Reconciliation Of Libertarian Free Will With The Contemporary Neuroscientific Advocacy For Determinism In Human Action

ABSTRACT

The question of whether human actions are determined or not has been a perennial philosophical concern from ancient Greek philosophy to date. Each era since then has been looking at the problem from a different perspective inspired by the circumstances of the time. This research clarifies what having free will means and what this free will entails, and it also seeks to establish a case for freedom of the will and the validity of the concept of personal responsibility for every human action. It focuses on the recent advances in neuroscience which have led some neuroscientists to conclude that human beings do not have free will. In particular, it gives attention the Libetan experiments, interpretations of his findings and their implications for the free will debate. The study ultimately reconciles the deterministic position of neuroscience with the libertarian position on free will. It shows that human actions can be determined to a certain extent by nature, nurture and forces beyond human control, however, human conscious intention and control of one‟s actions cannot be ruled out. To hold either the determinists‟ position or the libertarians‟ position as the only valid explanation for human action, the research establishes, would be erroneous since our actions are free but are at the same time governed by forces that we have no control over, in certain circumstances. Additionally, there is need to examine every instance of a given phenomenon before drawing general conclusions. This study finds fault in the neuroscientific overreliance on experimental data and drawing questionable inferences from their observations. It also finds fault with the libertarian ignorance on the possibility of a free action being influenced by forces external to the agent performing it. As its theoretical framework, the study adopts, firstly, the compatibilist theory of free will which asserts that human actions may be determined to a certain extent but not in their entirety. Secondly, the study employs the Humean scepticism of causality to gauge the validity of claims presented by both the Libertarians in support of free will and the neuroscientists in their use of induction to affirm the deterministic nature of our actions. This research is library based, and as such, it involves a logical analysis of the arguments advanced by those who advocate for a libertarian free will and arguments of those neuroscientists who advocate for determinism. It examines whether the evidence provided by both parties is convincing and strong enough to support their respective positions. The study further identifies the shortcomings that each of the opposing sides has and proposes ways to reconcile them. The research basically involves a consultation of literature that is relevant to the research.