Beyond Freedom and DignityIn this profound and profoundly controversial work, a landmark of 20th-century thought originally published in 1971, B. F. Skinner makes his definitive statement about humankind and society. Insisting that the problems of the world today can be solved only by dealing much more effectively with human behavior, Skinner argues that our traditional concepts of freedom and dignity must be sharply revised. They have played an important historical role in our struggle against many kinds of tyranny, he acknowledges, but they are now responsible for the futile defense of a presumed free and autonomous individual; they are perpetuating our use of punishment and blocking the development of more effective cultural practices. Basing his arguments on the massive results of the experimental analysis of behavior he pioneered, Skinner rejects traditional explanations of behavior in terms of states of mind, feelings, and other mental attributes in favor of explanations to be sought in the interaction between genetic endowment and personal history. He argues that instead of promoting freedom and dignity as personal attributes, we should direct our attention to the physical and social environments in which people live. It is the environment rather than humankind itself that must be changed if the traditional goals of the struggle for freedom and dignity are to be reached. Beyond Freedom and Dignity urges us to reexamine the ideals we have taken for granted and to consider the possibility of a radically behaviorist approach to human problems--one that has appeared to some incompatible with those ideals, but which envisions the building of a world in which humankind can attain its greatest possible achievements. |
From inside the book
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... reasons why it has taken us so long to reach this point. The things studied by physics and biology do not behave ... reason is that the inner man seems at times to be directly observed. We must infer the jubilance of a falling body, but ...
... reason why we have been so slow in discarding mentalistic explanations: it has been hard to find alternatives. Presumably we must look for them in the external environment, but the role of the environment is by no means clear. The ...
... reasons. (He excluded the human organism, presumably to avoid religious controversy.) The triggering action of the environment came to be called a “stimulus”—the Latin for goad—and the effect on an organism a “response,” and together ...
... reason. It is now clear that we must take into account what the environment does to an organism not only before but after it responds. Behavior is shaped and maintained by its consequences. Once this fact is recognized, we can formulate ...
... reason, or that circumstances in the life of a suicide do not have some bearing on the fact that he jumps off a bridge. The distinction is tenable only so long as a word like “compel” suggests a particularly conspicuous and forcible ...
Contents
3 | |
26 | |
44 | |
Punishment | 60 |
Alternatives to Punishment | 83 |
Values | 101 |
The Evolution of a Culture | 127 |
The Design of a Culture | 145 |
What Is Man? | 184 |
Notes | 217 |
Index | 226 |
Acknowledgments | 235 |