The Limits of Behaviorism: A Review Essay on B. F. Skinner's Social and Political Thought

Abstract

After a brief review of the debate that surrounds B. F. Skinner's social and political thought, this essay argues that, even if Skinner's behaviorism is accepted as valid, nonetheless his social and political thought is inadequate and self-contradictory. Skinner's treatment of social organization (or ’sociological problems”) contains two serious, perhaps insoluble, technical difficulties. His treatment of values (or “philosophical problems”) is fraught with contradiction, because he cannot meld what is valued with what leads to survival, because his planners can easily misperceive the objective world, and because he cannot justify cultural survival as the ultimate value. On “political problems,” Skinner is vague and incomplete; he proposes no effective means of “countercontrol”; and his behaviorism does not contain within itself the imperative to any particular type of political system. Because Skinner's social and political thought fails at crucial points, all the problems that Skinner tried to close must be kept open and—whatever may be the technical successes and failures of behaviorism—the answers to some fundamental issues of human life must be sought beyond behaviorism.