B. F. Skinner’s utopian vision: Behind and beyond Walden Two

Abstract

This paper addresses B. F. Skinner's utopian vision for enhancing social justice and human wellbeing in his 1948 novel, Walden Two. In the first part, we situate the book in its historical, intellectual, and social context of the utopian genre, address critiques of the book's premises and practices, and discuss the fate of intentional communities patterned on the book. The central point here is that Skinner's utopian vision was not any of Walden Two's practices, except one: the use of empirical methods to search for and discover practices that worked. In the second part, we describe practices in Skinner's book that advance social justice and human well-being under the themes of health, wealth, and wisdom, and then show how the subsequent literature in applied behavior analysis supports Skinner's prescience. Applied behavior analysis is a measure of the success of Skinner's utopian vision: to experiment.

Some preliminary notes on utopianism, postmodernism and behavior analysis

“…Although not mentioning the concept of metanarrative, it seems to be precisely this second possibility that made Altus and Morris (2009) classify Walden II as utopia. They highlighted a distinctive and decisive aspect of the book: its focus on experimentation.…”

“…Rather, they were simply hypotheses about possible experimentally derived practices that proved to be advantageous. As Altus and Morris (2009) put it, we found Walden Two situated in the utopian genre that addresses means for maximizing social justice and human well-being by balancing (a) the community members' ability to achieve these ends purposefully, consciously, and freely with (b) the community's ability to do the same, so as to ensure its survival. In Walden Two, the community's practices were those Skinner conjectured would benefit both interests.…”

A study in the founding of applied behavior analysis through its publications

“…In ''Baby in a Box'' (Skinner, 1945a), he integrated materials science with his scientific outlook on infant health and behavior (Benjamin & NielsonGammon, 1999). In Walden Two (Skinner, 1948), he offered a fictional extension of operant principles to community practices (Altus & Morris, 2004). And, in ''Pigeons in a Pelican'' (Skinner, 1960), he described efforts during World War II to teach pigeons to guide simulated missiles to precise destinations (see Capshew, 1996).…”

A case study in the misrepresentation of applied behavior analysis in autism: The gernsbacher lectures

“…Over 750 articles were published between 1995 (DeMyer, Hingtgen, &2 As for my potential conflicts of interest, I am the ABS department chairperson. However, although I have published applied research and reviews (e.g., Altus & Morris, 2004;Atwater & Morris, 1988;Morris & Braukmann, 1987) and am a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst, I am not an applied behavior analyst. My interests lie largely in history and theory (e.g., Morris, 1992Morris, , 2003Morris, Altus, & Smith, 2005).…”