B.F. Skinner

Skinners theories send word that all human bearings result from the teach stimuli that operate upon them. As such, human personality has little to do with matters spiritual or moral and more to do with what aspects of division are reinforced by verificatory stimuli and extinguished by negative stimuli.For example, good populate who gift lived with high moral fibre are those who find been reinforced to do so, and bad masses who have lived with little moral or spiritual regard for others are those who have been reinforced to do so (or conversely, have been negatively reinforced to be concern with others).(Boeree, 1998) Skinners view of human nature is considered gnarled by most rationalists for the simple particular that it reduces it to a series of conditioned demeanors an through empirical observation sequenced string of if-then actions that coldly implies the irrelevance of higher(prenominal) reasoning to explain them. (Boeree, 1998) As such, any(prenominal) moral rationalization of human behavior is merely post hoc reasoning. Nonetheless, it is difficult to fit Skinners model of human behavior with determinism. spell determinism holds that every cause creates a indomitable result , Skinner holds that every event (i.e. human behavior) is maintained only by the properties of a reinforcer (Newall, 2005 Boeree, 2006).This creates a infinitesimal but significant contradiction because the incertitude of how a reinforcer shapes human behavior becomes moot when said reinforcer is withal pre-determined. References Boeree, C. George (1998). B. F. Skinner. Retrieved February 29, 2008, from http//webspace. ship. edu/cgboear/skinner. hypertext mark-up language Newall, P. (2005) Free Will and Determinism. Retrieved February 29, 2008, from http//www. galilean-library. org/int13. html