Skinner argued the autonomous self must be abolished for species survival

Evidence

What is being abolished is autonomous man—the inner man, the homunculus, the possessing demon, the man defended by the literatures of freedom and dignity. His abolition has long been overdue.… He has been constructed from our ignorance, and as our understanding increases, the very stuff of which he is composed vanishes… and it must do so if it is to prevent the abolition of the human species. To man qua man we readily say good riddance. Only by dispossessing him can we turn… from the inferred to the observed, from the miraculous to the natural, from the inaccessible to the manipulable. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1400

Categorization

• XREF: This is the philosophical endgame of the ‘Other-One’ move — the same epistemic erasure of first-person experience that surveillance capitalism operationalizes at scale, echoing earlier chapters. — connects to: Skinner rejected democracy, markets, humanism, and religion as cures — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1184; Skinner’s utopia rested on treating humans as engineered organisms — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1185; Skinner’s behaviorist utopia requires sacrificing liberal ideals for the good life — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1186 (+5 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The willingness to call individual autonomy a ‘destructive fiction’ in the name of species salvation is a foundational stance underlying behavioral manipulation regimes — its moral logic is worth sitting with.

Broader Connections

• Skinner envisioned a population-scale technology of behavioral control that rejected freedom #expands (1.00) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1012
• Skinner’s behaviorism prefigured Pentland’s dismissal of the autonomous individual #expands (0.95) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1399
• Skinner held that gaining knowledge destroys the illusion of free will #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1153
• The individual has lost the autonomy to realize the species #corroborates (0.85)
• Unchecked individualism destroys individuality rather than protecting it #complicates (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 169