B.F. Skinner: Difference between revisions

  The position can be stated as follows: what is felt or introspectively observed is not some nonphysical world of [[consciousness]], mind, or mental life but the observer's own body. This does not mean, as I shall show later, that introspection is a kind of psychological research, nor does it mean (and this is the heart of the argument) that what are felt or introspectively observed are the causes of the behavior. An organism behaves as it does because of its current structure, but most of this is out of reach of introspection. At the moment we must content ourselves, as the methodological behaviorist insists, with a persons genetic and environment histories. What are introspectively observed are certain collateral products of those histories.

In this way we repair the major damage wrought by [[mentalism (disambiguation)|mentalism]]. When what a person does [is] attributed to what is going on inside him, investigation is brought to an end. Why explain the explanation? For twenty five hundred years people have been preoccupied with feelings and mental life, but only recently has any interest been shown in a more precise analysis of the role of the environment. Ignorance of that role lead in the first place to mental fictions, and it has been perpetuated by the explanatory practices to which they gave rise.<ref>''ibid''. pp. 18-20 of the paperback edition which had the redacted typo s/it/is/.</ref>

As understood by Skinner, ascribing ''dignity'' to individuals involves giving them credit for their actions. To say "Skinner is brilliant" means that Skinner is an originating force. If Skinner's [[determinism|determinist]] theory is right, he is merely the focus of his environment. He is not an originating force and he had no choice in saying the things he said or doing the things he did. Skinner's environment and genetics both allowed and compelled him to write his book. Similarly, the environment and genetic potentials of the advocates of freedom and dignity cause them to resist the reality that their own activities are deterministically grounded. [[J. E. R. Staddon]] (''The New Behaviorism'', 2001) has argued the [[Compatibilism and incompatibilism|compatibilist position]], that Skinner's determinism is not in any way contradictory to traditional notions of reward and punishment, as he believed {{Citation needed|date=May 2007}}.