Beyond Freedom and Dignity.

SKINNER, B.F.

Item Number: 127422

New York :, 1971.

First edition, fifth printing (published a month after the first) of this landmark work. Octavo, original cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author to the American philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine on the front free endpaper, “To Van Quine containing the great conversation Fred Skinner.” Quine and Skinner were friends and colleagues for several decades. They became junior fellows of the Harvard Society of Fellows in 1933, and later simultaneously held Edgar Pierce professorships from the mid-1950s to mid-1970s, Quine of philosophy, Skinner of psychology. “In response to public concern over problems of war, pollution, and overpopulation, Skinner again posed the solution of a designed culture in which efficient, nondestructive conduct was behaviorally engineered. Perceiving that resistance to cultural engineering lay in misguided political theories of human freedom, Skinner published Beyond Freedom and Dignity in 1971. There he criticized the theory of ‘autonomous man’ arguing that science had shown humans to be causally determined products of their genetic and environmental histories. Although the theory of ‘autonomous man’ had served a useful function in helping people to resist the punishing sanctions of poorly designed governments, it would become obsolete in a culture whose members were controlled through positive reinforcement. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by R.D. Scudellari. An exceptional association.

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.