How plausible is it to maintain that people act of their own free will given what science tells us about the human mind and brain?

The continuum between the anti-thesis of Free Will and Determinism has long been a subject of debate among philosophers. While there have been many philosophers who argue for Determinism, the popular view among humanity is that Free Will does exist. This is simply because no one wants to live with the knowledge that everything that one does is insignificant and that a certain fate awaits. There are three stances regarding this continuum. The first is the Hard Determinist, who denies that we have Free Will, and that the world is entirely deterministic. In contrast, there is the Libertarian, who believes the opposite, that the world is not deterministic, and that there is some sort of contra-causal freedom – Free Will. Then there are the fence-sitters – Compatiblists or Soft Determinists who seek a compromise between the two stances. In this essay, I will discuss how plausible it is to maintain that people act of their free will given what science tells us about the human mind and brain.

The concept of Free Will can be a very vague concept if no constraints or definition is given to it. Is Free Will simply freedom to do whatever one wants to do? Roger Sperry came up with the idea of degrees of freedom – that consciousness emerges from and is determined by the biochemical activity of the brain and this consciousness in turn helps integrate and organize activity in the brain. So while he takes into account the theory of Mechanism, he still holds a belief that the consciousness that emerges as the by-product of its activity would in turn organize the brain activity.

Patricia Churchland takes the Compatiblist argument of arguing that there is the concept of control. In other words, she claims that while one cannot be held responsible for things beyond control, one can still be held responsible to the extent that some control could have been exercised. Churchland also presents it as “being able to do otherwise,” such that if one were unable to do otherwise then the act was not free. For example, she gives the example of patients with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, who ceaselessly wash their hands. These patients would not be doing that very act if they did not have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in the first place. In this regard, Churchland adopts Aristotle’s principle that one is held responsible for his own actions unless there are mitigating reasons.

Another philosopher – Benjamin Libet theorized that Free Will had to satisfy two conditions. Firstly, an act of Free Will is under endogenous or internal, rather than external control. Hence one has to be in control of his actions, where the person intends to do something. Secondly, the act of Free Will has to be felt to be under the control of the subject. So in the case of Alien Hand Syndrome, both these conditions are not satisfied as the person does not intend to use the ‘alien hand’ to unbutton his shirt in public, and the person does not feel that he is controlling that hand.

Despite these definitions and constraints as to what Free Will is, there still requires some proof that it exists. In science, empirical evidence is what determines the verifiability of a concept or law. Libet attempted to prove that Free Will exists by conducting a study regarding the connection between the human mind and the brain. In this study, participants were asked to flex their wrists at random intervals of their own choosing. They were also asked to note when they were first aware of their intention, by taking note of the spot on a cathode ray oscilloscope clock, where the spot of light revolved around the clock face every 2.4 seconds. In addition, Libet measured their early evoked potential using an electroencephalogram, and the onset of their muscular response using an electromyogram recording. The study found that the awareness of intention came after the early evoked potential. This finding suggests that Free Will does not exist, as we are only aware of our intention only after the message is sent for the action to occur. This disproved Libet’s null hypothesis and belief that there is Free Will.

Before we discuss Libet’s reply to the finding, I would like to point out that this experiment is flawed. Firstly, it has problems with its content validity, as it is not really representative of Free Will that it was trying to measure. It is quite hard to grasp that awareness is measured by the person saying when he feels the spot of light reaches a certain point. Despite the error accounted for in the experiment, there is insufficient and lack of robust proof that this awareness comes after the early evoked potential. I believe that there is a need to differentiate between what I would call the internal and external consciousness, which I will discuss later on in this essay.

In response to his findings, Libet maintained his belief that Free Will existed, and he claimed that Free Will is an inhibitory function that acts as a control. This novel definition, later dubbed as “Free Won’t” explains that a person has the ability to stop the action from occurring. However, there is no empirical evidence that proves his claim. Still, rather than trying to prove his claim, Libet argues that there is no evidence that rejects his claim – clearly, a violation of the fallacy of Appealing to Ignorance. He then goes on to add that deterministic supposition is also an unproven hypothesis and that there is an explanatory gap between the brain operation mechanics and conscious mental phenomena. Libet draws reference from Leibniz in that respect, using Leibniz’s analogy of the brain with a mill. It explains that perception is inexplicable on solely mechanical principles as while one can see its parts, there is nothing that would explain perceptions.

So this brings us back to square one with neither side being having a sufficiently strong argument. So perhaps the most plausible choice would be to adopt the stance of the Compatablists. Free Will is not something that we all have as there are constraints which mean that there is still some form of determinism. Take for example, unleashing a dog. While the dog is free to do whatever it wishes, it is still inhibited from having absolute Free Will by the fact that it knows that it belongs to you. Eventually, due to its dependence on you, which has been programmed in its unconscious as well as conscious mind, it will return to be leashed up.

A closer example to us would be that we have no complete Free Will ourselves. I believe that there are certain principles that govern and inhibit our ability to use our Free Will. Firstly, there are laws which prevent a lot of our actions. Although we are able to kill someone, there is something in our minds which inhibit this as we do not carry out the act for fear of the consequences. Secondly, we have been taught by our parents since young, how to behave in society. We would not simply defecate in the middle of the sidewalk or crawl around in public. It is programmed in us that those are not proper acts and should not be done. Thirdly, our conscience really governs right and wrong. It is because of the latter two principles that contribute to the conscience of a person. A person with a good conscience would not normally do something that is wrong. As a result of these three principles, our Free Will is constrained. Still, there is no scientific proof that shows that these principles are plausible as is the case with Libet’s “Free Won’t”.

Perhaps hypnosis, if considered a form of empirical study, might be possibility. There is the common misconception that one could manipulate another person under hypnosis. However, it has been proven in studies that no matter how deeply a person is hypnotized, the person would not do anything that he or she would not normally do sans hypnosis. Hence it could be said that, based on this finding, there is Free Will after all. The hypnotist simply uses suggestions to provide a medium for the hypnotized person to decide whether to act or not act. While the hypnotized person’s mind is thinking about something else, the hypnotist tries to slip in a few suggestions, which the hypnotized person sometimes carries out.

This shows how the relationship between internal consciousness and external consciousness as the internal inhibitions in the person’s mind clearly restrict any action to be carried out externally. It brings me back to my concept of internal and external consciousness, which I previously claimed that Libet’s experiment failed to take into account. My main objection is that if the reaction potential or early evoked potential was measured using an electroencephalogram, should the subject’s awareness of intention not also be measured in the same way? Libet’s experiment measured the external consciousness of its participants in their awareness of their intention, but it does not measure the internal consciousness in that respect. So it could be fair to say on this basis, that if external consciousness were to be taken into account and compared, we could compare the external awareness with the actual muscular movement. In essence, a fair way to approach this argument empirically is to find a way to measure both of these factors on the same scale.

Perhaps there might be a possibility that this early evoked potential is in fact, the awareness of intention itself. The awareness of intention in Libet’s experiment could in fact be another process – the participants’ judgment of the spot of light, the process of how it moves, the estimation of where it starts and stops, and the processing of the information. In that respect then, the electroencephalograph result could be compared with the electromyography results as it can be argued that should it be the case that the awareness of intention is indeed really the early evoked potential, then it would be fair to compare it with the onset of muscular response, as both are electrical signals, meaning that they both are on the same plane – internal consciousness.

From what we have seen so far, there is an obvious lack of strong evidence from both sides of the argument. However, that is no reason that either stance should be refuted or that the Compatiblist approach is the right one. Until technology or a study that allows us to accurately measure consciousness internally and externally, this debate will continue to rage on. Still, to answer the question, it can be concluded that it is plausible to maintain that people act of their own free will given what science tells us about the human mind and brain. This is only based on the fact that it opens the door for Cognitive Psychology to work. It is only if it is accepted that we have Free Will, that we can use the concepts and theories in Cognitive Psychology, which has its own empirical evidence for all its findings. This in a way, does tie in with Churchland’s idea of Free Will, as the processes of Cognitive Psychology would be said to be the kind of responsibility that she describes, as certain cognitive processes are absent in those who have a certain disorder, and these people are said to be exempted from responsibility as they are “unable to do otherwise”.

In terms of science, Free Will seems to have an advantage as Cognitive Psychology is related to it, and its bank of empirical data could be used to strengthen the argument for the existence of Free Will. While the argument between Free Will and Determinism is still unanswered empirically, it is most plausible to take the slant towards the existence of Free Will simply because it has been proven to be the most convenient one to take. In addition, it is a more positive stance, as humanity in general, refuse to accept that we are not in control of our actions, and that whatever we do is insignificant and ineffective – that our fate is pre-destined.