Beyond Freedom and Dignity

“Sanitation and medicine have made the problems of population more acute, war has acquired a new horror with the invention of nuclear weapons, and the affluent pursuit of happiness is largely responsible for pollution.”

Although science and technology solve issues, they also create new problems. The underlying reason, Skinner posits, is human behavior. Humans misuse technological advancements. They also fail to adapt to societal changes, such as continuing to reproduce at a fast pace. Due to technological advancements, life expectancy is increasing, thus leading to overpopulation.

“We could solve our problems quickly enough if we could adjust the growth of the world’s population as precisely as we adjust the course of a spaceship, or improve agriculture and industry with some of the confidence with which we accelerate high-energy particles, or move toward a peaceful world with something like the steady progress with which physics has approached absolute zero (even though both remain presumably out of reach).”

Skinner posits that if the study of human behavior was approached from a scientific perspective, it would be easier for society to enact widespread progression. He suggests that human behavior functions similarly to other natural phenomena that can be studied and manipulated via physical sciences. This view is considered controversial because it challenges the concept of free will; many social institutions, like the economy and the justice system, are structured around the idea that humans have free will.

“Autonomous man serves to explain only the things we are not yet able to explain in other ways. His existence depends on our ignorance, and he naturally loses status as we come to know more about behavior.”

“Autonomous man” is another way of phrasing the concept of free will. In general, society holds that human behavior stems from free will. In contrast, Skinner suggests that free will is only cited as the impetus for human behavior because the underlying processes are not yet understood. Thus, free will is a concept that arises from ignorance and is not the true motivator of human behavior.