Human Agency and Neural Causes

Philosophy of Action and the Neuroscience of Voluntary Agency

J. Runyan

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137329486
• eBook ISBN: 9781137329493
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Geist & Körper in der Philosophie

Human Agency and Neural Causes provides an analysis of our everyday thought about our conduct, and the neuroscience research concerning voluntary agency. J.D. Runyan argues that our findings through neuroscience are consistent with what would be expected if we are, in fact, voluntary agents.

1

Introduction

1.1 What is at issue

The LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.’

Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let us go out to the field.’ And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Where is Abel your brother?’ He said, ‘I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?’ And the LORD said, ‘What have you done? Listen; your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground!’¹

In this ancient murder story, by all accounts, if any action is voluntary the killing of Abel is. It is, thus, an act for which Cain is morally responsible. Ancient audiences had no problems recognising this, and neither do we. However, over, at least, the past 350 years or so there have been two divergent accounts of what distinguishes conduct—like the killing of Abel—as voluntary.

According to the first account—which I will call the Aristotelian account since its roots can be traced back to views held by Aristotle—a voluntary action is, as a first approximation, the exercise of a two-way power. That is, it is an act one performs when one is able to act and able to not act on that occasion.² On such occasions, it is up to the individual whether or not they act. According to this way of thinking, the killing of Abel is voluntary, roughly, because Cain brought about Abel’s death, knew what he was doing (e.g., that he was not doing ‘well’, giving in to sinful desire, ending Abel’s life), knew he could have not acted as he did (e.g., that he could act ‘well’, ‘master’ sinful desires, not kill Abel), and was not under duress.

According to the second account—which I will call the volitional account—a voluntary action is, roughly, bodily motion that has a certain mental event in its causal history.³ In one version—what is called an event-causal account—bodily motion is caused by a certain kind of mental event of which one is occurrently conscious (or conscious of in the way one is conscious of a sensation one is feeling). In another version—what is called an agent-causal account—bodily motion is caused by the individual when they perform a certain mental act; the performance of which is a mental event. In either version, the pivotal mental event has been called by various names, including a ‘conscious volition’, ‘conscious choice’, ‘conscious intention’ and ‘mental act of will’. According to volitional ways of thinking, in general terms, the killing of Abel is voluntary: granted Cain’s body moved in a way that led to Abel’s death, and that this motion was caused by either a particular mental event, or by Cain when he performed a certain mental act.

So according to an Aristotelian account, voluntarily acting is, roughly, a way of exercising a two-way power by one who is informed of certain things and not under duress; and, as we will see, this does not entail that a particular mental event is a component of voluntary action.⁴ On the other hand, according to a volitional account a particular kind of mental event is a component of voluntary action.

In neuropsychology, the volitional way of thinking about voluntary action is quickly becoming orthodoxy. As a testament to this, most neuropsychological research on voluntary agency is aimed at either examining (a) some sort of mental event thought to be an essential feature of voluntary action,⁵ and/or (b) whether certain bodily motions have such an event in their causal history as a way of examining whether we are actually voluntary agents, or just deceived if we think so.⁶ However, unless the volitional way of thinking is correct and the Aristotelian way wrong, most neuropsychological research on voluntary agency is misguided. And this illustrates the importance of examining our thinking about voluntary conduct—and what distinguishes forms of conduct, like Cain’s killing of Abel, which we all naively think of as voluntary—before making determinations about whether science shows we never actually voluntarily act. In particular, it shows the importance of examining whether a particular mental event is a component of voluntary action.

So examining what distinguishes voluntary conduct is an essential step in the scientific study of voluntary agency. It is, however, widely neglected. What is equally neglected is the more fundamental examination of what it is to perform an act, voluntarily or otherwise, in the way we typically think we do. Little has changed in the 50 years since Georg Henrik von Wright noted that, in discussions of this nature, ‘it is all too often taken for granted that it is clear what action [including voluntary action] is’.⁷ Most neuropsychologists, and many theorists in general, accept a volitional account of voluntary action without considering whether there might be a better option. A key aim of the present work is to criticise this oversight, and argue for an Aristotelian account. What we will see is that, if we actually examine our everyday thought about our conduct, including our action, the pattern our conduct takes, and how we come by the concept of voluntary conduct, what distinguishes that which, within the course of our everyday affairs, we think of as voluntary conduct aligns with an Aristotelian account. But—putting aside any inherent value in being correct—why does it matter whether a volitional or Aristotelian account is correct? Well, it may matter as much as it matters whether we are voluntary agents.

If a volitional account of voluntary action is correct—if voluntary movement is, in general terms, bodily motion that has a certain mental event in its causal history—then, as many in the field argue, there are neuropsychological grounds for thinking that voluntary agency is an illusion; and that willing, or choosing, is epiphenomenal. These grounds chiefly come from a line of research initiated by Benjamin Libet and his colleagues—what I will call Libet-style experiments—which indicate that brain activity leading to muscle contractions when one is, at least, thought to be acting precedes the mental event regarded as the ‘will’, or ‘choice’, to act.⁸ As Patrick Haggard claims, this research provides evidence that what we think of as choosing, or willing, to act amounts to no more than an experience that is ‘an immediate consequence of brain processes which prepare action’.⁹ Similarly, as Michael Gazzaniga claims, this line of research is ‘unlocking how and when the brain seem[s] to be making a person’s decisions for action’.¹⁰ The implication is, when we, at least, think a person is voluntarily acting, neural causal chains that produce the relevant movements seem to be initiated before the occurrence of the mental event volitional theorists think to be in the causal history of voluntary movement. Thus, the question in neuropsychology is predominantly no longer whether we have voluntary agency but rather, as Atsushi Sato states, ‘[w]hat kind of mechanism underlies’ the ‘feeling’ we do, i.e., ‘the sense of agency’?¹¹

An examination as to whether an Aristotelian or volitional account of voluntary action is correct is, therefore, relevant to addressing whether neuropsychology uncovers (a) brain activity required, and involved, when one exercises voluntary agency, or (b) brain activity that gives rise to the illusion we exercise voluntary agency. And if neural findings are taken to reveal that, in actuality, we do not wilfully act, or choose any of our conduct, this will have profound effects on the way we think about ourselves, and others. As a result, it will, also, have an effect on the way we live.

Psychological studies show that a lack of confidence in our ability to personally control whether certain things happen¹²—and, similarly, that telling people that voluntary agency is an illusion¹³—tends to have a negative impact on various aspects of life, including self-esteem, performance on cognitive tasks and the prevalence of prosocial conduct. Considering these findings, it seems virtually impossible to anticipate all the ways widespread acceptance of the view that voluntary agency is an illusion may negatively influence how, at least, some of us live.

To illustrate, if a person comes to believe that what she wills, and chooses, makes no difference regarding what will happen she may begin to see herself, as well as others, as more akin to an object that is manipulated by various forces. As a result, she may become less motivated, have lower self-worth, have lower expectations for herself, and be less concerned about how her conduct affects others.¹⁴ All of these dispositional shifts would have adverse influences on how she behaves towards others, and may even constrict what she is actually capable of doing.¹⁵ These shifts may make her less reflective about how her actions negatively impact others, and, thus, may make her more likely to engage in behaviour that harms others psychologically or physically. Based on the psychological studies mentioned in the above paragraph, these kinds of adverse effects would occur in a percentage of cases as a result of widespread acceptance of the view that voluntary agency is an illusion, which would have a negative impact on society.

Thus, while Sam Harris’ recent prediction in Free Will that ‘[i]f the scientific community were to declare free will an illusion, it would precipitate a culture war far more belligerent than the one that has been waged on the subject of evolution’¹⁶ may be an exaggeration, his conclusion, that giving up the idea we have free will will be a net societal positive, is anecdotal¹⁷ and goes against psychological research that indicates otherwise. So—to answer the question about its relevance—it seems that the investigation as to whether neuropsychology, or neuroscience, shows voluntary agency, or free will,¹⁸ to be an illusion has practical, as well as theoretical, implications.

In this work I argue for an Aristotelian, rather than volitional, account of voluntary agency. I, further, maintain that our neural observations concerning voluntary agency can be plausibly interpreted in a way that is consistent with the idea we are voluntary agents in the Aristotelian sense I develop in this book. Finally, I situate the idea that we are voluntary agents within a broader, metaphysical framework. That is, I examine what is true about the world if we are, in fact, voluntary agents in the Aristotelian sense I develop here—a topic which should be of interest to those interested in assessing whether what we continue to find out about the world, ourselves included, is consistent with the idea that we are voluntary agents.

As we will see, not only will this work be a tale of two ideas about voluntary agency, it will also be a tale of two ways of thinking about the world. To apply current terms of art, it will be a tale of a certain ‘reductive’ way of thinking and a certain ‘emergentist’ way of thinking. As a first approximation, according to the first way of thinking, all that we experience, and all that takes place, can exhaustively be explained in terms of subpersonal causes. By contrast, according to the second, some of what takes place can only be explained in terms of what people do, and what they cause. As it turns out, the analysis I offer here indicates that the first, reductive way of thinking, which currently informs the way many theorists interpret neural findings, is inconsistent with the idea we are voluntary agents. However, this analysis also reveals reasons for being sceptical of this reductive way of thinking. For one thing, my analysis of our thought about what we do and accomplish (including what we accomplish through science and philosophy) provides indication that arriving at this reductive way of thinking as a scientific (and/or philosophical) accomplishment would be self-refuting. If this turns out to be true, it would indicate that this reductive way of thinking is unstable, and problematic; and that a shift is needed in the way neural observations are interpreted. This observation, along with the observation that this reductive interpretation hinges on speculative metaphysical commitments, will lead me to explore an emergentist way of interpreting our neural observations. I will argue that, though controversial, an emergentist interpretation is a plausible way of interpreting our neural observations that accommodates the idea we are voluntary agents.

Before beginning the project at hand, in Section 1.2, I shall provide more detail regarding the objectives and structure of this book. Then, in Section 1.3, I shall examine what have become traditional (compatibilist/incompatibilist) approaches to the topic of free will, as a way of positioning, and clarifying, my work here.

1.2 An outline of the work ahead

As indicated above, in this book I argue for an Aristotelian account of voluntary agency, and I make the case that our neural observations are consistent with the idea we are voluntary agents in this sense. To accomplish these objectives, I begin in Chapter 2 by laying out the problem Libet-style experimental findings are said to pose for the idea that we are voluntary agents. I, then, discuss current arguments for why these findings do not pose a problem for the idea we are voluntary agents. As we will see, within the current debate concerning whether Libet-style experiments provide evidence against the idea we are voluntary agents, there is an underlying volitional assumption that has largely gone unexamined; roughly—the assumption is that voluntary movements have a certain mental event in their causal history. This assumption has to do with the very nature of voluntary conduct—what distinguishes various forms of conduct readily thought of as voluntary within the course of everyday life—and whether Libet-style experiments are the right way to go about testing whether we are voluntary agents.

After seeing that the argument that Libet-style findings bring the idea we are voluntary agents into doubt is predicated on a volitional assumption, I provide a critical examination of this assumption. This examination results in both conceptual and empirical grounds for being sceptical about volitional accounts. And by calling these accounts into question, I raise the possibility that, rather tha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Libet-Style Experiments and Volitions
• 3 The Need for an Analysis of Human Agency
• 4 An Aristotelian Account of Human Agency
• 5 Compatibilist Concerns
• 6 Choices and Voluntary Conduct
• 7 Neuronal Mechanisms and Voluntary Agency
• 8 A Metaphysical Framework: Voluntary Agency, Emergence and Downward Causation
• Notes
• Index