“Belief in Free Will Not Threatened by Neuroscience”? – How to build a strawman.

Recently a post came out titled “Belief in Free Will Not Threatened by Neuroscience”, first appearing on the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest blog, and then in Wired Magazine, written by Christian Jarrett.  Needless to say this article really does quite a job obfuscating and confusing the real “neuroscientific” case made by Sam Harris and others.

In it, and I quote directly from Wired Magazine online:

A key finding from neuroscience research over the last few decades is that non-conscious preparatory brain activity appears to precede the subjective feeling of making a decision. Some neuroscientists, like Sam Harris, have argued that this shows our sense of free will is an illusion, and that lay people would realize this too if they were given a vivid demonstration of the implications of the science (see below). Books have even started to appear with titles like My Brain Made Me Do It: The Rise of Neuroscience and the Threat to Moral Responsibility by Eliezer J. Sternberg.

However, in a new paper, Eddy Nahmias, Jason Shepard and Shane Reuter counter such claims. They believe that Harris and others (who they dub “willusionists”) make several unfounded assumptions about the basis of most people’s sense of free will. (bold my emphasis)

What on Earth? Sorry, Harris’s primary neuroscientific argument concludes that  “free will is an illusion” – not that our “sense of free will is an illusion”. Yes, he goes on to say that even the illusion of free will is an illusion. But Harris uses an entirely introspective argument for this, such being that, in his words, “our sense of our own freedom results from our not paying close attention to what it is like to be us” which he elaborates on.

And I simply don’t know where he is getting that Harris or anyone else ever made this claim: “and lay people would realize this too if they were given a vivid demonstration of the implications of the science”. My challenge here is to have the person who has written this article directly quote Harris saying or suggesting such a thing. It is possible that I’ve missed it, so a quote would be nice. Also, even if they did realize it, that doesn’t imply they would drop the belief in free will based on that realization. Something Jarrett seems to be suggesting is being said as well.

In other words, Jarrett is conflating entirely different things:

• Harris addressing neuroprediction and what it means for free will.
• Harris’s ideas about where our sense of free will comes from.

and concluding:

• That Harris (and others) is claiming some magical instantaneous change in belief once shown the evidence.

Jarrett goes on to say:

Using a series of vivid hypothetical scenarios based on Harris’ own writings, Nahmias and his colleagues tested whether people’s belief in free will really is challenged by “neuroprediction” – the idea of neuroscientists using brain activity to predict a person’s choices – and by the related notion that mental activity is no more than brain activity.

The rest of the article can be viewed here. It basically goes on to explain the study involving hundreds of university undergrads who were told a story about technology that could predict a person’s decision before they made  them, and how 80% agreed this technology was plausible but that they didn’t think it undermined “free will” (in particular regarding a story of a person named Jill who wore a cap for a month and the scientists predicted every single choice she made in that timeframe).

But this says absolutely nothing about the neuroscientific studies and their implications for free will, or the assessment of where the sense of free will comes from by such people as Harris.

I’ve read Sam Harris’s book “Free Will” as well as almost every other book on the topic, and even written one myself, and I don’t know who is actually making the case that for people who learn we can predict decisions before they happen – such will have an immediate effect on their “belief in free will”.  That’s just silly. As far as I know (but again, I’ll wait for the quote to be shown wrong on this) Harris doesn’t make this claim, nor does any neuroscientist or philosopher that I’ve ever read (which when it comes to this topic is quite a lot). Indeed, I think Jarrett’s entire article has built up and broken down a strawman.

Even the abstract of the study that Jarrett’s article is hinged on says this:

In recent years, a number of prominent scientists have argued that free will is an illusion, appealing to evidence demonstrating that information about brain activity can be used to predict behavior before people are aware of having made a decision. These scientists claim that the possibility of perfect prediction based on neural information challenges the ordinary understanding of free will. In this paper we provide evidence suggesting that most people do not view the possibility of neuro-prediction as a threat to free will unless it also raises concerns about manipulation of the agent’s behavior.

Look at the words the abstract uses and see where it makes a similar type of leap. The abstract says that prominent scientists have argued that “free will is an illusion,  appealing to evidence demonstrating that information about brain activity can be used to predict behavior before people are aware of having made a decision.” That certainly doesn’t suggest that if people understood the evidence that they’d drop their belief in free will.  It then goes on to say “These scientists claim that the possibility of perfect prediction based on neural information challenges the ordinary understanding of free will.”  Once again, that does not say that such a challenge will get a person to drop their belief in free will. Only that it’s a challenge to the “ordinary understanding of free will” – which of course it is (though the logical evidence is an even larger challenge – but I digress).

And here is the leap “In this paper we provide evidence suggesting that most people do not view the possibility of neuro-prediction as a threat to free will unless it also raises concerns about manipulation of the agent’s behavior.” Well that’s all fine and dandy. The fact of the matter is, people can be educated about the logical incoherence of free will. They can be shown that free will is illogical using entirely sound reasoning. They can be shown the Libet and Nature Neuroscientific experiments that show the ability to predict before a decision comes to the forefront of consciousness. And yes, most still will hold on dearly to their belief in free will. No person is claiming that educating people about these matters will automatically change a belief they have had since they were little. No sane person is claiming that rationality will trump someone’s intuitive feelings.

These things take time. Lots and lots of time. To claim that Harris and other scientists are suggesting that deeply embedded beliefs and intuitions about free will will instantly be dropped (when shown evidence against those beliefs) is a strawman argument. It’s something never claimed, nor is it the issue of concern.

The article concludes with this:

As neuroscience evidence increasingly enters the courtroom, these new findings have important implications for understanding how such evidence might influence legal verdicts about culpability. An obvious limitation of the research is its dependence on students in Atlanta. It will be interesting to see if the same findings apply in other cultures.

How does the findings that people don’t change their beliefs easily have such implications?  Basically, these new findings aren’t really anything “new” at all. It doesn’t take a study to know that deeply embedded beliefs don’t get discarded quickly based on reason or evidence against those beliefs. The real question is, should what people “believe” have a say over “reality” when it comes to legal verdicts? I should hope not.

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'Trick Slattery

'Trick Slattery is the author of Breaking the Free Will Illusion for the Betterment of Humankind. He's an author, philosopher, artist, content creator, and entrepreneur. He has loved and immersed himself in philosophy since he was teenager. It is his first and strongest passion. Throughout the years he has built a philosophy based on analytic logic and critical thinking. Some of the topics he is most interested in are of a controversial variety, but his passion for the topics and their importance drives him to want to express these ideas to others. His other passions include pen and ink line art and digital artwork.

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