Consciousness, free will, and moral responsibility: Taking the folk seriously.
Philos Psychol October 3, 2014 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2014.962018 via PubMed Central
Summary
People's everyday beliefs about free will and moral responsibility center on consciousness. Experiments show that conscious action production is considered far more important for free will than acting in line with one's own values or character traits. Most participants attributed free will to conscious agents but not to behaviorally identical nonconscious agents. These findings challenge leading philosophical theories, such as Deep Self and Reasons-Responsive Views, to develop a substantive account of how consciousness relates to free will and moral responsibility that takes ordinary people's views seriously.
Study at a glance
| Design | empirical study |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Folk views of free will and moral responsibility give a central role to consciousness, with conscious action production considered much more important than concordance with motivations, values, and character traits. |
Abstract
In this paper, I offer evidence that folk views of free will and moral responsibility accord a central place to consciousness. In sections 2 and 3, I contrast action production via conscious states and processes with action in concordance with an agent's long-standing and endorsed motivations, values, and character traits. Results indicate that conscious action production is considered much more important for free will than is concordance with motivations, values, and character traits. In section 4, I contrast the absence of consciousness with the presence of consciousness in behaviorally identical agents. Most participants attribute free will to conscious agents, but not to nonconscious agents. Focusing in particular on two leading views of free will and moral responsibility, namely, Deep Self and Reasons-Responsive Views, I argue that these results present philosophers of mind and action with the following explanatory burden: develop a substantive theory of the connection between consciousness on the one hand and free will and moral responsibility on the other that takes folk views on this connection seriously.