The Timing Experiments of Libet and Grey Walter (original) (raw)

The neurological experiments conducted by Benjamin Libet (1985) and Grey Walter (1993, in Dennett) provide evidence that our actions are caused by non-conscious brain events beyond our conscious awareness. Normally, we assume that our conscious choices lead us to do things. If these researchers have interpreted their evidence correctly, it may be that we lack free-will, for we could not control a non-conscious brain state. Libet however provides evidence that agents can “change their minds” just before performing some action. He felt that this was the elbow-room for free-will. But it may be inconsistent for him to suggest this, since his evidence indicates that there is no room for conscious choice. In this paper we discuss these results and various objections to the interpretation of the work.

Whether We Have Free-Will and Whether It Matters

There is a concern that causal determinism might render free-will impossible. I compare some different perspectives, namely Compatibilism, Incompatibilism, Libertarianism, and Hard Determinism, and conclude that Hard Determinism is correct—we lack free-will. To further bolster the case, I consider the work of Libet, who has found neuropsychological evidence that our brains non-consciously cause our actions, prior to our being aware of it. Thus we are also not choosing consciously. I then consider Dennett’s work on the role of the conscious self. I defend his model—of a fragmented self—which could not cause our actions. Finally I argue that many things that free-will purportedly provides, eg., justification for the penal system and reactive attitudes, can be reconstructed without free-will. I then end with some speculations about why people still want free-will.

Two Faces of Control for Moral Responsibility

Control is typically accepted as a necessary condition for moral responsibility. Thus, humans are morally responsible for their actions only if they can realise the right kind of control. Are there good reasons to think that humans can in fact psychologically realise control? We address this question by establishing choice and agenthood as separate but interconnected aspects of control. We consider two challenges to the claim that humans can realise the kind of control required for moral responsibility. The first is an empirical challenge from cognitive neuroscience which, while unsuccessful, demonstrates a familiar way to argue against the realisation of the choice aspect by human psychology. The second is a more formidable conceptual challenge to the aspect of agenthood which presents us with skepticism about the kind of explanations that psychology can provide. The second challenge suggests that, in psychological accounts of choice the agent disappears. Drawing on recent empirical models of cognitive control and philosophical accounts of agency, we conclude that psychological explanation of choice is consistent with the aspect of agenthood being realised by human psychology.

Master thesis -- Do or don't: Why neuroscience hasn’t settled the question of free will

In recent years, scientists and science popularisers alike have seen profound consequences for our view of ourselves and the organisation of society in new findings about the functioning of the human brain. Prominent in the debate surrounding these claims is the question of free will, i.e. whether or not humans are able to choose and act freely in a certain fundamental sense thought required for our practice of holding ourselves free and responsible for our actions, both morally and legally. One common position, as taken by, e.g. Sam Harris (populariser) and Daniel Wegner (scientist), holds that free will of this kind is unsupportable in the face of empirical evidence – i.a. evidence from neuroscience about the way consciousness lags behind unconscious neural processes – and that we therefore need to revise our views and practices in light of these scientific facts. In this thesis, I argue that what might be termed the "revisionist" position is predicated not only on empirical evidence, but is essentially motivated by a belief in the fundamental incompatibility of free will with any reasonable (meta-) physics. In Part 1 I investigate the fundamental philosophical debate and find that the question of the possibility of free will is unresolved, thus challenging any simple appeal to the impossibility of free will such as that made by Harris in his short book on the subject, Free Will (2012). I also provide independent reason for upholding a broadly commonsense belief in free will by highlighting the sceptical nature of the challenge from determinism, which can be overcome with the help of P.F. Strawson’s "soft naturalism"-appeal to our self-justified reactive attitudes. In Part 2 I investigate the empirical evidence adduced as support for the revisionist position, focused through the well-developed argument presented by Wegner in his Illusion of Conscious Will (2002). Here I argue that the revisionist interpretation of the data loses out to a traditional interpretation that is realist about conscious causal efficacy when the former is divested of its untenable appeal to incompatibilism. I conclude that neuroscience has not settled the question of free will, and, furthermore, that the current state of the two debates – the theoretical and the empirical – supports a continued belief in free will of a kind that fits with our practice of generally believing ourselves free in our choices, and responsible for our actions.

Libet's Experiments and the Possibility of Free Conscious Decision. (In: Christoph Lumer (ed.): Morality in Times of Naturalising the Mind. Boston; Berlin: de Gruyter 2014. Pp. 63-103.)

(1) In a famous series of experiments Libet has proved, many believe, that the way for human action is physiologically paved already before the conscious intention is formed. (2) A causal interpretation of these experiments which follows Libet's lines implies that even a compatibilist freedom of action and decision, as well as actions in a narrow sense, do not exist. (3) A compilation of several critiques of the experiments' interpretation, however, questions the most important parts of these interpretations, e.g. the temporal order, the nature of the conscious intention. (4) In addition, a more sophisticated picture of the work of intentions makes clear that in Libet's experiments in most cases there were no proximal intentions to flex one's finger but that these actions are intentional in virtue of the distal general intention to follow the experimenter's requests. (5) Finally, an elaboration of the role of consciousness and deliberation in decisions shows how the latter intentions can be free despite being based on unconscious processes.

FREE WILL JTPP The case against the case against free will

My aim in this paper is to demonstrate that those who believe that they have mounted a decisive, logically and scientifically based case against the existence of a human capability to engage in deliberate action, and thus that there is "no such thing as free will", have not in fact done so. It is to argue that, certainly at the present historical moment and perhaps in principle, there is no strong reason to distrust our experience in the matter of whether or not we possess the ability to make genuine choices. In part 1 of the paper, I state what I have observed to be the standard arguments in favor of causal determinism of human behavior, with an emphasis on the determinist principle itself and on the experimental work of Benjamin Libet and John Dylan-Haynes. In parts 2 and 3, I present a series of counterarguments which, taken collectively, militate strongly against the soundness of the hard determinist position regarding human behavior and its purported scientific foundation.

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