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Book Reviews of Beyond Freedom and Dignity

Beyond Freedom and Dignity
Beyond Freedom and Dignity
Author: Burrhus Frederic Skinner
ISBN-13: 9780553230079
ISBN-10: 0553230077
Publication Date: 10/1972
Pages: 215
Rating:
  • Currently 2.5/5 Stars.
 1

2.5 stars, based on 1 rating
Publisher: Bantam Books
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

4 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

reviewed Beyond Freedom and Dignity on + 12 more book reviews
You will buy this book, beautiful. You will buy this book, genius. You will buy this book, friend. You will buy this book, really.
;-)
reviewed Beyond Freedom and Dignity on + 58 more book reviews
We can no longer afford freedom, says B.F. Skinner, the most influential & controversial psychologist of our time;we must design our culture to shape the behavior needed for survival. Here is Skinner's masterwork - a brilliant analysis of today's most pressing problems & a stunning, detailed plan for change that challenges many of Western man's most sacred ideals & personal freedoms. Considered "one of the most important happenings in 20th-century psychology", this book has already stirred nationwide debate through the force & shock of its ideas.
nurse avatar reviewed Beyond Freedom and Dignity on + 221 more book reviews
In this profound and proundly challenging book, the great behaviorlist B.F. Skinner,regarded by many as the most influential and controversial living psychologist, author also of the celebrated utopian novel Walden two, makes his definitive statement about man and society.
Insisting that the frightening problems we face in the world today can be solved only by much more effectively with human behavior, Skinner argues that our traditional concepts of freedom and dignity must be shaply revised.They have played an important historical role in man's struggle against many kinds of tyranny,he acknowledges,but they are now responsible for the futile defense of a free and worthy autonomous man: they are perpetuating our use of punishment and are blocking the developement of more effective cultural practices. Basing his arguments on the massive results ofthe experimental analysis of behavior in which he pioneered, he rejects traditional explanations of behavior in terms of states of mind,feelings,and other mental attributes in favor of explanations to be sought in an individual's genetic endowment and personal history. He tells why,istead of promoting freedom and dignity as personal attributes,we should direct our attention to the physical and social enviornments in which people live. It is the environment that must be changed rather than man himself if the traditional goals of the struggle for freedom and dignity are to be reached.
RickMatt avatar reviewed Beyond Freedom and Dignity on + 4 more book reviews
This was from a Philosophy class that I took back in the 80's. B. F. Skinner was a Harvard Behavioral Psychologist who proposes in this book a "technology of behavior" to alter the nature of man.

I would not read this book again.