Mele Abstract

Free Will and Neuroscience: Revisiting Libet's Studies


Benjamin Libet contends both that “the brain ‘decides’ to initiate or, at least, prepare to initiate [certain actions] before there is any reportable subjective awareness that such a decision has taken place” (Libet 1985, p. 536) and that “If the ‘act now’ process is initiated unconsciously, then conscious free will is not doing it” (Libet 2001, p. 62; see 2004, p. 136). He also claims that once we become conscious of our decisions, we can exercise free will in vetoing them (1985, 1999, 2004, pp. 137-49). Some people follow Libet part of the way: they accept his claims about when and how decisions to act are made but reject the window of opportunity for free will as illusory (Wegner 2002, p. 55, Hallett 2007).

Elsewhere, I have argued that the claims I just reported are not justified by the data Libet and others offer in support of them (Mele 2009). Here I review some of the problems one encounters in attempting to move from Libet’s data to his conclusions.