drug begins to affect him. This drug causes severe paralysis and terror, which add to the negative associations of violence.
Alex's "treatment" pretty much turns him into one of Pavlov's dogs, in the sense that he responds predictably when confronted with conditioned events. Pavlov's dogs were trained to salivate in reaction to the stimulus of hearing a bell ring. This is because they "learned" that when they hear the bell they will receive food, so their bodies begin salivating. This is similar to how Alex is conditioned, but instead of being trained to a positive reaction, he is trained to be repelled from violence.
However, the mind is very plastic; it can be trained to act a certain way, and as easily as it was trained it can untie the connections. Just as Alex is "cured" from his treatment.

Associative Learning in "A Clockwork Orange"

In the movie "A Clockwork Orange", Alex saw the treatment in prison as an opportunity to escape the walls of the jail and back into society. Instead, the doctors made Alex a prisoner within himself. Once the doctors had control of Alex they conditioned him however they pleased by using associative learning. The doctors were able to train Alex to force a connection between nausea and any malicious activity. So, whenever Alex thought about violence or the "old in-out" he was immediately struck with a feeling of complete sickness  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-JAhY6eT3c ). This is similar to Pavlov's experiments with dogs. Through a series of trials Pavlov trained dogs to salivate whenever a bell was sounded. He did this by associating a bell with eating. Whenever a bell was sounded the dogs would get food. Alex's treatment was much more harsh and included drugs that forced him to be sick. His whole life before the treatment was based in sex and violence and when they were taken away from him he had nothing else to turn to, not even his family.  

Classical Conditioning in Grandma's Birthday Cards AND A Clockwork Orange?

So, I was going home for fall break on Friday afternoon. On the plane, I happened to open up the American Way magazine and what do I see in the beginning of the AirMail section? "We love letters. Maybe it’s because our grandmas always used to tape a quarter to our birthday cards when we were little and we now have this Pavlovian thing going on." I thought this was hilarious, because we just learned about Pavlov in Psychology! However, if you're unfamiliar with Pavlov's idea of Classical Conditioning, which focuses on changing behavior, here's a simple breakdown using the example above:

BEFORE "CONDITIONING":


The Unconditioned Stimulus, or Pavlov's term for something that initiates an automatic response was the birthday cards in the mail, and the Unconditioned (automatic) Response was happiness because it always feels nice to get a card on your birthday, especially from your grandma.

DURING "CONDITIONING":
+Grandma sent them birthday cards in the mail with the Conditioned Stimulus, a quarter, so they were doubly happy whenever they received Grandma's birthday cards because of the quarter inside which they could use to buy something (a yummy piece of candy perhaps).

AFTER "CONDITIONING":


Now, after many years and many birthday cards from Grandma, every time they receive any letter in the mail, the Conditioned Response of super happiness is initiated.
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In the famous movie A Clockwork Orange, a young man Alex leads a hedonistic lifestyle without regards for the rules of society, raping women and robbing homes. Eventually though, he is caught for murdering a woman, and is sent to jail. In order to shorten his sentence, Alex persuades his superiors to let him participate in an experimental trial called the Ludovico treatment. The underlying idea of the Ludovico treatment is Pavlov's classical conditioning.

BEFORE "CONDITIONING":
SEXUAL AND/OR VIOLENT IMPULSESALEX COMMITS SEXUAL AND/OR VIOLENT ACTS AND

Before Alex was jailed, when Alex was confronted with violent and sexual impulses, the Unconditioned Stimulus, he automatically followed through with these impulses and committed violent and sexual acts, the Unconditioned Response.
(The medicine used in the Ludovico Technique is also an Unconditioned Stimulus, and when someone is given this "medicine," their body will have an Unconditioned Response of extreme nausea.)

DURING "CONDITIONING":
+ IMAGES OF VIOLENCE AND RAPE
During the Ludovico treatment, Alex was repeatedly shown many images of violence and rape, which would usually create a sense of happiness in Alex. However, each time that he saw these images Alex was also given the medicine, the Conditioned Stimulus, which caused him to be almost physically paralyzed with an overall feeling of nauseousness.

AFTER "CONDITIONING":
SEXUAL AND OR VIOLENT IMPULSES

After the Ludovico treatment, when he was released into the real world, any time Alex got the urge to commit a violent or sexual act, he was immediately gripped with the extreme nauseousness even though he had long been without the Ludovico medicine. In other worlds, whenever Alex begins to have a sexual or violent impulse, his body begins to feel extremely nauseous, the Conditioned Response.

Oh, behave

"A Clockwork Orange" writer, Anthony Burgess, was not a big fan of Watson and Skinner's behaviorism ideas. In fact, he called Skinner's book, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, "one of the most dangerous books ever written." So does Alex's conditioning follow Skinner's "operant conditioning?" In my opinion, yes! The reward and consequence practice is strongly used in the movie, as Alex is punished every time he wants to be violent or engage in sexual acts. This video shows one of Skinner's experiments that conditions with reward instead of punishment, but still is similar to Alex's conditioning http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA Because Burgess did not agree with the ideas behind behaviorism, Alex's "mind" overcomes his conditioning in the end, thus going against the principles of Skinner and Watson. So, the movie is basically criticizing behavioral psychology and the results are a disturbing and intriguing look into the human psyche.

Sex, Drugs, and Classical Conditioning

The movie, A Clockwork Orange, is a prime example of Ivan Pavlov's idea of classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is a form of learning in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus and acquires the capacity to induce a similar response.

The movie focuses on a 15-year-old boy named Alex DeLarge who was the self-proclaimed leader of a small gang in England. He is convicted of the murder of a cat-woman. He is sentenced to 14 years in prison.

After 2 years he voluntarily subjects himself to a experimental treatment called the Ludovico technique that would allow him to leave jail within a fortnight. The Ludovico technique is an example of classical conditioning.

In Alex's case, doctors subjected him to a series of violent images with Beethoven's 9th Symphony playing in the background. He is given drugs that cause him to have a near-death experience. The combination of the images, drugs, and music cause him to get sick whenever he hears Beethoven's 9th or tries to take part in any violent or sexual act.

In the eyes of the doctors, the treatment worked and Alex is cured of his violent behaviors. But in reality, Alex is no longer able to defend himself or make logical decisions in his life when violence may be involved.

For more information, please watch this video on classical conditioning.