46 pages • 1 hour read
B. F. SkinnerBeyond Freedom and Dignity
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1971A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “Values”
Skinner refers to the belief in free will as prescientific and the belief in determinism as scientific; neither belief can be proven, but environmental influences on behavior suggest that determinism is more likely. The defining characteristics of a good life are derived from value judgments based on feelings. Skinner declares this is a misstep, one which could be rectified through a scientific approach that would analyze the role of emotions and use its findings to improve the world.
Perception varies; paper may feel smooth after touching sandpaper or rough after touching glass. Skinner asserts that perceptions are relative to the individual: “What we attribute to an object when we call it red, rough, or sweet is in part a condition of our own body” (103). How a person feels about a certain perception is related to the perception’s reinforcing effect, and the reinforcing effects, in turn, impact behavior via operant conditioning. This process is integrated with evolution, as natural selection reinforces helpful behaviors and eliminates unbeneficial ones. External feelings, like touching something, and internal feelings, like depression, are similar, but external feelings are more active and developed through operant conditioning, while internal feelings are not. For instance, parents can use operant conditioning to teach their children how to identify colors, but since parents cannot feel their children’s internal feelings, such feelings cannot be operantly conditioned.
Feelings are not reinforcers but are the result of reinforcement. Reinforcement can emerge through other individuals and can be either intentional or not. They can be either situational or verbal. In a sidebar, Skinner analyzes the moral connections between reinforcing words, with words like “right” and “good” used interchangeably, although, morally speaking, they are different. Conditioned reinforcers, including reinforcers for altruistic actions, carry survival value, although some positive reinforcers, like the effects of drugs, seem to be anomalous.
Value judgments are often portrayed through the terms “ought” and “should,” and ethics emerge through value judgments on altruistic or egoistic acts. Ethical behavior is caused by its contingencies and not by feelings. Laws and rules are statements of contingencies. Organizations, like institutional religions or governments, use powerful forms of intentional control to promote ethical behavior among constituents.
Such altruistic contingencies may be challenged when they compete with personal reinforcers. For instance, if a religious group implements a contingency that conflicts with a member’s well-being, the member may defect from the organization. If a person does defect from controlling organizations, they are reliant on personal reinforcers and immediate gratification. Such individuals are said to lack values, and this lack of values is actually a lack of reinforcers. Defective behavior can be rectified by strengthening reinforcers, but this method is reactionary and does not address the conflict between group and personal reinforcers. Instead, group controllers should try to balance group and personal reinforcers.
Operant conditioning evolved when organisms associated certain behaviors with their immediate survival consequences. More remote consequences influence behavior through a series of reinforcers, such as in a person learning to avoid the rain after learning to escape the rain. Humans have multiple social advantages, including learning from others, using verbal behavior or language, and exerting control. Without society, humans cannot properly develop; thus, Skinner suggests individualism is a paradox, as humans cannot function outside of a social context: “[N]o degree of self-determination, self-sufficiency, or self-reliance will make us individuals in any sense beyond that of single members of the human species” (124). Individualism, forced conformity, or exploitation are detrimental, but Skinner posits there is an optimal balance that can be achieved; this requires a different type of value.
Chapter 7 Summary: “The Evolution of a Culture”
Culture is often described in terms of behavior, but Skinner posits that cultures emerge via physical and social contingencies of reinforcement. The contingencies and behaviors are cultural ideas, the reinforcers are cultural values, and culture is self-perpetuating in that individual members maintain cultural ideas and values. Cultures are relative and dynamic. The process of cultural adaptation is likened to biological evolution. However, species and cultural adaptations are transmitted differently, as cultures, unlike organisms, have some control over their adaption and can spread via diffusion. Some use the similarities between biological and cultural evolution to support the idea of “social Darwinism,” or inherent competition between cultures. Skinner counters that, while competition can drive cultural evolution, cultures are more concerned with safety and securing resources.
Members of a culture may act to preserve a culture when its features prove successful; people must balance personal, group, and cultural reinforcers. Skinner argues that cultural values survive because they promote survival, and that humans seem to have no concrete reasons to care about the future of a culture. However, people have multiple reasons to act for the good of others. The most pressing issues humanity faces—like nuclear war, pollution, and overpopulation—are global.
Skinner suggests cultural evolution takes place through temporal stages. Changes that take place are referred to as development:
The development of a culture may be followed in its use of materials (from stone to bronze to iron), in its ways of getting food (from gathering to hunting and fishing to cultivation), in its use of economic power (from feudalism to commercialism to industrialism to socialism), and so on (139).
Time does not cause the changes but allows for such sequential changes to take place. Genetic and environmental considerations also drive cultural change, which impacts the speed and order of development. Cultural development should not be confused with growth, as growth implies a final optimal stage, and cultures do not have a terminus. Cultural development serves to make individuals more sensitive to behavioral consequences; it is a cultural designer’s purpose to accelerate and capitalize on this process.
Chapters 6-7 Analysis
Skinner defines and delineates three branches of values. He implies that intentional collectivism will behoove humanity. Skinner’s first goal is to clarify what he means when discussing values; he argues that values reflect reinforcers despite the fact that emotional language is often used to discuss beliefs. He explores the limitations of language through the seemingly interchangeable terms of “good” and “right” or “bad” and “wrong.” The terms “good” and “bad” carry ethical implications. When applied to discussions on values, they reinforce the refuted idea that values are emotional. Skinner emphasizes that there are three main types of values—personal values, values relating to the good of others, and cultural values. He provides foundational information on how values function, which is critical for the discussion on intentional cultural design in Chapter 8.
Values, Skinner asserts, are created by group controllers rather than by individuals. He implies that individualism is a paradox and that society should strive for a collectivist culture. He supports this notion by arguing that personal values deliver immediate gratification. That individualism is a paradox is revealed through the inescapability of group controllers:
Even those who stand out as revolutionaries are almost wholly conventional products of the systems they overthrow. They speak the language, use the logic and science, observe many of the ethical and legal principles, and employ the practical skills and knowledge which society has given them (124).
These sentiments reflect the fact that humans are social creatures and, as such, require a society built on social values.
While many of the philosophical positions in Beyond Freedom and Dignity are supported by the science and philosophy communities, some of his arguments are criticized or have become obsolete. An example of the latter is Skinner’s narrow perspective on drug use. He discusses the onset of drug use as a form of instant gratification connected to personal values but does not address the social context of drugs and alcohol, such as the correlation between drug use and socioeconomic status. He also largely ignores that addiction is a medical condition. Drug-related knowledge has increased since the publication of the text.
Skinner firmly touts that emotions are not reinforcers, but are by-products of reinforcement. This idea is highly criticized for its dismissal of feelings. Modern proponents of behaviorism view emotions as a contingency of behavior rather than as a by-product. Skinner also doesn’t explain why individuals would want to perpetuate their culture:
The only honest answer to that kind of question seems to be this: ‘There is no good reason why you should be concerned, but if your culture has not convinced you that there is, so much the worse for your culture (137).
From a feminist critical lens, this statement seems to disregard procreation—that people would want to perpetuate or eradicate certain cultural traits for the benefit of their children and future generations. This lack of regard for procreation contributes to the pervasive sex bias found throughout Beyond Freedom and Dignity.
