The old books are quite often outdated when it comes to science. However, it could be useful to familiarize oneself with “older” texts (some of them are not that old) to gain insights on how we got to where we are. Driven partially by this notion and partially by the necessity of my PhD curriculum, I read “Beyond Freedom and Dignity” by B.F. Skinner. B.F. Skinner was one of the “fathers” of behaviourism. He was active since the middle of the 20th century for several decades. Behaviorism in its most extreme form would claim that there is no inner life inside the head; only behaviour that can be observed is real. In the light version, behaviourism would limit itself to being methodological: the study of the human mind is achievable only through the observables, i.e., behaviour. Being full-throttle or light, behaviorism, in my opinion, marks the shift from dualism to materialism concerning the brain and the mind, in science in particular and in society in general. However, this is a topic for another day.

In the book, Skinner begins by explaining freedom and dignity and somehow arrives at the conclusion that they are mutually exclusive. He supplies an example that when machines are built to do jobs that humans did (and humans gain more freedom), those humans now lose the chance to be admired (because they lose the chance to show dignity). It is a weird way to see things, but Skinner seems to operate in terms of society and species rather than individual people. He then launches an offence on the autonumous man, who is essentially a man with free will. He says that based on what we learned in experimental work about the effects of environments on humans, we should reject the notion of an autonomous man. He expands on it, stating that emotions are by-products of the reinforcing qualities of things in the environment. 

The overarching idea of the whole book is that of the environment. The environment, says Skinner, can and should be used to change minds. Furthermore, Skinner is convinced that minds should be changed. In a contemporary world (the book was written in the 1970s), the culture (he seems to be talking about the western culture) takes into account freedom and dignity, which is dangerous, according to Skinner, because focusing on freedom and dignity could lead to the extinction of species. Rather, he suggests focusing on changing the environment in order to control people in a “good way”. Such that, for instance, innate dispositions such as eating and having sex can be controlled and corrected through the environment. 

Probably the book was supposed to generate a discussion within me, but it didn’t, and I didn’t like the book. First, I struggled with comprehension. Often, the words and sentences did not form meaningful passages. Rather, they sounded and felt like a word salad. Second, many ideas seem to be driven by the century-long debates between liberals and conservatives. Here, in my view, Skinner is a conservative. However, according to Skinner, he has proved the autonomous man to not be real and thus won the debate for conservatives. This, of course, is not the case. Now, 50 years after the book was written, we still pound on the questions of free will and the matter of consciousness. Third, I never liked Skinner, and I didn’t grow towards his ideas after reading a book. I think he is a good example of how far a man can go in preaching his religion (which, in this case, is the scientific method).

The personality of B.F. Skinner embodies behaviourism, and it might be useful to learn the essence of behaviourism from his book. After all, though some ideas sound atrocious, many of us (researchers) are still advocates of methodological behaviorism today. Also, if you are about to read this book, be prepared to hear ideas about the life of an old white male who received a PhD from Harvard. It is not necessarily bad, but it is what it is.

A quote that stands out: “The geneticist who changes the characteristics of a species by selective breeding or by changing genes may seem to be meddling in biological evolution, but he does so because his species has evolved to the point at which it has been able to develop a science of genetics and a culture which induces its members to take the future of the species into account.” 

January, 2024