Does Consciousness Cause Behavior?

by Susan Pockett (editor), William P. Banks (editor), Shaun Gallagher (editor)

Our intuition tells us that we, our conscious selves, cause our ownvoluntary acts. Yet scientists have long questioned this; Thomas Huxley, forexample, in 1874 compared mental events to a steam whistle that contributes nothingto the work of a locomotive. New experimental evidence (most notable, work byBenjamin Libet and Daniel Wegner) has brought the causal status of human behaviorback to the forefront of intellectual discussion. This multidisciplinary collectionadvances the debate, approaching the question from a variety of perspectives.Thecontributors begin by examining recent research in neuroscience that suggests thatconsciousness does not cause behavior, offering the outline of an empirically basedmodel that shows how the brain causes behavior and where consciousness might fit in.Other contributors address the philosophical presuppositions that may have informedthe empirical studies, raising questions about what can be legitimately concludedabout the existence of free will from Libet's and Wegner's experimental results.Others examine the effect recent psychological and neuroscientific research couldhave on legal, social, and moral judgments of responsibility and blame--insituations including a Clockwork Orange-like scenario of William P. Banks, Timothy Bayne, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Suparna Choudhury, Walter J. Freeman, Shaun Gallagher, Susan Hurley, Marc Jeannerod, Leonard V. Kaplan, Hakwan Lau, Sabine Maasen, Bertram F. Malle, Alfred R. Mele, Elisabeth Pacherie, Richard Passingham, Susan Pockett, Wolfgang Prinz, Peter W.Ross

376 pages, Hardcover

First published March 5, 2006