Is human behaviour lawful, and can we predict and shape it by its consequences? That is the theory proposed in Science and Human Behavior, as psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher - B.F. Skinner lays out radical behaviourism as an experimental toolkit.

Skinner distinguishes reflexive conditioning from operant actions that are selected by what they produce. You get a crisp vocabulary—reinforcement and punishment, extinction, shaping, stimulus control—and a comprehensive framework to describe human activity, from gambling addiction to parenting.

Skinner ventures beyond the lab into classrooms, clinics, workplaces and politics, arguing that freedom and dignity aren’t inner agents; they’re products of contingencies we can redesign.

If behaviour is selectable, we can build environments that teach more effectively, reduce coercion, and make cooperation the easy default—an unsettling, practical alternative to moralising and guesswork.