Ushered in with hosannahs of critical praise (“If you plan to read only one book this year, this is probably the one you should choose”—New York Times), B. F. Skinner's Beyond Freedom and Dignity has made the bestseller lists for six months. Now that “the growing international storm” (Newsweek) over the book has subsided, a second look is in order. What, precisely, did he say? How persuasive is the behaviorism he trumpets? How does his argument stand up scientifically and philosophically?

Skinner proposes to take us “beyond” freedom and dignity because, in his view, people have no freedom, and human dignity is an illusion. These ideals always were mythic, despite their honored place in the literature of our civilization. The “literature of freedom and dignity,” as Skinner describes it with barely concealed contempt, fosters a wholly false doctrine of the nature of man and nurtures our fear of the developing “science and technology of human behavior” because it reduces our opportunities for self-praise and self-esteem. These opportunities shrink as it becomes increasingly implausible to appeal to mysterious powers of the mind in order to explain heroic, clever or original conduct.