Free Will and Neuroscience: Decision Times and the Point of No Return

Abstract

Although I have written many articles and chapters on neuroscientific arguments for the nonexistence of free will, I have not run out of things to say about these arguments. Part of the explanation is that experiments on the topic continue to be conducted and to shed new light on important issues raised by earlier experiments. This is fortunate for me, given that I accepted Bernard Feltz’s invitation to write a chapter for this volume. Experiments performed by neuroscientist Benjamin Libet in the 1980s pose an alleged challenge to the existence of free will. Some neuroscientists have followed Libet’s lead, sometimes using electroencephalography (eeg), as he did, and sometimes using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), depth electrodes, or subdural grid electrodes. In Effective Intentions (Mele 2009, chs. 3, 4, and 6), I argued that the neuroscientific work discussed there falls well short of justifying the claim that free will is an illusion. My focus was on the data and on whether the data supported certain empirical claims that have been combined with theoretical claims about free will to yield the conclusion that free will does not exist. There are some interesting new data now. In this chapter, I explore the bearing of some studies published after 2009 on the question whether we have convincing neuroscientific evidence for the nonexistence of free will. Section 1 provides some scientific and terminological background. Section 2 tackles a question about the time at which decisions are made in Libet-style experiments in connection with an examination of a familiar neuroscientific argument for the nonexistence of free will. Section 3 addresses a related neuroscientific argument that features a claim about the point of no return for actions studied in experiments of this kind. Section 4 takes up a skeptical argument that might be thought to have a basis in some recent neuroscientific work. Section 5 wraps things up.