Response to Sie and Wouters: A neuroscientific challenge to free will and responsibility?

Sie and Wouters [1xThe real challenge to free will and responsibility. Sie, M. and Wouters, A. Trends Cogn. Sci. 2008; 12: 3Abstract | Full Text | Full Text PDF | PubMed | Scopus (9)See all References][1] raise an interesting and complex issue of relevance to current discussions of free will and responsibility. They point out that current compatibilist views are formulated with the assumption that humans are practically rational beings that are able to act for, and are responsive to, reasons. As Sie and Wouters point out, several experiments in psychology have indicated that in many cases our rationality is compromised. Our deviation from ideal rationality is now well appreciated owing to a body of work initiated by Kahneman et al. [2xJudgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Kahneman, D. et al. CrossrefSee all References][2]. More recent work on automaticity raises the specter that we act mindlessly, and that reasons have a role in justifying, but not guiding, our actions.First, I should like to point out that the studies that Sie and Wouters cite are all psychological, rather than neuroscientific. Moreover, although these studies certainly provide evidence that we do make judgments and act without explicit knowledge of the causes of our actions, the studies do not show that we are not capable of acting for reasons, or that we never or rarely do. Open questions remain regarding both the extent to which reasons do or do not guide action, and also the extent to which our post hoc introspections are mistaken about the causes of action under normal circumstances.Second, there is no clear evidence from neuroscience that we do not act for reasons. To the extent that neuroscience lacks appropriate correlates of reason talk, the door is left open for all of the usual worries about mental causation [3xMind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental Causation. Kim, J. See all References][3], although at this point neuroscience says nothing definitive about our status as practically rational agents. Indeed, in the rare instances in which there have been some attempts to construe neuroscientific data in intentional terms [4xThe neural basis of decision making. Gold, J.I. and Shadlen, M.N. Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 2007; 30: 535–574Crossref | PubMed | Scopus (1177)See all References, 5xNeural signatures of economic preferences for risk and ambiguity. Huettel, S.A. et al. Neuron. 2006; 49: 765–775Abstract | Full Text | Full Text PDF | PubMed | Scopus (303)See all References], reasons do have causal efficacy: monkey behavior is closely correlated with the firing rates of neural populations that represent the stronger of two sets of decision-theoretic variables. If the intentional interpretations offered are correct, these studies suggest that we do act for reasons but leave open the question of what introspective access we have to these reasons. Thus, the challenge for compatibilist theories that rely on reasons-responsiveness might be to provide a more neurally and psychologically realistic account of what it is to act for reasons or to be reasons-responsive.It seems to me false that philosophy has viewed the meaning and nature of reasons-responsiveness as obvious and not in need of clarification. Much work in moral philosophy, in addition to action theory, focuses on precisely this topic. However, Sie and Wouters’ arguments serve as a useful reminder to philosophers that their work can and should be sensitive to the findings of both psychology and neuroscience, although it is by no means clear that these findings will undermine, rather than improve, compatibilist views on freedom and/or responsibility.