Free Will, Determination and the Perfect Society - Book Report/Review Example

8th December 2006 FREE WILL, DETERMINATION AND THE PERFECT SOCIETY Introduction Walden Two by B.F. Skinner chronicles the attempts of a communityto create a Utopian society. Skinner presents opportunities to explore the contrast between free will and determinism in order to identify individual human possibilities and show us the choices we are presented with. This paper attempts to highlight Skinner's central theme regarding free will and determinism and arguments for and against by different theorists. First a brief summary of the story will be presented followed by an analysis of Skinner's arguments concerning the connection between Utopia, free will and determination. This will be followed by a literature review from four sources which will be evaluated for their strengths and fallacies in developing or refuting Skinner's thesis. Summary of Walden Two Returning from service following World War II are two men Rogers and Jamnik who drop into the office of Professor Burris to enquire about a person called Fraizer. They're interested in knowing if Fraizer has successfully created the new society. Fraizer was Burris's classmate from graduate school. He was a radical thinker and held an aversion for authority. Burris corresponds with Fraizer and soon receives an invitation to the community he has created called "Walden Two". Burris accompanies Rogers and Jamnik along with their girlfriends to the community for a three day visit. Fraizer gives them a tour of Walden Two, explaining the development and setup of this Utopian community. He gives them an account of living habits. A thousand people populate Walden Two and they all appear content with their lives, living in communal abodes, dine at common rooms, bring up their children in a common nursery in addition to building their homes. Rather than the usual eight hours, an average workday lasts for four hours. Nobody receives any remuneration and everything is free at Walden Two. Fraizer explains that Walden Two realizes its Utopian state through behavioral engineering. All activities in the community are performed through the dogma of behaviorism. The underlying notion is that people's behavior is controllable through a system of rewards and punishment. The community is conditioned to live in a blissful state and be productive for the overall benefit of everyone there. At its core, the community at Walden Two is experimental. Behavior is engaged in to see what works and is acceptable and what is not. If support exists for an alternate social custom, for example, if not expressing gratitude will not bother people or even create a feeling of happiness, then this practice is employed in day to day life and the effects are closely examined. Burris and those who've accompanied him react in different ways from each other towards the setup of Walden Two. Castle considers a community such as this to be objectionable. He confronts Fraizer and questions him about the viability of the community. Burris finds such a community has both pros and cons. Although he doesn't think this utopian community would succeed in the long run, he nevertheless has to agree with some of the arguments Fraizer presents in the light of evidence exhibited in Walden Two. Both Steve and his girlfriend Mary, side with Fraizer and decide that Walden Two would be an ideal place for them to live their lives together. While Rogers is sold on the idea of Walden Two, his girlfriend Barbara is not and leaves the community once the visit is over. Burris is in two minds and makes a decision to go back to academic study. But at the train station he wonders if exploring life at Walden Two might not be such a bad idea after all and much more preferable than returning to the university. He goes back to the community and commences a new life there. Analysis Social customs are not written in blood. Most laws are created by man in order to fashion some sort of order that society should follow. However over time a few established customs are subjected to scrutiny in the light of new evidence or progressive forms of thinking. The result is that old practices undergo change or are completely eliminated. Through the character of Fraizer, the author stresses that due to the experimental nature of the community of Walden Two, all practices, customs and behavior are subject to change or improvement. This is the underlying theme of Walden Two. A concurrent theme is that human behavior is dependent of the nature and circumstances of the environment and the outside influences that condition an individual's actions. As society is geared towards maintaining a status quo and healthy state of equilibrium between all its members, behavioral science enables authority to harness those aspects of human behavior that enhance the general well being of individuals so that they are content and become more productive in their community. Skinner hints that a man cannot be autonomous. All humans are constantly under the influence and power of external forces which are beyond their control. He states that the way to direct ones own destiny is to alter the process and methods of rewards and punishment. Behavioral science attempts to seize control by taking away the established forces present in the environment such as advertising, education, propaganda and customs. Once the individual is free from these forces, his or her behavior can be modified into something more desirable and acceptable and is of a higher form than that which he possessed prior to behavioral engineering. This process is best managed by people who have in-depth knowledge of the workings of human behavior. This was Skinner's argument derived from his view on behaviorism and at the time it was revolutionary. But there was considerable opposition to Skinners views and many saw it as disloyalty to humanity since his argument implied that humans could be treated as guinea pigs to be experimented on, made to perform certain tasks according to orders given by the so called law and conclusions drawn based on observations. In The Measure of Man Joseph Wood Krutch criticizes Skinner as disregarding the very same values, for example thoughts, feelings, language and consciousness, that separate humans from animals. He alleges that Skinner is confusing education with conditioning. Krutch indicates that conditioning is a short cut method around education, as education focuses on the capacity to reason and use cognitive faculties. Conditioning only gears its subjects to lead lives in accordance to the whims and desires of the experimenter and not as self governing individuals. Skinner's methods have the effect of turning the individual into a robot like entity, suppressing individualism, creativity and self identity. Other critics have attacked Skinner's arguments first with his refusal to accept the individual as a free person. Secondly, his support of control for society's benefit. Third, that behavioral engineering can create human values (Kuhlmann p.32). Whereas Skinner opposes inner reform by an individual, Kuhlmann states that this would be unachievable if an inner person or morally conscious self does not exist in order for reform to occur. Skinner's argument that punishment is immoral and that the notion of individual responsibility is a falsehood has been attacked by John Staddon in his "On Responsibility and Punishment". According to Staddon, Skinner himself compares the pre-scientific view with the scientific view. The pre-scientific view says that an individual's behavior is dependent on himself, he controls his own thoughts and actions and much of his success and achievements are as a result of his personal motives and ambitions. The scientific view is that heredity and environment play an important role in determining a person's behavior. Traditional views hold that a person is born free, autonomous, and behavior is not imposed upon him. In such a case, the individual is responsible for his actions and if they are deemed inappropriate or against social norms, he is subjected to punishment under applicable laws. This idea must be reviewed if it is discovered through scientific analysis that immoral behavior was caused by environmental forces. The analysis must take into account the relationships between the behavior and environment and determine indeed whether or not the individual was under certain external influences. Staddon describes the subjectivity of freedom. The term means different things to different people. An individual is free if he feels he's free but Skinner has an uncomplicated view of freedom and describes it as the lack of punishment. Staddon refutes Skinner's view by offering examples where absence of punishment does not make a person feel free. Gravity is a force that if disobeyed can cause severe consequences as first time skaters or cyclists demonstrate. However overcoming the fear of falling does not in anyway cause a person to feel more free. Freedom is not eradicated by punishment and is not due to the lack of punishment. Skinner also describes that the absence of causative factors can determine freedom. But absence of causative factors on behavior can never be proven and is deemed impossible just as in the case of science where the null hypothesis cannot be proven. The converse of this is when behavior can be predicted. An example of this is when a person is offered a choice between a large sum or money or a small one without any strings attached. Obviously it would be prudent for the individual to accept the large sum. This behavior can be predicted, and is determined due to social economic constructs. The individual is free to choose and makes a decision based on his personal preferences. Consequently, although behavior is determined, the person still feels free. Therefore Skinner is wrong in his view that lack of freedom equates to determinism. The two have no connection to each other. The amount of free will available to an individual is limited by various external factors such as environment and opportunities (Barnet & Bedau p.838). As Skinner's community in Walden Two is basically experimental, members can have and do exercise free will to commit to new forms of behavior that may be accepted or rejected depending on preferences. The community is responsible for its actions and this moral responsibility requires free will. Determinism appears to contradict moral responsibility as determinism postulates that every event that occurs is something that is caused by another event (Chilsholm in Watson p.26). Casual determinism states that past and present events cause future events. Thus according to this, even present events must have been caused due to an event or a series of events in the past. This philosophy rejects the notion of the occurrence of random or spontaneous events. Thus behavior, positive or negative, has its origins and has occurred due to the interplay of forces and circumstance in the past. The deterministic view offers a new dimension to the application of punishment. Skinner abhors punishment not only for its unethical nature but for the fact it doesn't always succeed in bringing about change or improvements in behavior. But in general punishments do work in curtailing behavior. Skinner however highlights three points that according to him prevents punishment from being effective. One is that punishment is counteractive in that the punished are likely to retaliate in the future. Two, when punishment is ceased, the negative behavior comes back, hence punishment is futile. This has been refuted in numerous laboratory experiments with rats. Even a moderate application of electric shock may be sufficient to suppress negative behavior. Rats learn to avoid pressing a lever when they associate the lever with the generation of electric shocks. Although Staddon rejects Skinner's notion that a negative behavior recurs when the punishment is discontinued, he applies this argument only to rats and not to humans. A rat may continue to press a lever to avoid getting a shock and may do so endlessly even when the electric shock apparatus is cut off. But in the case of humans a negative behavior may return. Take for example a classroom setting where a passive teacher continues to teach even when students are misbehaving in class. This teacher takes leave and a substitute teacher who is extremely strict, takes over. He is intolerant of bad behavior and reprimands students who cross the line. The result is that students learn to respect this particular teacher and start to behave in a more acceptable manner. This will last as long as the strict teacher is in their presence. However, if the regular teacher returns, the students may go back to their old misbehaving ways. Thus Skinner may be partially correct in his observation that punishment is ineffective. It is only effective when the threat of punishment hangs over the individual. Punishment may also cause retaliation or avoidance. Depending on the strength of the authority, punishment may cause the punished to resort to counterattack measures to avoid punishment. In an experiment, a rat will attempt to press a lever that both produces food as well as creates a shock, but will do all it can to avoid receiving the shock. Skinner views positive reinforcement as an efficient method of behavioral control. By altering the environment by adding an incentive the probability of a behavior returning in the future increases. Staddon disagrees stating that the positive consequences of positive reinforcement wanes when the reinforcement is removed. Rather than offering rewards to keep behavior in check, punishment avoidance is likely to result in more enduring behavior. Looking at it from a scientific viewpoint, punishment may or may not succeed but preferring reward instead of a moral standpoint must be taken. Although Skinner's arguments are correct in some respects and incorrect in others, scientific evidence is inconclusive on the pros and cons of punishment as it has both benefits and drawbacks. Punishment works to check behavior but in order to produce corrective behavior, long term positive reinforcement should be employed. Some years ago when a program of yoga and relaxation was provided to the citizens of Washington DC, crime rates fell during the time the program lasted but returned to previous figures when the program ended. The conflict between freewill and determinism and the role of punishment, invites discussion on the nature of justice and how it should be administered in the light of whether unlawful behavior was caused by external forces or through the individual self. If a defendant claims that the environment caused his indiscretion then should he be let off the hook Normally juries don't buy the 'environment' argument and usually pronounce a verdict of guilty since the accused caused harm whether external forces compelled him or not. Skinner states that free will causes behavior to be unpredictable but Staddon refutes that and contends that a responsible person exhibits behavior that is predictable and that in the legal sense free will is built around the nature of human predictability. If behavior was random and impervious to reinforcement measures and not caused by any external forces, then punishment would be useless and any type of behavioral control would not produce any positive outcome. The legal system would then fall to the way side very quickly. In order for the legal system to be effective, behavioral determinism must factor. Stanley Milgram contends that the organization of society requires the practice of obedience and that an authority is necessary in order to enable people to live in a communal setting. This seems to support Skinner's view that obedience can be conditioned. Skinner recognizes that obedience is a profoundly deep-seated behavioral trait stemming from childhood and upbringing and which is powerful to the point that fear can be induced by the presence of authority. The question Milgram asks and which applies to Skinner's argument is to what extent will an individual obey authority. This point arises when the authority demands obedience in performing certain actions that go against the moral conscience of the individual. Milgram's shock inducing experiments have proved that people will obey any command, provided they respect the authority and irrespective of whether or not they are causing harm to another human being. The results have shown that test subjects are easily malleable and conditioned due to the presence of authority. Thus, Skinner's contention that environmental factors condition behavior, is true. If the criticisms to Skinner's arguments were presented to Fraizer, he would have unhesitatingly showed naysayers the happy and contented community of Walden Two. In fictional terms Fraizer might have won the case but since it is only fiction and Walden Two is a fictional community, real doubters and critics would of course not accept Fraizer's stance. Such a community would have to exist in reality and evidence would need to overwhelmingly point to the success of such a system in order to be accepted. Also since the creation of a real Walden Two would invite considerable opposition, Skinner chose to write is a piece of fiction rather than present it in a non-fiction textbook format. The main goal of the book is self serving, i.e. to illustrate that behavioral engineering and an abandoning of traditional norms can effect behavioral change. For example, Steve and Mary choosing to remain in Walden Two offers insights as to the process of recruiting potential subjects into the community. Although the young are easily impressionable, Fraizer himself accepts that there are limits to change and one has to do with age. The book appeals to the emotional part of the reader by being fictional. At the same time, it gives Skinner a voice to express his criticisms of the traditional society and also portray his community of Walden Two as one that exists in many parts of the globe instead of an unfulfilled dream. Conclusion Although Skinner's Walden Two is a work of fiction, key issues raised in it have provoked criticism and further investigation into the role of behavioral engineering, the concept of free will and determinism. The interplay between these is open to debate. Free will enables individuals to make choices but the effects of environmental factors, including the events of the past must also be taken into account. Skinner make some valid points about the positive impact of social conditioning to create a utopian communal system that blossoms on productivity and contentment among its members. Works Cited 1. Barnet, Sylvan, Bedau, Hugo Adam. Current Issues and Enduring Questions. 2005. 2. Graham, Paul. Stanley Milgram : Perils of Obedience. 4-12-06. 3. Kuhlmann, Hilke. 2005. Living Walden Two: B.F. Skinner's Behaviorist Utopia and Experimental Communities. University of Illinois Press. 4. Skinner B.F. 1976. Walden Two. Prentice Hall. 5. Staddon, John. On Responsibility and Punishment. The Atlantic Monthly. (1995): 88-94 6. Watson, Gary. 2004. Free Will. Oxford University Press. Read More