Late-life Skinner despaired that free-will attachment would defeat behaviorism

Evidence

In his penultimate essay, written in 1990, barely three years before his death, Skinner mourned the prospects of behavioral prediction as the foundation of a new society built on scientific certainty: “To say that a person is simply a place in which something happens seems even more threatening when it raises questions about what we are likely to do rather than what we have done.” In those last years he seemed more resigned to the tenacity of human friction and its stubborn allegiance to something like free will, his voice less outrageous and aggressive than the author of Beyond Freedom & Dignity, two decades earlier. Anger and contempt had shaded into weariness and despair with his final reflections: It may be said that this is a discouraging view of human behavior and that we shall be more likely to do something about the future if we continue to believe that our destiny is in our hands. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1208

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Skinner held that gaining knowledge destroys the illusion of free will — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1153; Behaviorism holds that free will is just ignorance of behavioral determinants — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1164; Skinner saw Enlightenment freedom values as impediments to behavioral science — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1207 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Behaviorism holds that free will is just ignorance of behavioral determinants #expands (0.90) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1164
• Skinner saw Enlightenment freedom values as impediments to behavioral science #corroborates (0.90) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1207
• Skinner treats free will as a fiction covering ignorance #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1160
• Skinner’s behaviorist utopia requires sacrificing liberal ideals for the good life #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1186