Consciousness and Action

This chapter examines two contemporary, empirically based challenges to the idea that conscious mental states causally influence certain actions. The first, from Libet's research, suggests that neural events initiating voluntary actions occur before conscious willing, implying the conscious will does not cause those actions. The second, from Milner and Goodale's studies, shows cases where visual consciousness and motor action dissociate, challenging the intuitive view that visual consciousness guides visually based motor actions. Unlike classical epiphenomenalism, which denies all causal efficacy to conscious mental events, these modern challenges only question their efficacy for specific kinds of actions.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In its classical form, epiphenomenalism is the view that conscious mental events have no physical effects: while physical events cause mental events, the opposite is never true. Unlike classical epiphenomenalism, contemporary forms do not hold that conscious mental states always lack causal efficacy, only that they are epiphenomenal relative to certain kinds of action, ones we pre-theoretically would have thought consciousness to causally contribute to. Two of these contemporary, empirically based challenges to the efficacy of the mental are the focus of this chapter. The first, originating in research by Libet, has been interpreted as showing that the neural events initiating voluntary actions precede our conscious willing of them, meaning the conscious will cannot be what causes them. The second challenge, originating in studies by Milner and Goodale, consist of instances in which the content of visual consciousness and motor action dissociate, casting doubt on the intuitive view that visual consciousness guides visually based motor action.