location:
Invalidenstr. 42, 10115 Berlin, Hörsaal 2
Philosophers, psychologists and brain scientists have long debated whether neuroscience has anything to contribute to solving the problem of free will. One finding by Benjamin Libet has played a central role in this debate. Certain brain signals can predict the outcome of “free” choices even before a person believes to be making up their mind. Some take this to imply that a decision can already be made by unconscious brain activity before a person subjectively believes to be making the decision, thus questioning whether the decision was indeed free. This has led to a long debate, especially regarding the question which characteristics of a decision are required for it to be considered free. Besides these conceptual questions, the findings have also been challenged on technical grounds, for example by questioning the nature of the choice-predictive brain signals and their deterministic nature. Some researchers now believe choice-predictive experiments are irrelevant for the problem of free will. Importantly, beyond Libet, there is a much wider body of psychological and neuroscientific findings that have potential implications for how free we should consider our decisions. This includes studies of sensory and value-based decision making, executive functions and control, volition, mental state decoding, studies of lay opinions (“experimental philosophy”) and many more. This seminar will give an overview of the key debates in this field with a wider view on the subfields of psychology and neuroscience that are frequently neglected in the free will debate. We will link up the scientific findings to conceptual issues of control and free will.