Free Will and Consciousness: Experimental Studies
Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2):915-927 (2012)
| Abstract | What are the folk-conceptual connections between free will and consciousness? In this paper I present results which indicate that consciousness plays central roles in folk conceptions of free will. When conscious states cause behavior, people tend to judge that the agent acted freely. And when unconscious states cause behavior, people tend to judge that the agent did not act freely. Further, these studies contribute to recent experimental work on folk philosophical affiliation, which analyzes folk responses to determine whether folk views are consistent with the view that free will and determinism are incompatible (incompatibilism) or with the opposite view (compatibilism). Conscious causation of behavior tends to elicit pro-free will judgments, even when the causation takes place deterministically. Thus, when controlling for consciousness, many folk seem to be compatibilists. However, participants who disagree with the deterministic or cognitive scientific descriptions given of human behavior tend to give incompatibilist responses. | |||||||||
| Keywords | Free Will Consciousness Experimental Philosophy | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,679 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesDylan Murray & Eddy Nahmias (forthcoming). Explaining Away Incompatibilist Intuitions. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
Jason Turner & Eddy A. Nahmias (2006). Are the Folk Agent-Causationists? Mind and Language 21 (5):597-609.
Andrew E. Monroe & Bertram F. Malle (2010). From Uncaused Will to Conscious Choice: The Need to Study, Not Speculate About People’s Folk Concept of Free Will. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 1 (2):211-224.
Chris Weigel (2012). Experimental Evidence for Free Will Revisionism. Philosophical Explorations 16 (1):31 - 43.
John Baer, James C. Kaufman & Roy F. Baumeister (eds.) (2008). Are We Free?: Psychology and Free Will. Oxford University Press.
Gregg Caruso (2012). Free Will and Consciousness: A Determinist Account of the Illusion of Free Will. Lexington Books.
Brian Talbot (2012). The Irrelevance of Folk Intuitions to the “Hard Problem” of Consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2):644-650.
Shaun Nichols (2004). The Folk Psychology of Free Will: Fits and Starts. Mind and Language 19 (5):473-502.
Manuel Vargas (2006). Philosophy and the Folk: On Some Implications of Experimental Work For Philosophical Debates on Free Will. Journal of Cognition and Culture 6 (1):239-254.
Eddy A. Nahmias (2006). Folk Fears About Freedom and Responsibility: Determinism Vs. Reductionism. Journal of Cognition and Culture 6 (1-2):215-237.
Eddy A. Nahmias, Stephen G. Morris, Thomas Nadelhoffer & Jason Turner (2005). Surveying Freedom: Folk Intuitions About Free Will and Moral Responsibility. Philosophical Psychology 18 (5):561-584.
Adam Feltz (2012). Pereboom and Premises: Asking the Right Questions in the Experimental Philosophy of Free Will. Consciousness and Cognition 22:53-63.
Eddy Nahmias & Dylan Murray (2010). Experimental Philosophy on Free Will: An Error Theory for Incompatibilist Intuitions. In Jesus Aguilar, Andrei Buckareff & Keith Frankish (eds.), New Waves in Philosophy of Action. Palgrave-Macmillan.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2012-04-04Total downloads42 ( #27,042 of 549,087 )Recent downloads (6 months)5 ( #15,152 of 549,087 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
