Page 6 - CROSSROADS - January, 1972
CROSSROADS presents in this
issue a matched pair of essays on
reiated aspects of an issue
centrai to contemporary
thought. We intend, from time to
time, to tap the avaiiabie
reservoir of facuity brain power,
thereby raising our inteilectual
octane-rating.
Skinner Qiallenges
Western Humanism
o
VERONICA MILLER, PH. D.
Psychology Today recently devoted almost an entire issue to B. F.
Skinner’s newly - published Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Time
followed suit with a cover and lengthy article. B. F. Skinner stands in
the first rank as an American psychologist, and his new book, an
intellectual event of the first importance, issues an unequivocal
challenge to the Western humanist tradition.
Skinner draws a great deal of criticism not only from humanists in
other disciplines but also from within his own field, from such in
dividuals as Carl Rogers, who says that the experience of choice
from within the personality cannot be disregarded, as well as from
humanists in other areas. , Some of this criticism hits the mark,
whereas some of it represents only badly - focused hostility. Critics
object to Skinner’s idee fixe of designing an environment which will
control human behaviour in such a way as to direct it along positive
and socially constructive lines. According to them, Skinner belongs
in the large fold of totalitarians who would abridge man’s freedom.
Since he views man as just another albeit more complex organism
than those with which he usually works in his laboratory, Skinner
claims that man’s behaviour is a function of his environment. Drug
addiction, welfare cheating, delinquency, crime, and general
maladjustments result from a defective social environment. This
defective environment typically attempts to control human
behaviour by imposing punishment for undesirable behavior.
Punishment, unfortunately, does not show an individual what he
ought to do; at most, it sets up in the individual tendencies to try to
find ways to avoid the punishment. Skinner proposes to design the
human environment scientifically, with an emphasis on positive
reinforcement, i.e. reward, for correct behavior. Experimentally, it
has been shown that animals can be taught to do almost anything
within their physical powers through the use of positive rein
forcement. Pigeons play ping pong and walk in figure eights within
minutes.
Skinner says that the creation of a good social environment must
be left to experts. They will work from a framework of community -
owned buildings, plants, instruments of production, equalitarian
relationships among men and women of all races and scientific child
- rearing. They will construct a proper set of rewards for behavior
which contributes to the social whole and man, being left free of the
squabbles of power - seeking and of the frenzy to avoid punishment,
will be left free to . . pursue creative work and the enjoyment of the
arts.
If Skinner can be correctly termed “totalitarian,” at least he
differs from other totalitarians in that the reliability of social
planning would not be backed up by repressive discipline and
punishment. Constant re -shaping and ironing-out of difficulties
would take place until the individual, doing through pre - design
what he wants to do “naturally,” contributes positively. The social
plan does not limii the interests of the individual; rather it grows out
of what will, in fact, take place as the individual seeks his own in
terests. According to Skinner, punitive totalitarian regimes contain
the sueds of their own destruction in the form of dissatisfaction,
bitterness, and resentment.
Presumably most persons in our society would like to see an en
vironment free from pollution, racial conflict, maladjustment,
poverty, and hardship. Some might be willing to go along with
Skinner’s design provided they shared his faith that it would really
work. Others, who clamor about the elimination of man’s freedom,
miss the point, for they have failed to grasp Skinner’s central
premise; that man is not free, that there is no “inner” self which
“decides” on the basis of various “motivations.”
In a lecture over a year ago in the Charlotte area, Skinner com
pared our present view of man with Aristolelian physics. Aristotle
believed that physical phenomena behave as they do because each
type of body had its own innate tendency; fire rose upward because
it had a tendency to seek its natural place above the earth; stones
fell to earth because they had a natural tendency to seek their pl'»ce
at the center (the earth being the center of the universe).
Until physicists gave up the description of bodies on the basis of
internal tendencies and saw them functioning in terms of external
rates of change, science as we know it did not get off the ground.
Likewise, so long as we think of man in terms of internal attitudes,
desires, and motivations instead of seeing how his behavior changes
as a function of the environment, we will be stuck with a prescien-
tific view of man.
Unfortunately, says Skinner, the issue is of more than purely
theoretic interest. For if we continue to allow man’s unlimited self -
seeking in a defective environment, we will either destroy ourselves
or fall prey to a rival, totalitarian, regime.
To save our Western humanistic culture and have it function at a
previously undreamed of level of human productivity, we must
embrace the alternative of a scientifically designed environment.
We resist doing so because of arrogance. We view ourselves as
•radically different from other organisms in a total environment;
that is, we believe that there is a “free inner man” in an otherwise
determined world.
Skinner does not propose to eliminate liberty in a practical sense,
that is, liberty as people doing what they want to do. The planning of
Skinner’s world is based upon what man wants and upon what man
can be made to want by positive reinforcement. Walden Two, an
early novel, now in paperback edition, gives a vivid picture of what
sort of world this would be and argues through, in dialogic form, all
the ^ros and cons of Skinner’s views.
We insist upon believing in this free inner man because we wish to
take credit for what we do. When someone’s motivations are ob
vious, we do not give him credit for what he does, inasmuch as it is
perfectly understandable; in like situations, we scale down blame as
well. On the other hand, we get a heap of credit where the reason for
what we do is not obvious. To explain why one does something is
always to give the enviornmental causes; to say that I do X because
I have a free choice is to leave my doing of X unintelligible. Skinner
says we must take the view of a behavioral scientist and be willing to
surrender credit and blame; we must admit that we are organisms
like others and that our behavior is a function of the environment.
Once we come to this, we can get on with the job of designing an
environment which will produce constructive behavior.
The premise upon which everything Skinner says either stands or
falls is his denial of psychological freedom. Freedom as doing what
one likes remains, but what one likes is determined. Psychological
freedom is the view that antecedent conditions, while ncecessary,
are not both necessary and sufficent to produce a given decision. The
thrust of Western humanism is that freedom in this sense does exist.
In the utilitarian nineteenth century, Dostoevsky wrote Notes
from Underground, in which the central character devises every
possible way to make himself miserable to prove that he is not
“determined” to be happy. If Skinner’s plan is workable, this sort of
perversity must be limited to books instead of occurring in real life.
Those of us who believe that man is free, will continue to believe that
a systematic environment, no matter how good, can be upset by
sheer “cussedness,” perhaps the ultimately redeeming human trait.
Thus, while we look for environmental improvement, it is difficult to
share Skinner’s faith.
Likewise, I think it fair to say that Western culture as we have
known it cannot be preserved by scientific planning. The theoretic
revolution which Skinner foresees and hopes will be soon enough for’
our rescue would change the entire meaning of man. The meaning of
man as a free agent cannot be changed without a cultural revolution
that would make all other revolutions (The Copernican Revolution,
the Industrial Revolution, the French and American Revolutions)
look paltry by comparison. However, Western culture means an
unswerving commitment to truth as well as to a certain idea of man.
Thus, it is both unfair and unwise to slough off Skinner’s thought
with empty slogans. I hope that Skinner’s utopian plan can be tried
on a small community basis, as outlined in Walden Two. It will be
both feasible in terms of resources and simplicity as well as
compatible with our present political system. If Skinner is right, it
will work; and if it works, we should be willing to change our minds
according to the evidence