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From: gam@amdahl.UUCP (Gordon A. Moffett)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Free Will Definition
Message-ID: <399@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22-Oct-84 23:06:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: amdahl.399
Posted: Mon Oct 22 23:06:02 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Oct-84 03:52:26 EDT
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Free will: the absence of negative reinforcers.

From B F Skinner's "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" (pg 39-40):

	Man's struggle for freedom is not due to a will
	to be free, but to certain behavioral processes
	characteristic of the human organism, the chief
	effect of which is the avoidance of or escape from
	so-called "aversive" features of the environment.
	Physical and biological technologies have been mainly
	concerned with natural aversive stimuli;
	the struggle for freedom is concerned with
	stimuli INTENTIONALLY ARRANGED BY OTHER PEOPLE
	[emphasis mine].
	The literature of freedom has identified the
	other people and has proposed ways of escaping
	from them or weakening or destroying their power.
	It has been successful in reducing the aversive
	stimuli used in intentional control, but it has
	made the mistake of defining freedom in terms
	of states of mind or feelings, and it has therefore
	not been able to deal effectively with
	techniques of control which do not breed escape
	or revolt but nevertheless have aversive consequences.
	It has been forced to brand all control as wrong
	and to misrepresent many of the advantages to
	be gained from a social environment....

The Libertarian philosophy is the best example I can think of
where control is viewed as wrong [this is not a swipe at Libertarianism;
I admire many of their ideals, but I believe their philosophy is
what Skinner is talking about].
-- 
Gordon A. Moffett		...!{ihnp4,hplabs,amd,nsc}!amdahl!gam

~ You say you want a revolution ... ~

[ This is just me talking. ]