International Journal of Advanced in Management, Technology and Engineering Sciences ISSN NO : 2249-7455

SKINNER ON THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM

Dr. Kakali Ghosh (Sengupta)
Asst. Professor of Philosophy, Onda Thana Mahavidyalaya, Bankura University

Introduction :
Another important approach to identify theory, which is developed by B.F.Skinner, is a behaviorist
who treats man as a physical object having no autonomy of his own. There is no reason to attribute
consciousness to human being. He is not more than a natural phenomenon; like any other part of material
world, man is to be investigated and explained empirically. B.F. Skinner is a thinker who opines that the
being of man is exhaustively capturable in genetic terms and hence man can be studied exclusively and
exhaustively by the scientific apparatus. In this chapter I have discussed the view of Skinner to throw some
light on the so called mind body problem.

Keywords:
1. Homunculus 2. Genetic and Environmental condition 3. Determinism 4. Social Engineer 5. Paradox

Skinner is inclined to abolish the notion of autonomous man, the inner man, the homunculus, the
possessing demon. According to him the physiological and the anatomical features may be the product of an
evolutionary theory. He gives most importance to the genetic factor as well as to the environmental
condition in which the man is brought up. Human behavior, according to Skinner, can very well be
predictable if and only if we know these two factors mentioned above. To put it in another way, two persons
will behave in the same way if they are born with same gene and brought up in the same environment. Only
these two factors control the total behavior of a human being. The `inner principle i.e., consciousness, is
totally denied of man. Skinner thinks that human beings are merely objects produced by the impact of a
particular environment on his genetic endowment and they are not subjects endowed with the distinctive
ability to reason by themselves. Persons are what they have been moulded to be and not in any sense what
they have chosen to become. He holds that it is only by dispossessing man of his so called autonomy and
creativity that we can discover the real causes of human and manipulate man. Thus the idea of person as a
result of it all kinds of subjective factors like creativity, imagination are also denied by him. By denying
freedom Skinner ultimately denies agency. Skinner remarks, A person is not an originating agent; he is a
locus, a point at which many genetic and environmental conditions come together in a joint effect. 1 Now if
agency of man is denied altogether then there is no question of judging his action to be right or wrong or to
be good or bad. Thus the question of mortality becomes meaningless also. Skinner proposes a mechanical
model of man which is nothing but a complex of behavior generated by environmental conditions. Each
person, according to Skinner, is unique as each combination of genetic influence and environment is
different. Under the same stimulus man responds in the same way.

The nature of a human being is how he behaves and his behavior is determined by the two factors
mentioned earlier. Here it should be pointed out that by environment Skinner means the world described by
the causalism of natural science. However, a man behaves not according to his inner propensity but
according to his genes and environment. Skinner further argues, as the social engineers believe that a better
form of human behavior can be produced if the genetic and environment conditions are developed in a better
way. It is to say that, if only the right environmental conditions are made to prevail, a better breed of man
will be born. One of the most important aspects of the Skinnerian model of man is the place it provides for
the manipulation of human nature. This theory of man leads to the assertion that we can ensure a better form
of generation on the basis of genetic and environmental factors.

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International Journal of Advanced in Management, Technology and Engineering Sciences ISSN NO : 2249-7455

Skinner further points out that the genetic and environmental conditions are themselves open to
scientific investigation. Even the knowledge attained by the scientist is to be explained behaviorally. Skinner
says that Knowledge is subjective in the trivial sense of being the behavior of a subject, but the
environment, past or present, which determines the behavior lies outside the behaving person.2

A very important aspect of Skinnerian mechanical model of man is that a deterministic approach is
prevalent in him. But a serious question immediately arises as to who is going to control behavior? If
determinism is taken to be true, then all mens judgment and behavior must be totally controlled by
predispositions given them by their genetic and environmental conditions and social engineers themselves
cannot get out of their genetic or cultural inheritance. Skinner remarks himself that the designer of a new
culture will always be a culture bound. That is to say a social engineer will be influenced by
predispositions given him by his social environment. To put it in another way, if determinism in its full
significance is accepted, then all human behavior and judgment including that of social engineers should be
totally enrolled by predispositions or causes, which are beyond their knowledge. In such situation, the
modern society designed by the social engineers will be a stereotype or puppet- like society. If everything
and anything is predetermined then social engineers will have no faculty of reasoning to make plan
whatsoever.3

Skinners theory suffers from the typical flaw of determinism. He cannot accept his view to be the
result of conditioning he ascribes to mankind in general. His very writing seems inconsistent with physicalist
and determinist views it contains. He explicitly traces all human behavior back to the casual condition
producing it. Actually, Skinner explains human behavior in the same way as the psychologists explain the
behavior of cats, dogs, rats, etc. In terms of conditioned reflex model, the behavior of such species can very
well be explained. But the so-called stimulus response mechanism, i.e., the conditioned reflex model, is
inapplicable to understand the nature of human action, which is essentially rooted in mans consciousness.
Human actions change often in fundamental ways. This point is substantiated by mans acting according to
a conception of lifestyle. A man can decide to build his life in a particular manner and hence can undertake
projects accordingly. But it may be argued that it is not impossible for him to reject his mode of living in a
radical manner, and to start his life in a completely novel way. But, as experience shows, man can undertake
radically different project and build his life in a fundamentally novel manner. All this depends upon his
individual choice and conception of human values. This fact can hardly be explained in the Skinnerian
deterministic model of human action.

Furthermore, if we accept the deterministic model of man, then we can never hold any human being
answerable for what he does and how he makes his lifestyle. If the determinants of human action are
completely beyond the control of the agent, that is to say, if what man does or how he builds his way of
living is absolutely due to factors over which he has no control whatsoever, then surely he could not be
regarded as the proper agent of his action. In brief, Skinners theory makes human agency problematic.

This becomes clear when Skinner abolishes the idea of autonomous man, or, as the puts it, the inner
man, and the man defended by the literatures of freedom and dignity. He continues, Science does not
dehumanize man, it dehomunculizes him. To man qua man we readily say good riddance. Only by
dispossessing him can we turn to real causes of human behavior. Only then can we turn to the real causes of
human behavior. Only then can we turn from the inferred to the observed, from the miraculous to the
natural, from the inaccessible to the manipulable.4 Thus by dispossessing man of his so called autonomy
and creativity, we discover the real causes of human behavior and manipulate man. Skinner does deny the
view that anyone could have ever affected anything. Skinner rejects this view as unscientific because a
scientific analysis shifts both the responsibility and the achievement to the environment.5 To de-
homunculus man is to deny the inner man, which is, according to Skinner, nothing but the demon within
himself. Thus this very theory does hamper the real understanding of a man. For this reason, it is very
difficult to sustain Skinners thesis.

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International Journal of Advanced in Management, Technology and Engineering Sciences ISSN NO : 2249-7455

Another serious difficulty arises as to any theory of complete determinism like Skinners. If
everybody were predetermined by genetic and environmental conditions, none would have the freedom to
search for and communicate a theory having truth claim. Any theory to be philosophically significant must
be either true or false. In other words, if we were all in a deterministic world, then it would be impossible for
a person to pursue or consider or judge a theory. The simple reason is that if a person is conditioned
thoroughly then he cannot put forward a theory to be consistent and true or for that matter place his theory to
others who are also conditioned or determined. Thus in complete determinism, there is no scope of
judgment.

Skinner not only treats man as a mere object devoid of any innate characteristics, i.e., subjectively,
but also he gives much importance to the environment. He holds the environment to be the active element in
molding man and genetic factors are secondary. Thus arises much controversy over the question of relative
priority of heredity and environment as influences on human nature.

One might argue that the Skinnerian behaviorism involves a kind of paradox. It is this: To make
psychology a science it is? Important to adopt behaviorism in psychology. Now in order to justify
behaviorism we require eliminating language from the domain of behavior. But the fun is that the very
concept of science invoked by behaviorists is itself an international and what is more a normative concept;
to prescribe the methods of science is to invite us to be guided by one type of reason and intention rather
than another, to deliberate in certain ways and to programme our purpose in accordance with our
deliberations. Without such a concept of science, we would have no way to justify any one set of
methodological procedure, including those of behaviorism, rather than another. Skinner thus seems
simultaneously committed both to the retention and to the elimination of intentional language and it results
in paradox. His commitment to science is in conflict with his commitment to behaviorism.6 To save the
physicalistic approach from being antagonistic to the intentional aspect of language many thinkers have tried
to develop monism without invoking conceptual reductionism. However, Skinner has offered us a
materialistic theory of man and explained human behavior in terms of two factors, i. e., environment and
genes. But unfortunately this account is not satisfactory in the sense that genes and environment though can
explain all types of mechanical behavior but cannot adequately account for human behavior.

References
1. Quoted in Shaping of Man: Philosophical Aspects of Sociobiology by Roger Trigg, Oxford, Basil
Blackwell, 1982, p. 23
2 . B. F. Skinner, About Behaviourism, Lomdon, 1974, p. 141.
3. Tirthanath Bandyopadhyay, Man, Kolkata, Papyrus, 1988, p. 63.
4. B. F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, London 1972, p. 200.
5. B. F. Skinner, About Behaviourism, p. 24.
6. Cf. Man, Tirthanath Bandyopadhyay, p. 65.

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