Probing folk-psychology: Do Libet-style experiments reflect folk intuitions about free action?

Deutschländer, Robert; Pauen, Michael; Haynes, John‐Dylan

doi:10.1016/j.concog.2016.11.004

Cited by 15 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…In the present data, the freedom ratings considered alone were only affected by deliberation, but not by the nature of the choice (choosing/picking) or by the possible consequences. This is largely in line with a previous study where we found the factor of deliberation to have a moderate effect (Deutschländer et al, 2017), whereas the factors of choice and consequences had only marginal effects. Presumably the minor differences are due to the lower number of participants in the current study.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…In contrast, we find that factors such as deliberation and the presence or absence of consequences do have differential effects on free will and responsibility. Based on our previous work (Deutschländer et al, 2017) one could speculate that these experimental manipulations might have been stronger in bringing out the dissociations between free will and responsibility.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our study might help to restructure debates about freedom and responsibility and partially alleviate the tension between neuroscience and psychology, which sometimes claim to refer to lay definitions of these terms (Libet et al, 1983; Libet, 1985, 2005), and philosophy, which often employs more elaborate definitions of freedom and responsibility (Roskies, 2011). Lay intuitions of freedom are not in line with some common philosophical theories, because lay people ascribe more freedom in conditions of spontaneity and in the absence of reasons (Deutschländer et al, 2017). However, the lay intuitions regarding responsibility are very well aligned with claims by many philosophers that responsibility requires consideration of reasons.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent empirical research has shown that lay people’s beliefs do not agree with these conceptual positions. In one study (Deutschländer et al, 2017) we found that the deliberation of reasons, the availability of different choice options, or the existence of real life consequences were all not necessary for an action to be considered free. On the contrary, lay people judged actions to be most free if (a) they were chosen without deliberation, (b) they involved different (as opposed to equal) options, and (c) they were believed to have different real-life consequences.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Responsibility Without Freedom? Folk Judgements About Deliberate Actions

et al. 2019

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A long-standing position in philosophy, law, and theology is that a person can be held morally responsible for an action only if they had the freedom to choose and to act otherwise. Thus, many philosophers consider freedom to be a necessary condition for moral responsibility. However, empirical findings suggest that this assumption might not be in line with common sense thinking. For example, in a recent study we used surveys to show that – counter to positions held by many philosophers – lay people consider actions to be free when they are spontaneous rather than being based on reasons. In contrast, responsibility is often considered to require that someone has thought about the alternative options. In this study we used an online survey to directly test the degree to which lay judgements of freedom and responsibility match. Specifically, we tested whether manipulations of deliberation affect freedom and responsibility judgements in the same way. Furthermore, we also tested the dependency of these judgements on a person’s belief that their decision had consequences for their personal life. We found that deliberation had an opposite effect on freedom and responsibility judgements. People were considered more free when they acted spontaneously, whereas they were considered more responsible when they deliberated about their actions. These results seem to suggest that deliberating about reasons is crucially important for the lay concept of responsibility, while for the lay notion of freedom it is perceived to be detrimental. One way of interpreting our findings for the interdisciplinary debate on free will and responsibility could be to suggest that lay beliefs match the philosophical position of semi-compatibilism. Semi-compatibilists insist that the metaphysical debate on the nature of free will can be separated from the debate on conditions of responsible agency. According to our findings the beliefs of lay people are in line with views held by semi-compatibilists, even though we did not test whether they endorse that position explicitly.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Responsibility Without Freedom? Folk Judgements About Deliberate Actions

et al. 2019

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“…First, most discussions of free will focus on deliberate decisions, asking when and whether these are free (Frankfurt, 1971; Hobbes, 1994; Wolf, 1990). This might be because everyday decisions to which we associate freedom of will—like choosing a more expensive but more environmentally friendly car, helping a friend instead of studying more for a test, donating to charity, and so on—are generally deliberate, in the sense of being reasoned, purposeful, and bearing consequences (although see Deutschländer et al, 2017). In particular, the free will debate is often considered in the context of moral responsibility (e.g., was the decision to harm another person free or not) (Fischer, 1999; Haggard, 2008; Maoz and Yaffe, 2016; Roskies, 2012; Sinnott-Armstrong, 2014; Strawson, 1994), and free will is even sometimes defined as the capacity that allows one to be morally responsible (Mele, 2006; Mele, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural precursors of decisions that matter—an ERP study of deliberate and arbitrary choice

Maoz

Yaffe

Koch

et al. 2019

eLife

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The readiness potential (RP)—a key ERP correlate of upcoming action—is known to precede subjects' reports of their decision to move. Some view this as evidence against a causal role for consciousness in human decision-making and thus against free-will. But previous work focused on arbitrary decisions—purposeless, unreasoned, and without consequences. It remains unknown to what degree the RP generalizes to deliberate, more ecological decisions. We directly compared deliberate and arbitrary decision-making during a $1000-donation task to non-profit organizations. While we found the expected RPs for arbitrary decisions, they were strikingly absent for deliberate ones. Our results and drift-diffusion model are congruent with the RP representing accumulation of noisy, random fluctuations that drive arbitrary—but not deliberate—decisions. They further point to different neural mechanisms underlying deliberate and arbitrary decisions, challenging the generalizability of studies that argue for no causal role for consciousness in decision-making to real-life decisions.Editorial note: This article has been through an editorial process in which the authors decide how to respond to the issues raised during peer review. The Reviewing Editor's assessment is that all the issues have been addressed (see decision letter).

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Free Will Belief as a Consequence of Model-Based Reinforcement Learning

Rehn¹

2023

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Probing folk-psychology: Do Libet-style experiments reflect folk intuitions about free action?

Cited by 15 publications

References 38 publications

Responsibility Without Freedom? Folk Judgements About Deliberate Actions

Responsibility Without Freedom? Folk Judgements About Deliberate Actions

Neural precursors of decisions that matter—an ERP study of deliberate and arbitrary choice

Free Will Belief as a Consequence of Model-Based Reinforcement Learning

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