''Beyond Freedom and Dignity'' is a 1971 book by American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

B. F. Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1948 until his retirement in ...

. Skinner argues that entrenched belief in

free will Free will is generally understood as the capacity or ability of people to (a) choice, choose between different possible courses of Action (philosophy), action, (b) exercise control over their actions in a way that is necessary for moral respon ...

and the moral

autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy is the capacity to make an informed, uncoerced decision. Autonomous organizations or institutions are independent or self-governing. Autonomy can also be ...

of the individual (which Skinner referred to as "dignity") hinders the prospect of using scientific methods to modify behavior for the purpose of building a happier and better-organized society. ''Beyond Freedom and Dignity'' may be summarized as an attempt to promote Skinner's philosophy of science, the technology of human behavior, his conception of determinism, and what Skinner calls "cultural engineering".

Synopsis

The book is organized into nine chapters.

A Technology of Behavior

In this chapter Skinner proposes that a technology of behavior is possible and that it can be used to help solve currently pressing human issues such as over-population and warfare. "Almost all major problems involve human behavior, and they cannot be solved by physical and biological technology alone. What is needed is a technology of human behavior."

Freedom

In this chapter Skinner offers a more precise definition of

freedom Freedom is the power or right to speak, act, and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself one's own laws". In one definition, something is "free" i ...

, one that allows for his conception of

determinism Determinism is the Metaphysics, metaphysical view that all events within the universe (or multiverse) can occur only in one possible way. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes ov ...

, and speaks to the conventional notion of freedom. Skinner argues against "autonomous man". Skinner notes that the forces of Freedom and Dignity have led to many positive advances in the human condition, but may now be hindering the advance of a technology of human behavior: " he literature of freedom and dignityhas been successful in reducing the aversive stimuli used in intentional control, but it has made the mistake of defining freedom in terms of states of mind or feelings..."

Dignity

Dignity is the process by which people are given credit for their actions, or alternatively punished for them under the notion of responsibility. Skinner's analysis rejects both as "dignity" – a false notion of inner causality which removes both credit for action and blame for misdeeds, "the achievements for which a person himself is to be given credit seem to approach zero.". Skinner notes that credit is typically a function of the conspicuousness of control. We give less or no credit, or blame, to those who are overtly coached, compelled, prompted or otherwise not appearing to be producing actions spontaneously.

Punishment

Skinner saw punishment as the

logical consequence Logical consequence (also entailment or logical implication) is a fundamental concept in logic which describes the relationship between statement (logic), statements that hold true when one statement logically ''follows from'' one or more stat ...

of an unscientific analysis of behavior as well as the tradition of "freedom and dignity". Since individuals are seen to be making choices they are then able to be punished for those choices. Since Skinner denies the existence of free will, he therefore argued against punishment which he saw to be ineffective in controlling behavior.

Alternatives to Punishment

Skinner notes that the previous solutions to punishment are often not very useful and may create additional problems. Permissiveness, the metaphor of mid-wifery (or maieutics, ie the Socratic Method), "guidance", a dependence on things, "changing minds", all contain either problems or faulty assumptions about what is going on. Skinner argues that this misunderstanding of control championed by the defenders of freedom and dignity "encourage the misuse of controlling practices and block progress towards a more effective technology of behavior."

Values

Skinner notes a 'prescientific' view of man allows for personal achievement. The 'scientific view' moves human action to be explained by species evolution and environmental history. Skinner speaks to feelings about what is right, as well as popular notions of "good". Skinner translates popular words and phrases around value issues into his view of contingencies of reinforcement. Skinner notes that even if the technology of behavior produces "goods" to improve human life, they expose environmental control, which is offensive to the "freedom and dignity" perspective.

The Evolution of a Culture

Skinner suggests that cultural evolution is a way to describe the aggregate of (operant) behavior. A culture is a collection of behavior, or practices. Skinner addresses "

social Darwinism Charles Darwin, after whom social Darwinism is named Social Darwinism is a body of pseudoscientific theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economi ...

" and argues that as a justification of the subordination of other nations or of war competition with others is a small part of natural selection. A much more important part is competition with the physical environment itself. Skinner relates the idea of cultural evolution back to the question of values: whose values are to survive?

The Design of a Culture

Skinner notes that cultural design is not new, but is already existing and on-going. Skinner notes that most discussions of current problems are dominated by metaphors, concerns for feelings and states of mind which do not illuminate possible solutions. Skinner notes that behavior modification is ethically neutral. Skinner notes that

Utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', which describes a fictiona ...

n speculations, like his novel ''

Walden Two ''Walden Two'' is a utopian novel written by behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner, first published in 1948. At that time, it was considered as science fiction since science-based methods for altering human behavior were not widespread. Such me ...

'', are a kind of cultural engineering. He then devotes much of the rest of this chapter to addressing the criticisms and complaints against cultural engineering.

What is Man?

Skinner again addresses the notion of the individual, and discusses how aspects of a person's character could be assigned to environmental factors. He also covers cognition, problem solving, self-control and counters some arguments or possible misconceptions. Skinner notes that his analysis does not "leave an empty organism". Skinner addresses the issue of mechanical models of human action, which are better addressed elsewhere. Skinner notes that, "The evolution of a culture is a gigantic effort in

self-control Self-control is an aspect of inhibitory control, one of the core executive functions. Executive functions are cognitive processes that are necessary for regulating one's behavior in order to achieve specific goals. Defined more independen ...

." and ends with, "A scientific view of man offers exciting possibilities. We have not yet seen what man can make of man."

''Walden Two''

''Beyond Freedom and Dignity'' is consistent with ''

'', a 1948 novel by Skinner, depicting a utopian community based on his ideas regarding behavior modification. In ''Beyond Freedom and Dignity'' Skinner extends his argument for explicit cultural engineering of which ''Walden Two'' may be seen as an example.

Reactions

Linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...

criticized Skinner's methods and conclusions. His 1971 essay "The Case Against B.F. Skinner" responded to ''Beyond Freedom and Dignity'', arguing against

behaviorism Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understand the behavior of humans and other animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex elicited by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that indivi ...

and its claim to scientific status. In response to Skinner's denial of human dignity, Chomsky said, "It would be absurd to conclude merely from the fact that freedom is limited, that “autonomous man” is an illusion (...) It would be hard to conceive of a more striking failure to comprehend even the rudiments of scientific thinking ".

John Staddon John Eric Rayner Staddon is a British-born American psychologist. He has been a critic of Skinnerian behaviorism and proposed a theoretically-based "New Behaviorism". John Staddon conducted theoretical behaviorism research in adaptive functi ...

criticized Skinner's contention that punishment is ineffective and free-will an unnecessary concept, arguing that "Punishment doesn't always abolish freedom -- and freedom is not just absence of punishment".Staddon, J. (1995) "On responsibility and punishment"
in ''The Atlantic Monthly'', Feb., 88-94.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beyond Freedom And Dignity 1971 non-fiction books Metaphysics books Moral psychology books Works by B. F. Skinner Behaviorism