Does Consciousness Cause Behavior?

by Pockett, Susan

• ISBN13: 9780262512572
• ISBN10: 0262512572
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-06-01
• Publisher: MIT PRESS

Summary

Our intuition tells us that we, our conscious selves, cause our own voluntary acts. Yet scientists have long questioned this; Thomas Huxley, for example, in 1874 compared mental events to a steam whistle that contributes nothing to the work of a locomotive. New experimental evidence (most notable, work by Benjamin Libet and Daniel Wegner) has brought the causal status of human behavior back to the forefront of intellectual discussion. This multidisciplinary collection advances the debate, approaching the question from a variety of perspectives. The contributors begin by examining recent research in neuroscience that suggests that consciousness does not cause behavior, offering the outline of an empirically based model that shows how the brain causes behavior and where consciousness might fit in. Other contributors address the philosophical presuppositions that may have informed the empirical studies, raising questions about what can be legitimately concluded about the existence of free will from Libet's and Wegner's experimental results. Others examine the effect recent psychological and neuroscientific research could have on legal, social, and moral judgments of responsibility and blame-in situations including a Clockwork Orange-like scenario of behavior correction. Contributors: William P. Banks, Timothy Bayne, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Suparna Choudhury, Walter J. Freeman, Shaun Gallagher, Susan Hurley, Marc Jeannerod, Leonard V. Kaplan, Hakwan Lau, Sabine Maasen, Bertram F. Malle, Alfred R. Mele, Elisabeth Pacherie, Richard Passingham, Susan Pockett, Wolfgang Prinz, Peter W. Ross

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Neuroscience
The Neuroscience of Movement	p. 9
Consciousness of Action as an Embodied Consciousness	p. 25
Intentions, Actions, and the Self	p. 39
Free Choice and the Human Brain	p. 53
Consciousness, Intentionality, and Causality	p. 73
Philosophy
Where's the Action? Epiphenomenalism and the Problem of Free Will	p. 109
Empirical Constraints on the Problem of Free Will	p. 125
Toward a Dynamic Theory of Intentions	p. 145
Phenomenology and the Feeling of Doing: Wegner on the Conscious Will	p. 169
Free Will: Theories, Analysis, and Data	p. 187
Of Windmills and Straw Men: Folk Assumptions of Mind and Action	p. 207
Law and Public Policy
Does Consciousness Cause Misbehavior?	p. 235
Free Will as a Social Institution	p. 257
Truth and/or Consequences: Neuroscience and Criminal Responsibility	p. 277
Bypassing Conscious Control: Unconscious Imitation, Media Violence, and Freedom of Speech	p. 301
Neurosociety Ahead? Debating Free Will in the Media	p. 339
List of Contributors	p. 361
Index	p. 363
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