Beyond Freedom and Dignity (Hackett Classics)

The Classic Work By Behaviorist B.f. Skinner Offers His Analysis Of How A Technology Of Behavior Can Condition Human Responses To The Environment. In 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. A Technology Of Behavior -- Freedom -- Dignity -- Punishment -- Alternatives To Punishment -- Values -- The Evolution Of A Culture -- The Design Of A Culture -- What Is Man? B.f. Skinner. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [217]-225) And Index. "In this profound and profoundly challenging book, the great behaviorist B.F. Skinner, regarded by many as the most influential and controversial living psychologist, author also of the celebrated utopian novel Walden Two, makes his definitive statement about man and society. Insisting that the frightening problems we face in 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 man's struggle against many kinds of tyranny, he acknowledges, but they are now responsible for the futile defense of a free and worthy autonomous man; they are perpetuating our use of punishment and are blocking the development of more effective cultural practices. Basing his arguments on the massive results of the experimental analysis of behavior in which he pioneered, he rejects traditional explanations of behavior in terms of states of mind, feelings, and other mental attributes in favor of explanations to be sought in an individual's genetic endowment and personal history. He tells why, 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 that must be changed rather than man himself if the traditional goals of the struggle for freedom and dignity are to be reached. A technology of behavior able to solve our problems by effectively changing the world in which people live will, in its turn, raise frightening questions. Will men become robots? Or victims? Or merely passive spectators? Who is to design that brave new world of the future? Can we count on his benevolence, or will a technology of behavior necessarily mean a new kind of tyranny? These and many other questions concerning so-called "value judgments" are squarely faced. The book forces us to look afresh at ideals we have taken for granted and to consider the possibility of a scientific approach which, though it may at first seem incompatible with those ideals, will enable us to avoid the destruction toward which we are now speeding and ultimately to build a world in which mankind may reach its greatest possible achievements."--Jacket Beyond Freedom and Dignity argues that entrenched belief in free will and the moral autonomy 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. The book 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". Argues that concepts of freedom and dignity are destructive of values they claim to foster; that a technology of behavior would be more prductive of the good society