B. F. Skinner, 1904-1990

The prominent American behaviorist B. F. SkinnerW was embraced by positivistically minded humanists in the late 1960s who felt that the movement had gone too far in promoting third force psychology. Skinner’s understood human behavior as deterministic and mechanical encouraged him to reject free will and human dignity as human fictions. He was the first behaviorist to win the Humanist of the Year award and was a signatory of Humanist Manifesto II.