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Skinner, following in the footsteps of John B. Watson, believed the final goal of behaviorism, and ultimately psychology was "the prediction and control of behavior"(Benjamin, 1997, p.396). Of course, with this prediction and control of behavior there comes some important philosophical questions such as, who will be the controllers of behavior, what behaviors will be controlled, which ones will not, and finally, will this control be to our advantage or do we lose our freedom? This mode of thinking is where B.F. Skinner tries to make his far-reaching contribution to society as a whole. Skinner believes that with the discovery of operant conditioning and use of behaviorist theory that a new utopian society can be created. In his books such as, Reflections on Behaviorism and Society, The Technology of Teaching, and most directly in Walden Two, Skinners tries to address some of the philosophical questions raised by behaviorism and defend his hopes for utopia. Because Skinner's ide!as reach into the realm of moral philosophy he has come under some attack from both psychologists and philosophers. James McGraw, one of the many Skinner opponents, says that, "Such a Utopian society would undermine the values that many of us
Must individual freedoms be "sacrificed" for the sake of the culture? Most of my critics contend that I am saying so, but the answer depends on how people are induced to work for the good of their culture. If they do so under a threat of punishment, then freedom (from such a threat) is sacrificed, but if they are induced to do so through positive reinforcement, their sense of freedom is enhanced(Skinner,1978,p.198) It is obvious that such an accomplishment as animal learning theory is important to our society, however, what caused Skinner to try and apply it to creating a perfect world? The answer to this question is probably comes best from Skinner himself. In Reflection on Behaviorism and Society, Skinner talks about the time frame in which he wrote Walden Two as the end of a dark time for civilization in the western world. The Great Depression was still a strong memory in many American's minds, the threat of Communism was fading because of Russia's movement to our side, and, maybe most importantly, the world had just seen millions of Jews executed by Hitler in the second great World War. Observing all of these things affected Skinner's view of the world and motivated him to come up with a feasible solution. In the chapter Walden Two Revisited, he says, The world was beginning to face problems of an entirely new order of magnitude-the exhaustion of resources, the pollution of the environment, overpopulation, and the possibility of a nuclear holocaust, to mention only four. Physical and biological technologies could, of course, help. We could find new sources of energy and make better use of those we had. The world could feed itself by growing more nutritious grains and eating grain rather than meat. More reliable methods of contraception could keep the p
Some common words found in the essay are:
Skinner1978p198 Skinner, Walden Revisited, Control Skinner, McGraw Skinner, John Watson, McGray1984p17 Skinner's, Walden Two-no, Lawrence Smith, Society Skinner, Benefits Utopia, loss freedom, utopian society, theory utopian society, skinner's theory, sense freedom, freedom individual, people induced, aware freedom, behaviorism society, society technology, community perfect, loss freedom individual,
Approximate Word count = 1194
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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