abstract Alfred Mele

Alfred Mele (Florida State University, USA)

Free Will, Neuroscience, and Consciousness

One plank in arguments based on neuroscientific data for the claim that free will is an illusion is a generalization from alleged findings to all cases of deciding what to do. I will examine that plank. It is sometimes claimed that, in the end, the skeptical neuroscientific arguments hit their mark because, in everyday thought, free will depends on the existence of immaterial souls. I will examine that claim too. I will also describe a pair of conceptions of free will that I take seriously and explore a place for consciousness in freely made decisions.