ABSTRACT
Are we really free when we choose our actions? The major religions rely heavily on the concept of free will, and most people believe in it, but there are serious problems. First we review the neuroanatomy of volition: the networks involved in internally and externally triggered actions and in decision-making. Libet’s ‘half-second delay in consciousness’ is discussed, along with his concepts of ‘backwards referral’ and ‘neuronal adequacy’, and his ‘time-on’ theory of consciousness, with its external ‘mental force’. Libet’s later experiments on the role of conscious will in voluntary action appear to show that consciousness comes too late to initiate voluntary actions, so threatening free will. We review the long-lasting debates about the methodology and implications of Libet’s findings. Recent fMRI experiments have been able to predict people’s decisions from their brain activity several seconds in advance. Research on the experience of willing reveals a double dissociation between believing you have caused certain actions and the actual cause of those actions, implying that the feeling of acting freely provides no evidence either way. The final section considers the moral and ethical consequences of belief, and of giving up belief, for both individuals and wider society.
