Neural holism and free will

Daniel A. Levy

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

Both libertarian and compatibilist approaches have been unsuccessful in providing an acceptable account of free will. Recent developments in cognitive neuroscience, including the connectionist theory of mind and empirical findings regarding modularity and integration of brain functions, provide the basis for a new approach: neural holism. This approach locates free will in fully integrated behavior in which all of a person's beliefs and desires, implicitly represented in the brain, automatically contribute to an act. Deliberation, the experience of volition, and cognitive and behavioral shortcomings are easily understood under this model. Assigning moral praise and blame, often seen as grounded in the notion that a person has the ability to have done otherwise, will be shown to reflect instead important aspects of signaling in social interactions. Thus, important aspects of the traditional notion of free will can be accounted for within the proposed model, which has interesting implications for lifelong cognitive development.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)205-228
Number of pages24
JournalPhilosophical Psychology
Volume16
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2003
Externally publishedYes

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Neural holism and free will'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this