Beyond Freedom and Dignity

by B.F. Skinner

In this controversial work, a landmark of 20th-century thought, Skinner makes his definitive statement about humans & society. Insisting world problems can be solved only by dealing more effectively with behavior, he claims traditional concepts of freedom & dignity must be sharply revised. They've played an important historical role in struggles against many kinds of tyranny, but they're now responsible for the futile defense of a presumed free & autonomous individual. They're perpetuating the use of punishment & blocking the development of more effective cultural practices. Basing his arguments on the results of the experimental analyses of behavior he pioneered, he rejects traditional explanations of behavior in terms of states of mind, feelings & other mental attributes in favor of explanations to be sought in the interaction between genetic endowment & personal history. He argues that instead of promoting freedom & dignity as personal attributes, we should direct attention to the physical & social environments in which people live. It's the environment rather than humankind itself that must be changed if the traditional goals of the struggle for freedom & dignity are to be reached. Beyond Freedom & Dignity urges us to reexamine ideals taken for granted & 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 humanity can attain its greatest possible achievements.
Burrhus Frederic Skinner, 1904-90, one of the most influential psychologists since Freud, earned a Harvard psychology Phd in '31. Following appointments at the Univ. of Minnesota & Indiana Univ., he returned to Harvard in '48, remaining there until retiring in '74 as Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology.

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Science, Sociology, Politics, Classics

238 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was a highly influential American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform and poet. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. He invented the operant conditioning chamber, innovated his own philosophy of science called Radical Behaviorism, and founded his own school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behavior. His analysis of human behavior culminated in his work Verbal Behavior, which has recently seen enormous increase in interest experimentally and in applied settings. He discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychological research. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure rate of responding as part of his highly influential work on schedules of reinforcement. In a recent survey, Skinner was listed as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century. He was a prolific author, publishing 21 books and 180 articles.

Reviews

[Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's true - it all worked out in the end according to the Skinnerian System.

We're no longer free and we no longer have rights (after our long recent series of extraordinarily unfortunate planetary reversals).

But the Machine absorbs all that.

I first lost my own freedom and dignity in the seventies, during the professional repercussions after my ugly series of breakdowns.

Medication eventually overcame all my anger and resistance, and I learned - as Bill W. taught - that Acceptance is the start of the cure.

So how does that play out here?

Well, I became Catholic early in the eighties.

If you're Catholic, or a Christian, you accept our Fallen State. You just let it flow like water over a duck's back...

Fact is, Christians have always walked the Straight and Narrow Path.

And if you are one too, you go with the flow. You accept life as it is.

Just Pray about it, folks.

Blessed are the Meek, especially in our age.

Jesus taught humility - now we have no choice.

Are you OK with that?

Personally I'm starting to get a little more comfortable with it each day.

And we can all learn that comfort...

Through Prayer -

And through Meekness before God, thank Heaven -

That's all it takes!

And Skinnerian conditioning will teach us all, Willy-nilly:

That Acceptance will induce our only cure.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this is worth reading, very much so. But what should I rate it? Did I "like" it? No. No I did not.

The idea, as Skinner would have it, is that concepts like "freedom" and "dignity" are impediments to the application of science to human behavior. If we imagine ourselves free beings, we are deluded, he would suggest. We are just conditioned animals, mechanistically engaged in avoidance behavior or in pursuit of reinforcement. "Freedom" and "liberty" suggests individuals have value, which they do not.

"Dignity" assumes that moral worth inheres in individual action, that a person can be viewed as being more or less good based on their actions and character. It, too, must be discarded so that men with lab coats can correct our flaws.

For all of Skinner's talk, it's insanely simplistic at times. We hear, for instance, that "theology has solved the free-will and determinism debate." What? When did that happen?

It is also not-so-subtly monstrous. That Skinner could have written this after Burgess wrote A Clockwork Orange and Huxley penned Brave New World...and yet not mention either...is a sign that somebody spent too much time tormenting rats. Our storytellers and sages know how deeply this mindset threatens us. What he proposes, frankly, is to destroy all that makes humanity worthy and interesting in order to save us.

So did I "like" it? Oh hell no.

But on the other hand, Skinner should be required reading. Why? Because his operant conditioning techniques are at play everywhere in our lives. Our reward-based virtual social networks are nothing more and nothing less than vast Skinner Boxes, experiments in manipulating human social behavior on an unprecedented scale. They condition us to need them, to respond to intermittent reward and encouragement with deepening engagement bordering on compulsion. We chase likes and hearts and followers and clicks, all of which are only designed to pull us in, to consume us and marketize us as we consume.

If we are not careful, we will find ourselves in that place of Skinner's dreams, a place where liberty and human worth are no longer relevant.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Readers of this book will respond to it as they have been conditioned to and they will do so according to some of the processes covered in this book. Dr. Skinner dedicated his life to understanding the behavior of organisms. He is the Darwin of psychology. His scientific contributions and theories are to most readers what the contributions of Darwin and the theory of evolution is to creationists. Are you a creationist?

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this towards the end of college, after I'd committed to a Religious Studies degree. Although I'd end up doing a major thesis on the debates about the origins of gnosticism, my real focus was on the history of psychotherapeutics, particularly depth psychologies, subjects which the Religious Studies Department was much more amenable to sponsoring than the behaviorist Psychology Department was. Still, while thinking myself a humanistic psychologist, it was important to understand the other currents in the field, so I sought them out.

Skinner was really big when I was in college, maybe because he had written a number of easy, polemical books like Walden Two and this one, Beyond Freedom and Dignity. A professor could easily get students engaged in heated debate by assigning some Skinner and some R.D. Laing, one right after the other. And that is what happened in a group seminar I took during the junior year. We read Skinner, Laing, Fritz Perls, Carl Rogers, Ludwig Binswanger, Karl Jaspers, Erich Fromm etc.--a general survey of who was hot in popular psychology in the universities of the day.

While I always had some animus against Skinner and the radical behaviorists, I also had a lot of intellectual respect for their cool, clear scientific detachment. The tension I felt between their manipulative clinical-experimental approach and those of other psychologists with more democratic and libertarian perspectives kept me going, academically speaking, throughout two graduate programs and still can excite me today.

[Isaac · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there is one book I've read, about which it would be impossible not to come away from it a smarter person, I would argue this is probably it.

Edit: I'm going to have to read Noam Chomsky's response to this book...I must prepare myself for battle.

[Spencer Rich · Rating 1 out of 5]

Easily ranks w/The Fountainhead as one of the worst poxes ever hoisted on humanity. Almost single handedly stole psychology from the hands of Jung, who had succeeded in giving creedence to the introvert and the play of fantasy in the inner life, Skinner reduces humanity to a succession of outward behaviors. And because when you're dealing with academia, you're looking at people who want things that are easily measured, Skinner and his ilk easily won out, leading to the Prozac-zombie state of the States and most of the Western world today. To be fair, perhaps Skinner has had a positive effect on education and inner-city renewal, but his dissolution of autonomous man, as he puts it, is vile. The other thing that bothers me about this book is how terribly it's written. Anyone with a good sense of English or logic could work out his methods without thinking. By placing his opinions between obvious facts, he makes his opinions appear as facts, i.e. "The sky is blue. Humans can be trained like guinea pigs. The grass is green." Or long paragraphs of substituting one set of phrases for his behaviorist terminology. Almost as horrible to read as Freud. But at least Freud was on the right track by mapping the subconscious. It wasn't until Jung and von Franz that psychology really came into its own. It's a vicious shame that it's been overrun by this Pavlovian charlatan.

[Sheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh Behavioralism, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways....

This is another of the books on my shelf about which I felt that I knew the content, but have never actually read. I am a sociologist (focus on social psych) by training (of COURSE the environment influences behavior!) and have been acquainted with Skinner's work since the early 90s.

I also instinctively LOVE behavioral activation. Since the ripe old age of about 13, I make lists every day of what needs to be done...the act of highlighting something as finished is so reinforcing that I almost never procrastinate...chores that I do not want to do are divided into small pieces, each of which is assigned a different day and there is no discussion/argument/re-consideration...I nike the fuck out of (read: just do it) my list each day. This is also the way to relax (for me) without guilt even when something I don't want to do is not finished: it has already been scheduled when it will be done and it is not "assigned" for today and so, I am done. Not meaning to brag here (well, maybe a little), but people who know me are well aware that I am much more productive than most folks...I truly believe that my intuitive use of behavioral activation since about middle school is to "blame".

Just a little more (I promise) before I dig into Skinner's actual work. When I was first starting to think about human psychology (again back in the early 90s), I discovered Ellis and Beck and Skinner and details about the cognitive-behavioral triangle: Thoughts influence Behavior and Feelings; Behavior influences Thoughts and Feelings; Feelings influence Behavior and Thoughts. This was also during the Nature/Nuture debate (is behavior determined by genetics or environment? At that time it seemed so completely obvious that the answer was both, but the general acceptance of a bio-psycho-social model of understanding for humans was still a long way off.)

My own experience and understanding of social interaction made it clear in MY head that we are constantly reinforced by both our environment and our internal systems (a laugh from a friend makes me want to tell another joke; the pleasant sensation on my tongue from the chocolate cake makes me want another bite).

Both Ellis and Beck (fathers of COGNITIVE theory) were focused on thoughts and the way that one can start with the thinking corner to evoke change in the other two; Skinner focuses on BEHAVIOR and the way that can cause changes in the other two. For a long time, feelings were just left out and misunderstood. Skinner makes a pretty good argument here about why that is scientifically justified (we can't measure or observe feelings and unlike thoughts--which still rely on imperfect measurement--we can't even be sure that what individuals "feel" is the same: is my "sad" the same as your "sad"? Or is my "sad" more like your "despondent"?). However, we know from theory that changing FEELINGS will also result in changes in thoughts and actions (when I am sad, I am less likely to engage in certain behaviors like telling jokes).

I also have personally noted (and tell my clients) that changing feelings is usually the most difficult place to start; if I am feeling shitty (for whatever reason), telling myself just not to feel that way is not likely to be productive. However, if I go do something that usually makes me feel better (take a walk outside in the sun--change my behavior), my mood might start to lighten. Alternatively, if I notice that I am have upsetting thoughts, if I analyze their veracity and discover they are not quite true, I can revise my thinking and that might lighten my mood.

In the late 1990s Linehan came along with DBT (dialectic behavior therapy), which is really focused on the feelings corner. A HUGE portion of DBT is focused on emotion regulation (mostly because she was working with folks with borderline personality) and the BEHAVIORS we can engage in to calm unruly emotions. DBT is still behaviorism (it is in the name, for god's sake), but the tools that are used are very emotional-regulation focused.

In this book, Skinner develops the framework for behavioralism and outlines the importance of using external evidence (rather than internal processes) to explain and change human behavior. He lays out all the reasons that internal, autonmous man (read free will and complete independence from the extrnal world--fully nature component from the old debate) is bunk: even if I think I am making my own decisions, the probability of me making any decision has been pre-determined by my previous experiences, my knowledge of the world, and my individual (small nature component) desires. For his time, this was very radical. Since then, people still argue that it is simplistic: people are not just robot computers programmed to respond in certain ways. And yet, we do (most often).

The book itself is very approachable and his arguments are clear. There is not much with which I do not agree, but I was a bit disappointed with the ending. He clearly is building throughout towards a "technology of control of human behavior" and yet his proscriptions are basically, now we have the scientific tools to focus on measurable behavioral change (rather than ascribing to internal processes) so we can get started on developing this technology. Fifty-two years after this was written, we are still using these techniques on an individual level (I love my lists!) and in therapy to help clients, but this technology has not been adequately developed to use on a macro level. We have not addressed (and, of course instead, with the passage of time, things have actual degraded more) the large issues with which is very concerned: educational failings, environmental issues, extreme poverty, despite his clear ending statement: “We have seen how the literatures of freedom and dignity, with their concern for autonomous man, have perpetuated the use of punishment and condoned the use of only weak nonpunitive technniques, and it is not difficult to demonstrate a connection between the unlimited right of the individual to pursue happiness and the catastrophes threatened by uncheced breeding, the unrestrained affluence which exhausts resources and pollutes the environment, and the imminence of nuclear war.”

And so, I am glad I read this (hearing from the horse's mouth so to speak), but also disheartened: there are no answers here beyond impacting the individual using tools with which I was already very familiar.

One last thing, before I leave you with a list of quotes. I found it interesting that Skinner's definition of freedom: "Almost all living things act to free themselves from harmful contacts. A kind of freedom is achieved by the relatively simple forms of behavior called reflexes....We do not attribute them to any love of freedom; they are simply forms of behavior which have proved useful in reducing various threats to the individual and hense to the species" so closely parallel's Freud's discussion of the pursuit of happiness as avoiding pain just as much as pursuing pleasure. I'm not entirely sure what this is evidence of other than the truth (of COURSE we all work to avoid pain!) in the statement, but wanted to note it.

Okay, now I'll let Skinner speak for himself; anyone interested in behaviorism is recommended to read this book AND it is pretty approachable: even if you don't think you are interested in behaviorism, but you like philosophy or human psychology it might be worth a read. If you are not up to reading the whole book, he does provide a nice, short (roughly 1/2 page) summary at the end of each chapter. And you might learn to think about how to make changes in your own situation using contingency planning.

"things grow steadily worse, and it is disheratening to find that technology itself is increasingly at fault."
"Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools? Or than constructing better kinds of living space for everyone? Or than making it possible for everyone to be gainfully employed and, as a result, to enjoy a higher standard of living? The choice was not a matter of priorities, for no one could have said that it was more important to get to the moon. The exciting thing about geting to the moon was its feasibility."
"The task of a scientific analysis is to explain how the behavior of a person as a physical system is related to the conditions under which the human species evolved and the conditions under which the individual lives."
"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."
"By questioning the control exercised by autonomous man and demonstrating the control exercised by the environment, a science of behavior also seems to question dignity or worth."
"In one form or another intentional aversive control is the pattern of most social coordination--in ethics, religion, government, economics, education, psychotherapy, and family life."
"It is difficult to deal effectively with deferred aversive consequences because they do not occur at a time when escape or attack is feasible--when, for example, the controller can be identified or is within reach....the problem to be solved by those who are concerned with freedom is to create immediate aversive consequences."
"Many social practices essential to the welfare of the species involve the control of one person by another, and no one can suppress them who has any concern for human achievements."
"Freedom is an issue raised by the aversive consequences of behavior, but dignity concerns positive reinforcement."
"The amount of credit a person receives is related in a curious way to the visibility of the causes of behavior. We withhold credit when the causes are conspicuous....For the same rewason we do not give much credit for behavior which is under conspicuous aversive control even though it may be useful."
"We give credit generously when there are no obvious reasons for the behavior....The extent of the credit varies with the magnitude of the opposing conditions."
"We acknowledge this curious relation between credit and the inconspicuousness of controlling conditions when we conceal control to avoid losing credit or to claim credit not really due to us....We attempt to gain credit by disquising or concealing control....We try to gain credit by inventing less compelling reasons for our conduct."
"There is no point in commending a person for doing what he is going to do anyway, and we estimate the chances from the visible evidence....Behavior is to be commended only if it is more than merely commendable."
"When exhausing and dangerous work is no longer required, those who are hard-working and brave seem merely foolish."
"punitive sanctions are still common. People still control each other more often through censure or blame than commendation or praise, the military and the police remain the most powerful arms of government...the curious fact is that those who defend freedom and dignity are not only not opposed to these measures but largely responsible for the fact that they are still with us."
"Punished behavior is likely to reappear after the punitive contingencies are withdrawn."
"Much behavior which appears irrational in the sense that it seems to have no positively reinforcing consequences may have the effect of displacing behavior which is subject to punishment."
"The trouble is that when we punish a person for behaving badly, we leave it up to him to discover how to behave well"
"The goodness to which good behavior is attributed is part of a person's worth or dignity and shows the same inverse relationship to the visibility of control."
"The assertion that 'only a free man can be responsible for his conduct' has two meanings, depending upon whether we are interested in freedom or responsibility. If we want to say that people are responsible, we must do nothing to infringe their freedom, since if they are not free to act they cannot be held responsible. If we want to say they are free, we must hold them responsible for their behavior by maintaining punitive contingencies, since if they behaved in the same way under conspicuous nonpunitive contingencies, it would be clear that they were not free."
"We shall not solve the problems of alcoholism and juvenile delinquency by increasing a sense of responsibility. It is the environment which is 'responsible' for the objectional behavior, and it is the environment, not some attribute of the individual, which must be changed."
"The mistake...is to put the responsibility anywhere, to suppose that somewhere a causal sequence is initiated" (because everything is simultaneously reinforcing each other)
"Under punitive contingencies a person appears to be free to behave well and to deserve credit when he does so. Nunpunitive contingencies generate the same behavior, but a person cannot then said to be free, and the contingencies deserve the credit when he behaves well."
"A person never becomes truly self-reliant. Even though he deals effectively with things, he is necessarily dependent upon those who have taught him to do so."
"It is a surprising fact that those who object most violently to the manipulation of behavior nevertheless make the most vigorous efforts to manipulate minds."
"no one directly changes a mind. By manipulating environmental contingencies, one makes changes which are said to indicate a change of mind, but if there is any effect, it is on behavior."
"Urging and persuading are effective only if there is already some tendency to behave, and the behavior can be attributed to an inner man only as that tendency is unexplained."
"We change the way a person looks at something, as well as what he sees when he looks, by changing the contingencies; we do not change something called perception."
"Only when other forms of control are available is that governement best which governs least."
"The fundamental mistake made by all those who choose weak methods of control is to assume that the balance of control is left to the individual, when in fact it is left to other conditions."
"To make a value judgment by calling something good or bad is to classify it in terms of its reinforcing effects."
"How people feel about facts is a by-product. The important thing is what they do about them, and what they do is a fact that is to be understood by examinig relevant contingencies."
"Conflicts among feelings, as in the classical literary themes of love versus duty or patriotism versus faith, are really conflicts between contingencies of reinforcement."
"The social contingencies, or the behaviors they generate, are the 'ideas' of a culture; the reinforcers that appear in the contingencies are its 'values'."
"A culture, like a species, is selected by its adaptation to an environment; to the extent that it helps is members to get what they need and avoid what is dangerous, it helps them to survive and transmit the culture."
"A culture evolves when new practices further the survival of those who practice them."
"It is a mistake to suposed that all change or development is growth....The main objection to the metaphor of growth, in considering either the development of an individual or the evolution of a culture, is that it emphasizes a terminal state which does not have a function....these terminal conditions have no bearing on the processes through which they are reached."
"If there is any purpose of direction in the evolution of a culture, it has to do with bringing people under the control of more and more of the consequences of their behavior."
"historical evidence is always against the probability of anything new; that is what is meant by history."
"We are likely to single out the conspicuous examples of control because in their abruptness and clarity of effect, they seem to start something, but it is a great mistake to ignore the inconspicuous forms."
"Man has not evolved as an ethical or moral animal. He has evolved to the point at which he has constructed an ethical or moral culture. He differs from the other animals not in possessing a moral or ethical sense but in having been able to generate a moral or ethical social environment."
"Leisure is a condition for which the human species has been badly prepared, because until very recently it was enjoyed by only a few, who contributed very little to the gene pool. Large numbers of people are now at leisure for appreciable periods of time, but there has been no chance for effective selection of either a relevant genetic endowment or a relevant culture."
"The enormous potential of those who have nothing to do cannot be overlooked. They may be productive or destructive, conserving or consuming....They may or may not be prepared to act effectively when leisure comes to an end.”
“Leisure is one of the great challenges...any attempt to control what a person does when he does not have to do anything is particularly likely to be attacked as unwarranted meddling.”
“That a man's behavior owes something to antecedent events and that the environment is a more promising point of attack than man himself has long been recognized.”
“One need not be aware of one's behavior or the conditions controlling it in order to behave effectively—or ineffectively....The extent to which a man should be aware of himself depends upon the importance of self-observation for effective behavior. Self-knowledge is valuable only to the extent that it helps to meet the contingencies under which it has arisen.”
“a person is a member of a species shaped by evolutionary contingencies of survival, displaying behavioral processes which bring him under the control of the environment in which he lives, and largely under the control of a social environment which he and millions of others like him have constructed and maintained during the evolution of a culture.”

[Sam Nordli · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is listed as being an 'honorable mention' for the top '10 most harmful books of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries' (Human Events, an extremely conservative magazine) and as one of the '50 worst books of the twentieth century' (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a Christian/Conservative organization). Both of these lists contain highly interesting books. You could almost say that any book labeled as bad or harmful by a publication that regularly features Ann Coulter columns is worth putting on one's reading list.

That being said, BF&D is Skinner's attempt to present, in layman's terms, his ideas of behaviorism, how they apply to humans, and how he feels they could be used to the benefit of society. Extremely interesting is the introductory chapter regarding the need for a science of human behavior.

This book is considered controversial by most people who have heard of it but not read or considered it.

I recommend it solely on the basis of its spirit: that we should not shun a 'science of human behavior' simply because the notion is contrary to the presuppositions of 'free will'. That is not to say that Skinner's ideas exclude 'freedom'. He would simply like us to acknowledge the extent to which experience plays a role in the shaping of our characters. A good book, if not very well written.

[Gaetano Venezia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We do not read books if we are already thoroughly familiar with the material or if it is so completely unfamiliar that it is likely to remain so. We read books which help us say things we are on the verge of saying anyway but cannot quite say without help."

My love for this book exemplifies Skinner's quote above. Skinner says what I have been on the verge of saying. "Beyond Freedom & Dignity" was just what I was looking for: an explanation of determinism's practical implications for our lives and how we stand to benefit from embracing it. Skinner takes the psychological approach to determinism, focusing on operant behavior, reinforcement, contingencies, and the environment's effects on our identity, social behavior, and ideas. He aptly deconstructs the culture of freedom and of dignity that we have basked in for so long and shows how relinquishing these ideas can lead to better understanding and better construction of our world. Technology of behavior takes the stead of freedom of dignity. It is to be applied in a systematic fashion, as a scientific or psychological experiment or test. Many object that "a scientific view of man leads to wounded vanity, a sense of hopelessness, and nostalgia. But no theory changes what it is a theory about; man remains what he has always been. And a new theory may change what can be done with its subject matter. A scientific view of man offers exciting possibilities. We have not yet seen what man can make of man."

"The great individualists so often cited to show the value of personal freedom have owed their successes to earlier social environments. The involuntary individualism of a Robinson Crusoe and the voluntary individualism of a Henry David Thoreau show obvious debts to society. If Crusoe had reached the island as a baby, and if Thoreau had grown up unattended on the shores of Walden Pond, their stories would have been different. We must all begin as babies, and no degree of self-determination, self-sufficiency, or self-reliance will make us individuals in any sense beyond that of single members of the human species."

"Conflicts among feelings, as in the classical literary themes of love versus duty or patriotism versus faith, are really conflicts between contingencies of reinforcement."

[Bschri1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A refutation of the illusion that we have free will. Worse, to date noone that I have read has mustered any good counterarguments to Skinner. One of the most dangerous books in the English canon. You can't understand the political debate over the last 40 years about social programs unless you have mastered this text. You can't accept most people's simplistic religious beliefs once you have read this. Very scary stuff.

[Ellie P. Hale · Rating 1 out of 5]

June 2023:

What we have to understand about Mr. BuF-Skinny is that he one of those smart people that is also idiotically out of touch with humanity. He talks as if he is not even human himself, and rather is one of the few who can step out of the human frame and look at reality for what it is. Nietzsche does this too, but for some reason is less annoying when he does it.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve only ever met human beings before. It's unbelievable to me that more and more people accept the intellegencia to be people who don’t talk about themselves like people. Go to any college (especially in certain fields) and this is exactly how you’ll learn to think. It will be virtuous of you. You of unique intellect and perspective. Go forth and SHINE in this irrational world!

You don't have to read between the lines to know the kind of rewriting BF Skinny hopes to do to the culture and history of mankind. Just because you have science on your side makes it ok to play god... Really??? Is this really so much different from the countless dictators and conquerers who claimed one reason or another to rule the known world? Science is not inherently evil, but are its bureaucratic aims really as trustworthy as all that?

Skinner doesn't provide me enough evidence to prove he deserves the supreme arrogance he writes this book with. With science, Skinny can chop down freedom. Hack away dignity. Disintegrate the individual. Downplay death. And assert that if we wait for the current generation to die, we can rebuild a society from the ground up in grand sciencetopia, complete with all the bells and whistles to keep everyone's reinforcers whizzing to satiate our biology. Anyone else trying to claim any world-altering plan as such without the science would be seen as cracked. They would never be published with a positive little blurb written by The New York Times. It's almost as if nowadays, science is treated with the same respect and trust that was placed in religion previous generations. I'd even go as far to say that science is the religion of our time.

My problem is not with Skinny himself. He just got a little too exited by the progress he was making in his professional life to remember what it's like to actually be alive. My problem is a broad one in accepting ideas like the ones in this book as being ok.

The following is taken from an essay I wrote last year asserting similar charges as this review:

Humor this overwhelming and humiliating example of pure rationality: An apple is not an apple. An apple is an edible biological function of a plant species to spread seed, evolved to be an overly sensitive color to animals who will discover that its gustatory sensation gives a positive reward to their neurons so as to likely orient a physical motivation towards the complex function that is identifying another such collection of nourishing sugars and nutrients among the infinite apparitions that such a reproductive apparatus could present itself in a visual way. An apple is not an apple.

I don't mean to complain about progress. We know a lot more than we used to about the mysterious workings of the world and it's saved us a lot of grief. Everyone reading about this poor apple knows all of these complicated things about it are true. Everyone reading this also knows it's stupid. AN APPLE IIIIISSSS AN APPLE!

I admit there are a lot of holes in my arguments. I wrote a better review but Goodreads had a major glitch moment as it does and I lost yet another hour of writing to the matrix. Also my life is a little busy. Anyways. I think about stuff like this. Predeterminism is actually useless. It's fun to think about and it's enticing when you're depressed, but you feel horrible if you actually live like it's real. The idea of freedom exists in some form or another in every culture. People make choices. It's what they do. Circumstances can be god-like in their unreachability, but there are always multiple paths that can be taken even after this is taken into account. Dignity exists. I don't need to explain myself. Read about The Rape of Nan King or the Holocaust or what ever child abuse story strikes your fancy.

This book is really an anti-human manifesto. Don't get me wrong. I love manifestos. This essay had some real substance to it. But it was also. Disgusting.

[Elvyn Ojeda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Esta fue una lectura un poco pesada para mí, pero la he disfrutado muchísimo. Es un libro muy holístico en ensayo, cada capítulo está muy bien complementado, argumentado he hilado con las conclusiones y premisas que sostiene.

En primer lugar me ha nutrido muchísimo el análisis planteado sobre la deconstrucción de la literatura de la libertad y la dignidad que el autor cuestiona. Skinner presenta una versión del mundo regida por ideales artificiales de libertad, y critica primordialmente cómo estas corrientes construyen y refuerzan el mundo. La palabras claves de esta obra son "reforzador" y "cultura" de esos dos conceptos Skinner define el comportamiento humano y expone cómo el ser humano es un animal que es influido por el ambiente de forma operante y accidental desde comienzos de la civilización. Esta tesis la lleva en todos los puntos de cada capítulo, muy alineada al conductismo, y hasta cierto punto de la filosofía materialista.

Un sección muy interesante y rica de la obra es la politización que presenta en torno a las consecuencias sociales del conductismo. Skinner advierte como es posible manipular, consentir e incentivar a voluntad ciertos comportamientos a través de reforzadores premeditados, y que son empleados y diseñados intencionalmente para restringir y controlar a individuos en una sociedad.
Advierte también como grupos y gobiernos que poseen el capital cultural y económico dictan la cultura, dictan sus límites y alcances, y refuerzan la identidad cultural que es manejable. Y este mecanismo está presente en todas la situaciones de poder, de padre a hijo, de gobierno a ciudad, de medios de comunicación a oyente, y que la posverdad sobre la libertad y la dignidad descansan protegidas en su propio diseño. Da una crítica dura al individualismo, y a la filosofía operante detrás de ella. Para Skinner, la aseveración de que el individuo se realza como ese ente omnipotente sobre la naturaleza, completamente libre, desarrollado y responsable de su felicidad, es solo un reforzador aversivo propio de la literatura de la dignidad que enajena a la gente de cuestionarse e ignorar su entorno contingente.

A mí modo de verlo, estamos atrapados en valores contingentes de nuestra dignidad de vivir como creemos que lo hacemos, porque de lo contrario sería admitir que estamos equivocados, que somos manipulados, y eso sería perder nuestra dignidad. Vivimos en la época aparentemente más libre de la historia donde esa época necesita de la mayor cantidad de ministerios y organizaciones para ejercer control. Entonces no es la época más libre, sino la época restringible más sostenible.
Skinner de ello propone un contra control, directo a las contingencias que producen y mantienen los reforzadores sociales en el individuo y lo hacen someterse a un sistema salarial desigual por ejemplo. Skinner también ahonda sobre la crisis del individuo y su necesitada muerte artificial, de lo contrario no podrá existir una colectividad que nos salve del colapso y de la hambruna.

Respecto a lo que no me ha gustado, en primer lugar tuve un desentendimiento con cómo el conductualismo está presente en todas las facetas de comportamiento humano. No soy un psicólogo de profesión, ni académico de la materia; simplemente como aficionado me ha interesado leer su obra por recomendación de una amiga que si llega a leer esto, me gustaría que me diga sí lo que he mencionado en esta reseña tiene un poco de sentido jaja
Segundo, muchos ejemplos en la obra siento que no están bien contrastados, tenía mucho rango para ejemplificar todas las situaciones discutidas y se ha quedado en la orilla. A mí forma de verlo, eso volvió muy redundante la lectura y la pudo haber enriquecido mucho más con un enfoque extendido. El libro parece redundar siempre en las cinco mismas situaciones de reforzamiento. Entiendo que los ejemplos y los valores responden a la época, pero sustancialmente se queda muy corto de extender ese análisis filosófico del comportamiento.

En fin, es un libro muy recomendable. De lo que investigué, encontré una crítica de Chomsky al aprendizaje del lenguaje que el conductualismo no puede sustentar, así que probablemente en torno a ese autor vaya mi próxima lectura.

Posdata: se me hizo muy gracioso que en un punto del libro se me ocurrió decir que el libro está escrito en "reforza-lengua", como en 1984 la neo-lengua.

[Elias Lacerda · Rating 3 out of 5]

A versão mais madura de Behaviorismo radical do Skinner, mas mesmo assim ainda me parece um pouco problemática. Mesmo assim é uma leitura muito importante. A treta com o C. S. Lewis é o ponto mais alto do livro. Assim fica dificil te defender, Skinner! rs

[akemi]

Yeah, yeah, this is cool and all Skinner, but when are we gonna talk about all those children you gave ptsd and attachment wounds and life long shame to?

[Lorri · Rating 3 out of 5]

A couple things about this book...

1) Skinner constructs with skill a fascinating, if a little bit horrifying, argument in this book.

2) I can't really say that I liked, or that his skillful argument won me over, but it's a very important piece of educational philosophy and does explain a lot about why our school systems operate like they do today.

So I liked it in the sense that I feel more enlightened and informed now, but more by the cultural implications of this book than by the actual argument for the technology of behavior.

[E. Thomas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Speciously argued and chilling in its implications . . . A manual for aspirant brainwashers.

[Zeno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learned a lot about behaviorism on how it can be used to promote world peace. No wonder Skinner is world figure.

[Sleepless Dreamer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't have time to write a full review but wow. I must re-read this someday.

[Dominik · Rating 2 out of 5]

I do not even want to engage with Skinner's vision of redesigning society when the whole thing rests on his assertion that a scientific psychology cannot use mental concepts, for which he does not even provide an argument. While this seems so self-evident to Skinner, we can only try to read between the lines. Is it because mental states are not directly observed and need to be inferred? Is it because theories of the mental often posit homunculi and therefore presuppose the intelligence they try to explain? These are all lines of inquiry worth exploring, but they would need proper arguments to back them up, which Skinner is simply not interested in.

[Noa Hendrix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lo he ido macerando tanto, que voy a tener que volver a leerlos. Tiene fragmentos significativos y esenciales. Petaíco de post-it que lo tengo!

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Behaviourism, of course, is as dead as a doornail. Come on, who could believe that behavior is just the response to some stimulus? A Human has a soul and consciousness. And without them, freedom and dignity would not be possible, right?
What sane person could even bother to look into what Arthur Koestler (whose biography I am just reading by coincidence) called a monumental triviality? (165)

One thing in favor of behaviorism is the fact that it was killed by Noam Chomsky (whom I consider to be one of the villains of the 20th century). To be discredited by Chomsky means, there must be something to Skinner. (Just like all the guys killed by Virginia Woolf like Bennett, Galsworthy etc. are excellent writers. But let's not get carried away.)

So, I intended to read some Skinner for quite some time.

And you need only to read five pages to realize that Skinner is not only highly intelligent but also well educated. (You get your Milton, Bacon, Newman etc.) The book is a real pleasure to read.

But is he right? And what is it actually that he is saying? It is a bit more complicated than the caricature that is mostly painted. But he does hold that it is the environment that is responsible for behavior, not some inner agent, or - to use Koestler’s (Ryle’s) phrase a ghost in the machine. There is no autonomous man. "Science," says Skinner "does not dehumanize man, it dehumununculizes him." (200)

The main jargon is not stimulus/response at all but rather reinforcement/contingencies. It is jargon. But quite useful, I think. Maybe every student of philosophy should try to use the jargon for three months or so (see 146f.)

It is like this: Normally one would say, I eat sugar because I like the taste or because it is good. But this raises the question is it good because I like it or do I like it because it is good. (See the example of sin below.)

In the behavioristic view though there is no "good" or "like" at the beginning. There is just a neutral "reinforcer" that lead our ancestors to eat sugar whenever they could. Because there is an evolutionary benefit in eating sugar (that is the contingency) eating sugar is reinforced (independent of the actual nature of the reinforcer). Once a "habit" of eating sugar is established, it makes sense to say it is "good". Because we can use that a metaphor for bringing ourselves - or others to do things, without the need to have a natural reinforcer to come into being. So when science tells us now, that eating sugar is actually "bad" (because there is too much sugar available now) we do not have to wait for evolution to create a negative reinforcer. There is a cultural reinforcer ("Sugar is bad") and the reinforcement on a personal level is the satisfaction that I am able to resist drinking Cola for example, because reason (or my culture) tells me so. And the funny thing is, that within the lifetime of an individual he can actually change his taste (triggered by will - or culture) so that sweet Cola will actually taste bad.

(Another example would be the habit of drinking milk. We cannot learn to drink milk. The habit comes into being by a combination of mutation - lactose tolerance and reinforcements.)

Note that once things come to be called "good", eating sugar, being caressed, sleeping, the metaphor "good" or "bad" can be attached by culture to things where there is no contingency to make it directly useful. (Like a taboo on eating pork. Which is not useful in itself but strengthens the culture that establishes the taboo.)




"Does man sin because he is sinful, or is he sinful because he sins? Neither question points to anything very useful." (197)

"Without the help of a verbal community, all behavior would be unconscious. Consciousness is a social product." (192)

"It would be foolish to deny the existence of that private world [the small part of the universe within the human skin], but it is also foolish to assert that because it is private it is of a different nature from the world outside." (191)

"we must not overlook the control exerted by the pigeon" [to the scientist] (169)

[Jana Light · Rating 3 out of 5]

Motivated by a desire to counter the predominant beliefs about freedom and dignity, Skinner argues that in the literature and in our actions we place too much emphasis on a mysterious, independent, willful “autonomous man” as being responsible for our decisions, beliefs, and accomplishments. In fact, he argues that there is no such thing as an inner man and that it is our environment that determines and guides our development and our culture(s).

Skinner redefines human behavior as not a set of actions motivated by an essential self, but a set of responses that have been consistently reinforced by the conditioning environment in which a person lives. To improve the lives and beings of people in our society, Skinner says it is ineffective to focus on developing virtues or attitudes or ethical ways of thinking – we have to improve the environment (by which he means, we have to change what behavior is reinforced, both directly and indirectly, through the contingencies our culture allows or provides). Continuing to uphold the idea of “autonomous man,” he claims, is detrimental to ourselves and the betterment of our society.

_Beyond Freedom and Dignity_ is a monumentally important work, and not just for philosophy and psychology (my two faves!). Nonetheless, I gave what I consider a “monumentally important work” three stars for several reasons:

1). Skinner presents no studies or experiments to back up his claims. There is a wealth of behavioral experiments that would have helped demonstrate how susceptible humans and their ethical choices are to conditions in their environment, and I know he wrote the book in part to synthesize these findings and to show how they are relevant to real-world action. I’m not sure why he chose not to discuss any of those experiments and studies in this work, and I think the book as a whole was the poorer for that decision.

2). I am not at all convinced by his argument against any sort of autonomous man. I am also not convinced that even if we assume his argument is true, his subsequent claim that we can improve our circumstances (and indeed must) can be upheld. He goes to great lengths to tear down the notion of free will (as classically understood), then claims we can take charge or control of certain forces and behaviors. He says we are products of our environment, then says we have created the environment that has created us. It can’t be both ways.

3). Skinner puts a lot of ethical emphasis on preserving one’s culture, as if setting that up as the overarching ethical good is the way to make men “create” a better society. I don’t agree, and think that this attitude of cultural preference can be taken to destructive ends just as easily as individualistic or religious extremism. At some point, Skinner even goes so far to say that we have to take environmental control seriously, or “other cultures will do it first.” To which I say: good for them! Let’s actually learn from other cultures and people. Progress is progress, and while I certainly want the culture in which I live to produce the greatest amount of good it can, I don’t think that progress should be motivated by being able to say “WE GOT THERE FIRST, SUCKAS!” That attitude rankled me a bit. It felt unnecessarily and jarringly jingoistic.

In all, I think Skinner takes his conclusions a bit too far, but that doesn’t diminish the significance of his findings. This book is incredibly important in that it brings to the discussion how much of our development and behavior are shaped by our environment and genetics. It broadens our perspective on what behavior we can realistically expect from people. When taken seriously, this could lead to a more gracious assessment of others, as well as a greater (much-needed) commitment to improving the circumstances of others in order to help them develop productive, healthy, non-harmful behaviors, attitudes and lives.

[Jason Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

For insight into behaviorism, this is a good, if not a must, read. And for what it's worth, I think behaviorism makes sense in a practical, micro way, giving and withholding feedback in order to get what you want out of people and life. But beyond that it's only about power (Voldemort would make a great behaviorist), and when Skinner talks about the "designer" of culture he's describing a total fascist. He confuses science with technology and is, in the process, totally scientistic about the possibility of regulating human life. On that note, I would guess that he was a total dick. I think he read Brave New World and likely thought it was utopian rather than dystopian.

Skinner's "scientific" approach to the very idea of culture is so fantastically out of touch, it is as if he'd never heard of anthropology when he wrote this. His whole profession dwelt so much on dispelling theories of mind and pathologizing the individual that he never took the opportunity to 'look up' until 1970. His explication of reciprocity is juvenile. In that narrow-minded process, he seems to (deliberately?) misrepresent the critics of behaviorism and the "literature of freedom and dignity" in order to explicate his point. The ultimate low was when he tried to psychoanalyze his critics in a rather childishly condescending way.

Unfortunately (to me), contemporary life seems to validate Skinner's call to control behavior and for a "technology of behavior," now in the form of fear-based 24-hour news manufacturing and the booming pharmaceutical industry. The creepy part is that even Skinner was willing to acknowledge culture's role in shaping behavior, whereas now, part of our "technology of behavior" is a cultural defense mechanism whereby the individual is blamed and drugged.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

great book....really examines the role of "agency" in our societal beliefs and values.

[Don Gubler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good historical psychology read but not much value for formulating a plan.

[Dimitris Met · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, B.F Skinner lays down his view for the end goals of behavior analysis.
The uninitiated to psychology reader needs only little introduction before starting this book; students or readers of psychology even less so, and should absolutely give it a try. It can be considered as the crystallized thought of the prominent psychologist of the 20th century.

Skinner asks of us no less than an almost complete upheaval. Many of our intuitions about the human nature are thrown out the window as philosophy, ethics, education, society building in general, are all shown the way to a better world, led by behavior analysis.
The arguments are serious and should be taken seriously. I found myself often disagreeing with some points, on instinct, yet having no good way to reason myself to an obviously better alternative.
Quasi-technocratic, challenging, utopian. A tough book to put down if you like your beliefs challenged. A deterministic and almost complete view of behavior that somehow leaves enough room to make many libertarians cozy... The seriousness of the claims demand a proper and full response from the reader, who in turn should not be quick to refute them, for they are deceptively simple.

[Fede Milat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelentísimo libro. Lo que uno se encuentra acá es una formulación completamente madura del pensamiento y sistema teórico de Skinner.
A lo largo del libro, debate contra la idea del hombre autónomo: aquél que hace lo que le ordena su voluntad, poseedor de libre albedrío, que es consciente de sus actos, es dueño de su destino, de su vida y de sí mismo. Propone, por el contrario, que toda la conducta del hombre, y sus cualidades, no son más que subproductos de: 1- la evolución biológica , 2- la evolución cultural y, 3- la historia propia (ontogenia) de contingencias.
El libro asusta bastante porque posee muchísimos términos teóricos, y cita constantemente a diversos filósofos y psicólogos (para sorpresa de muchos, también referencia y comparte muchas cosas con Freud) a la vez que debate con ellos, pero en los últimos dos capítulos se ve cómo todo conecta perfectamente.

Entre líneas, mediante el desarrollo de los conceptos tales como "libertad" "control" "dignidad" "autonomía" y "castigo" es posible encontrar gran parte de las ideas políticas de Skinner, tan controversiales para su época, y tan apropiadas para la actualidad.

[Marco García Panizo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Se aprende mucho cuando vas a los originales y te alejas de lo que terceros escriben sobre el modelo de pensamiento de alguien.

En este libro, Skinner revela las auténticas sutilezas de la conducta humana y de las aportaciones de la cultura, el ambiente social y el propio entorno físico al hombre en cuanto tal.

Cuando lo lees y entiendes, la comprensión real de lo que se entiende por ciencia de conducta llega solo.

Es bastante accesible, aunque en algunas páginas “contingencia” y “refuerzo” se repiten un poco más de la cuenta pero, aun así, no desmerece una lectura de aquel que quiera entenderse a sí mismo y donde vive.

[Noah Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book deserves a place in the canon of the history of ideas. Its conclusions are of course extreme and quite scary. But Skinner helpfully and quite briefly works out the most extreme extension of empiricism for psychology, sociology, and ethics. This is not just a book to see how silly behaviorism looks in retrospect; I think we should take it seriously.

[Tim Petersik · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you understand Skinner’s brand if behaviorism, I mean *really* understand it, you realize it’s a self-contained explanatory and modification system that is beyond refutation (as well as freedom and dignity)…simply because it IS self-contained. This book nicely lays it out in practical, everyday terms.