LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Additional Endorsements of The Secular Humanist Declaration The following names were originally invited to endorse the Declaration, but arrived after we were in press:

Warren G. Bennis, former president, University of Cincinnati, professor of business, University of Southern California

Paul Edwards, editor in chief, En-cyclopedia of Philosophy, professor of philosophy, Brooklyn College, City Univer-sity, New York

Antony Flew, professor of philosophy, Reading University, England

Isaac and Sara Hasson, Israel Human-ist Secular Assn.

Chaim Perelman, professor of philosophy, University of Brussels

Holward B. Radest, director, The Ethical Culture Schools

J.P. Van Praag, founding president, Inter-national Humanist and Ethical Union

Alexander S.Y. Volpin, Russian dissi-dent, professor of mathematics, Tufts University Other Endorsements (partial list):

Gina Allen, director, American Humanist Association

Jo Ann Boydston, director, The Center for Dewey Studies

Bonnie Bullough, dean of nursing, State University of New York at Buffalo

Vern Bullough, dean of natural sciences, State University of New York at Buffalo

Lawrence Briskman, lecturer of philosophy, University of Edinburgh

Marvin Bloom, associate professor of social welfare, State University of New York

Wim van Doren, professor of philosophy, Delft University of Technology, Holland

Stephen Fenichell, executive director, American Humanist Assn.

Anne Gaylor, president, Freedom From Religion Foundation

Roger E. Greeley, Unitarian Minister, People's Church, Kalamazoo, Michigan

Ruth Greene, director, Freedom From Religion Foundation

J. Harold Hadley, former editor, Religious Humanism

Walter Hoops, contributing editor, The American Rationalist

J.F. Hornback, senior leader, Ethical Society of St. Louis

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We wrote to Sir Karl Popper, influential philosopher at the University of London, inviting him to endorse the Secular Humanist Declaration. Sir Karl declined to do so, and he gives his reason why. We ask-ed Professor B.F. Skinner to respond to Popper and are glad to publish both letters — Ed.

Sir Karl Popper Criticizes B.F. Skinner

I largely endorse the contents of the Secular Humanist Declaration. Nevertheless, I cannot sign it. And I feel I owe an explanation why this is so.

There are two reasons. The first is com-paratively unimportant but insurmountable. The second could perhaps be surmounted, but it is important.

(1) My first reason is that you have in-vited Skinner to sign, and he has done so. This clearly cannot be undone.

But Skinner is an enemy of freedom and of democracy. He has explained his con-tempt for freedom quite openly in his book Beyond Freedom and Dignity. He has ex-pounded it many years before in a book Walden Two, which is the dream of a very kind but megalomaniac behaviorist who defends a behaviorist dictatorship.

I have never met Skinner, and I have nothing personal against him; I was even attracted by the benevolent naivete which inspired Walden Two. But I regard these two books — especially Beyond Freedom and Dignity — as worse and more dangerous than the most fundamentalist religious tract: there is a mixture of naivete, sheer ignorance, arrogation of omniscience, and Caesarean megalomania in these books, which is, in my opinion, far more urgent to combat than the churches.

I cannot, therefore, sign this declaration. The fact that Skinner found it possible to sign it seems to me difficult to comprehend. He may have changed his mind after the publication of his Beyond Freedom and Dignity, but he still upheld these views, as far as I know, in 1976.

Of course he has every right to hold such views, just as a fundamentalist has. And I even think it valuable that such views should appear in print — just as those of a fundamentalist. But I cannot put my

signature on an ethical document on freedom and dignity together with his.

I am almost certain that you have not studied this book of his: you would not have asked him to sign.

(2) I have a second reason, one which could in principle be overcome.

I think that the contents of your state-ment are almost entirely excellent. But I am unhappy about the tone. In so far as the contents are concerned, one thing is miss-ing in your statement — a thing I regard as important. This is the emphasis on the duty of intellectual modesty, which I regard as the first duty of all intellectuals.

I think it extremely unlikely that you and I disagree on this point. But it is not only missing from your statement (one cannot, in such a statement, say everything), but it does not, in my opinion, inspire its form.

As to adding to its content: you could still do so where you speak of toleration. Tolerance is closely related to the realiza-tion of our human fallibility. You nowhere mention Voltaire, who wrote (the free translation is mine): "What is tolerance? It is a necessary consequence of our humani-ty. We are all fallible, and prone to error. Let us then pardon each other's follies. This is the first principle of natural right." You could still insert this, say, as a motto; and so introduce the idea of intellectual modes-ty into the content of your statement.

But there is still the form and the tone. The statement is in my opinion too long; and there are too many long and impressive words in it: it is, understandably, written to impress. But this is, in my opinion, a mis-take. Or to put it differently: if it is to im-press, it should impress by the modesty of its claims, by its consciousness of human fallibility.

I fear that it is too late to rewrite your declaration in this spirit, though I feel it would be a great improvement. And at any rate I do not deny you the right to try a different approach. It may, perhaps, not even have prevented me from signing it... .

Sir Karl Popper Buckinghamshire, England

B.F. Skinner Replies to Popper

I cannot answer the charge that I am naive, ignorant, and arrogant, because Popper cites no instances. But there are issues at stake and a few of them call for comment.

One is behaviorism. In Beyond Freedom and Dignity I quoted this sentence of Popper's: "What we want is to understand how such nonphysical things as purposes, deliberations, plans, decisions, theories, ten-

Spring, 1981 3

sions, and values can play a part in bringing about physical changes in the physical world." As a behaviorist I contend that we merely infer that a person has a purpose, deliberates, makes plans, and so on, and that we infer it from physical facts about behavior. What the person feels as purpose, deliberation, a plan, and so on, are con-current physical states of the body. The no-tion that these are nonphysical was imposed upon Western civilization by the Greeks and has always caused trouble. Popper may not like the behavioristic alternative but it can be defended and is steadily gaining sup-port from biology and the behavioral sciences.

I also cited Popper on values. He writes: "It is impossible to derive a sentence stating a norm or decision from a sentence stating a fact; this is only another way of saying that it is impossible to derive norms or decisions from facts." But the analysis of operant behavior offers an alternative for-mulation of the things we value or call good, based upon selection by consequences as a causal mode (found only in living things or in machines made by living things). Natural selection, the best example, is still fighting for full recognition, and parallel issues at the level of individual and group have seldom even been clearly stated. I have argued that values and "goods" are to be found among the selective conse-quences of human behavior at all three levels — species, individual, and culture. In Science and Human Behavior I paraphras-ed sentences containing the words "ought" and "should" to expose their factual under-pinning, and a chapter of Beyond Freedom and Dignity was devoted to the point. Popper may not agree with me, but the position cannot be dismissed simply as a sign of naivete or ignorance.

In a paper called "Why I am Not a Cognitive Psychologist" (published in Behaviorism, 1977, and reprinted in Reflec-tions on Behaviorism and Society, Prentice-Hall, 1978), I quoted Popper on still another issue, the difference between a logical analysis of mind and the experimen-tal analysis of behavior, the same facts be-ing treated in both. For example, suitable contingencies of reinforcement will bring a pigeon's behavior under the control of selected properties of stimuli; if the pigeon were a person, the behavior would be said to show abstraction or concept formation. It is an example of the tendency of the philosopher or the cognitive psychologist to move a feature of the environmental con-tingencies into the brain or mind and call it mental.

A fourth issue is freedom. Certainly I am

not the first to assert that human behavior is determined; the position has been taken by many respected philosophers and theologians and, again, is gaining support as the biological and behavioral sciences in-creasingly reveal the extent to which human behavior can be traced to genetic and en-vironmental sources. To recognize this is not to have "contempt" for freedom or to defend a "behaviorist dictatorship." I am no enemy of the feeling of freedom or of a sense of human worth or dignity; on the contrary, I have done what I could to promote both. Walden Two portrayed a world in which people feel free and develop themselves to the fullest possible extent. But I must accept the view of human nature which biology and the behavioral sciences increasingly support.

Nor am I an enemy of democracy. I have criticized democracy, but is that not the first duty of those who love it? To say that democracy is not necessarily the final form of government (certainly not as now prac-ticed, for example, in the United States or Britain) is not to advocate anything resembling communism or fascism. I began an essay called "Human Behavior and Democracy" (published in Psychology To-day, September, 1977, and also reprinted in Reflections on Behaviorism and Society) with a quotation from Lincoln: "That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that control of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth." Lincoln, of course, said "government" rather than "control," but government is only one form of control, basically punitive, and I prefer other forms. The point of my paper was that people are more likely to enjoy feelings of freedom and worth when they control each other directly rather than through institutions in which either punitive or economic power is concentrated. I concluded: "The social en-vironment functions most successfully for the individual, the group, and the species if, so far as possible, people directly control people. The design of a social environment in which they do so is one of our most pressing needs." That does not sound to me like a dictatorship.

As to my arrogation of omniscience and my megalomania, I can only plead that I believe in what I am doing and in its relevance to the world at large. Certainly nothing has followed from that belief or the practices based upon it which encourages any delusion of omniscience or power! (I should like to believe that Popper has been misled by a stylistic device. I do not often qualify my sentences with "I believe," "I think," "I venture to say," and so on. I give

my readers credit for knowing that what I write is what I believe, think, and venture to say. The result may sound arrogant, but at least it has the merit of making clear where I stand, all retreat cut off.)

Those who call themselves humanists are likely to be more comfortable with Popper's "open society" than with a behaviorist's version of a better world. I have had doubts about my position as a humanist for the same reasons. But the cen-tral issue is not the actualization or aggran-dizement of the individual (no matter how strong that theme may have been in Western political philosophy), but the con-struction of a social environment or culture in which individuals will enjoy the greatest sense of freedom and make their greatest contributions. We may be closer than we think to a view of human nature, supported by the biological and behavioral sciences, which will help solve some of the problems which face us. It would be a shame if nostalgic affections for earlier views were to stand in the way.

B. F. Skinner Harvard University

Boston, Mass.

Kudos for Free Inquiry

Editorial Note: We have received hundreds of letters applauding the Secular Humanist Declaration and the launching of Free In-quiry — for which we thank you. We can only publish a small sample of them.

The Board of Directors of the American Humanist Association, at its meeting in Columbus, Ohio, November 1, 1980 has asked that I express their good wishes and support to you and to the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism in the publication of Free Inquiry.

We are happy to cooperate with you in any way that we can to assure the success of your endeavors ... for the extension of our common philosophy.

Lyle L. Simpson President, American Humanist Association

Des Moines, Iowa

Being very much involved in investigation of flummery known as parapsychology, I of course share the philosophy so well express-ed in the pages of your new publication. Rather than diffuse my forces, I have chosen to zero in on the psi-nuts and leave the larger business of the Battle with God to greater intellects.

In examining your journal, the thought once again came to me that it is incredible to find we need such information and argu-

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ment in what is an otherwise pretty well-informed society. That fact alone is frightening. To have to present arguments against evident nonsense such as Special Creation, Virgin Birth, and Survival After Death, our species surely finds itself in a critical situation. The Dark Ages are not by any means behind us.

James Randi "The Amazing Randi"

Rumson, New Jersey

If the fundamentalists insist upon teaching their version of creationism in the public schools, then all versions of creationist myths of all religions should be taught also. The resultant contradictions would wash them all out, as did the babble of religions when our constitution was written as a non-sectarian document.

John Greene Prospect Park, Pa.

Having spent many years as a lonely freethinker, I welcome Free Inquiry, par-ticularly in this era of blatant Christian fun-damentalism and its correlative isms as ex-pressed in many other orthodox religions. You certainly have your work cut out for you but the current foreboding trend must not continue without as much effort as possible to counteract it. For being one of those efforts, I thank you!

Richard W. Bowers San Francisco, California

In order to bolster support for the Declara-tion, please place this letter on the part of the balance which is with you as opposed to the mass of incriminations which will be on the other side of the scale. Congratulations and more for the tough task that you un-dertook. It is worthwhile!

Abner I. Weisman, M.D. Emeritus Professor

New York Medical College

We need such a voice so badly to counteract those "born-again hillbillies" who dominate the air waves on radio and TV. Now the time is ripe for a strong voice of reason in the land.

Felix De Cola Hollywood, California

You are welcome to America at this mo-ment when obscurantism is spreading over the land like a forest fire. And not only over America but all over the world in diverse shapes and forms ... There is one philosopher who is the thinker for our day: Spinoza — universalist and secularist and scientist and humanist. Spinoza must be

taught more and more and more. Martin Wolfson

Middleton, New York

Congratulations on the long overdue Secular Humanist Declaration.

What is needed now is a powerful followup, wherever and whenever necessary. The radio talk shows, for in-stance, should be phoned at every oppor-tunity to refute the dangerous dogma of religionists. We should confront and counter every nonsensical assertion made, whether from the pulpit or the electronic church. The counterattack must be consis-tent and continuous, not episodic as a momentous declaration. We should be prepared, those of us who can leave the closet, to refute publicly every time these silly allegations are made.

Please, literally, keep up the good work as publicly as possible!

Dorothy S. Klein Brooklyn, New York

I have never objected to people believing whatever nonsense they choose to, but I find it most offensive that an agnostic like myself is forever subjected to the nonsense that they've found some great "secret" which is between them and Jesus/God. When I was little, I heard Billy Sunday, and nowadays I see that Billy Graham is "preaching" the same kind of nonsense and also collecting mazuma thereby. But I have so longed to see a journal such as yours that attempts to state the rational and sen-sible situation as we best know it at this time.

Herbie French New York, New York

It is good to know that there is at least this much organized opposition to those who threaten all of us with their fervor for whatever religion each of them happens to support. One would hope that you could continue to speak with the words of reason we need constantly to hear.

A. George Akehurst Springfield, Illinois

No matter how the fundamentalists affected last year's national election, I am convinced that there is a need for extensive grass roots support for every kind of activi-ty that increases human intelligence and its wise application in human affairs.

Dr. Ralph P. Gallagher Bound Brook, New Jersey

I read yesterday with great interest in the New York Times your recent humanist

declaration. It was an excellent document and I want to congratulate you.

Professor M.Z. Atassi Mayo Clinic

Rochester, Minnesota

Better late than never — the appearance of Free Inquiry, that is. It should have appeared years ago, when secular humanism was still ascendant, and then, perhaps, the credo would not be in decline on-the-way-to-extinction. Assuming, of course, that as much attention would have been given to "defining" as well as "defen-ding" the secular humanist consciousness.

You state in your first issue that Free Inquiry will have as its fundamental task to "define and defend" the general outlook and positions of secular humanism, presumably to save it from total extinction. I hope that you will give as much attention to the "defining" of secular humanism as you will to the "defending" of it. I think the matter of urgent importance, because I do not think that secular humanism is in trou-ble because of the rise of powerful new sources of irrationality that are overwhelm-ing it so much as it is because of its own failures and mistakes. Secular humanism was dominant and triumphant. If it had clout it should still be. But it is in retreat and decline. Ergo, it must have lacked something. To find out what is the task of "definition," not of "defense."

David Allen Garnerville, New York

I was very impressed by the premiere issue. I completely agree with your Secular Humanist Declaration. However, I would add two more planks to your platform: (11) political action to further the spread of secular humanism, and (12) legal action to further the success of secular humanism. In other words, a detailed program for action is the next logical step.

Harry Kerastas Bridgeport, Conn.

It gladdens me and lifts my spirits to see in-dividuals devoting time and energy to so vital a project.

Paul Basinski East Pembroke, N.Y.

Your new magazine, Free Inquiry, is a pearl of rationality in a sea of modern superstitions.

Martin A. Moe, Jr. Marathon, Florida

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Spring, 1981 5

(continued from Page 5) Ethical Egoism

I like the idea of publishing Free Inquiry because every opportunity to stress the supreme social importance of human liber-ty is of great value.

I wish to suggest that Marvin Kohl's doubts about a nontheistic ethics rest on his unwillingness to examine ethical egoism as a sound ethics. If it is a sound ethics, the problem of needing "rewards" and "punishment" in connection with human morality vanishes, since moral wrongs are, as Socrates and Aristotle believed, bad for the person who commits them, while moral-ly proper conduct is good for the agent. Only those who think morality is a mere social tool, for helping others or sustaining society, are concerned about the lack of pay-offs. Such people will want, as Kohl does, some kind of "adequate enforcement factor." But enforcing morally good con-duct robs the agent of the opportunity of being a morally good person. It substitutes, as B.F. Skinner would, good behavior for virtuous conduct. Why is it so problematic for Kohl and many others to see morality as a life-supporting code, as an answer to the question "How should I, a human being and the individual that I am, live my life?" Why do they need to place the "life of society" or, paradoxically enough, other people, before one's own life and its ex-cellence (or best version)? Of course, the answer lies in various metaphysical and epistemological notions. But Kohl dismisses even the prospect of an ethical egoist morality in his essay when he thinks morality must "prevent self-interest." That is begging the entire question of what morality is sound for us.

Tibor R. Machan, Senior Editor Reason Magazine

Santa Barbara, Calif.

Free Thought in Great Britain

Gordon Stein's article, "Freethought: Past and Present," over-emphasizes militant propaganda and under-emphasizes the equally important publishing activity, and in this context some points in his coverage of the British freethought movement should be questioned.

1. Stein makes no reference to the un-known but important people who main-tained the tradition of freethought publishing during the half-century between the eclipse of Richard Carlile in the 1830s and the emergence of the Rationalist Press Association in the 1890s. I would par-ticularly emphasize the contribution of James Watson, Austin Holyoake, and C.

A. Watts, who did more than anyone else during the nineteenth century to maintain the continuous circulation of material written by better-known people and to provide the permanent basis for the development of the freethought ideology.

2. Stein repeats the stock idea that the "peak of freethought activity" came in the late nineteenth century and that "after 1906, freethought was on the decline." Yet it was during the early twentieth century that C. A. Watts and the Rationalist Press Association together distributed literally millions of copies of inexpensive freethought publications, and that such peo-ple as Joseph McCabe and J. M. Robert-son, J. B. S. Haldane and Bertrand Russell made a much wider and deeper contribu-tion to the spread of freethought than their predecessors ever did during the whole of the nineteenth century.

3. Stein says that "the Rationalist Press Association reached its peak in membership at the time of the Second World War." In fact there was a continuous increase both during and after the war, reaching a peak in 1947 of just over 5,000 members and about 300 subscribers. He adds that "after that, it showed some rises and falls in membership, but the overall trend was downwards." In fact there was a continuous fall to a trough in 1956 of just under 3,000 members and subscribers; but then another continuous rise to the highest peak in 1964-65 of just over 5,000 members and about 1,500 sub-scribers; since then another continuous decline to the present total of just under 2,-000 members and subscribers. So the real climax of our membership came not in the nineteenth century or in the early 1940s, but in the mid-1960s, coinciding with the climax of the British humanist movement.

4. Stein gives several complex reasons for the rise and fall in the membership of and support for freethought organizations. In Britain there is a simple correlation between such figures and the membership of progressive organizations in general and the readership of progressive periodicals in general. Today we are far from being respectable but we are respected nevertheless, regardless of our leadership or membership, because our arguments are still as serious and significant as they have always been.

Nicholas Walter, Director Rationalist Press Association

London, England

Gordon Stein Replies:

1. Quite correct, but I plead lack of space. I am entirely aware of the role of small

publishers in maintaining the freethought tradition. In fact, I devote a large part of the book Freethought in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth to them. There are a lot of other things I had to leave out in a 1500-word article.

2. Yes, C. A. Watts & Company had its peak of activity after the peak of organized freethought in all other parameters was over. So? I do not deny this, but I do say that Watts & Company's activity cannot make up for a sharp decline in activity in all other areas of organized freethought.

3. I am aware of the membership figures for the RPA, as I have all of their Annual Reports, and have read them. To me, 1947, which Walter claims was the peak membership year is "at the time of the Se-cond World War." That is what I mean, in a perhaps not entirely precise way. The membership pattern after 1947, which Walter details, is, as I said, composed of "some rises and falls in membership, but the overall trend was downwards." He ad-mits as much. I plotted out the membership figures before I made that statement.

4. This misses the point. I was trying to correlate the readership of freethought periodicals and membership in freethought organizations with the social and economic climate of the times. Walter says that readership and membership of one liberal thing correlates with readership and membership of other liberal things. Maybe so, but that was not what I was interested in or trying to examine.

From Another Planet

I recently read in the British press of a collective decision by a group of eminent scientists to reject the divinity of Jesus Christ (Secular Humanist Declaration). I wholeheartedly agree with this verdict. In my opinion a perfectly straightforward historical record, namely the Bible, has over the centuries been distorted and used to gain power by various religious sects.

Over recent years I have read the Bible four times and consider that I have un-earthed sufficient evidence to point to the fact that the Jews arrived from another planet, which was on the verge of nuclear self-destruction. Jesus was probably the King's or the President's son, a do-gooder motivated by moralistic principles and able to perform apparent miracles with the assistance of advanced drugs and electronic aids of the kind that will be available here on Earth in about forty year's time, if we survive that long.

J.G. Flint Guildford, England

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