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Effective Intentions: The Power of Conscious Will
Each of the following claims has been defended in the scientific literature on free will and your brain routinely decides what you will do before you become conscious of its decision; there is only a 100 millisecond window of opportunity for free will, and all it can do is veto conscious decisions, intentions, or urges; intentions never play a role in producing corresponding actions; and free will is an illusion.
In Effective Intentions Alfred Mele shows that the evidence offered to support these claims is sorely deficient. He also shows that there is strong empirical support for the thesis that some conscious decisions and intentions have a genuine place in causal explanations of corresponding actions. In short, there is weighty evidence of the existence of effective conscious intentions or the power of conscious will. Mele examines the accuracy of subjects' reports about when they first became aware of decisions or intentions in laboratory settings and develops some implications of warranted skepticism about the accuracy of these reports. In addition, he explores such questions as whether we must be conscious of all of our intentions and why scientists disagree about this. Mele's final chapter closes with a discussion of imaginary scientific findings that would warrant bold claims about free will and consciousness of the sort he examines in this book.
In Effective Intentions Alfred Mele shows that the evidence offered to support these claims is sorely deficient. He also shows that there is strong empirical support for the thesis that some conscious decisions and intentions have a genuine place in causal explanations of corresponding actions. In short, there is weighty evidence of the existence of effective conscious intentions or the power of conscious will. Mele examines the accuracy of subjects' reports about when they first became aware of decisions or intentions in laboratory settings and develops some implications of warranted skepticism about the accuracy of these reports. In addition, he explores such questions as whether we must be conscious of all of our intentions and why scientists disagree about this. Mele's final chapter closes with a discussion of imaginary scientific findings that would warrant bold claims about free will and consciousness of the sort he examines in this book.
- GenresPhilosophy
192 pages, Hardcover
First published March 23, 2009
3 people are currently reading
95 people want to read
About the author
Alfred R. Mele
27 books33 followersAlfred Remen Mele is an American philosopher. He has been the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University since 2000. He specializes in irrationality, akrasia, intentionality and philosophy of action.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Mele attended Wayne State University, and received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Michigan in 1979. He took a position at Davidson College in 1979 as a visiting professor, which led to a tenured position at Davidson, where he remained for 21 years until accepting his position with Florida State.
Mele explores the concepts of autonomy or self-rule and the concept of self-control. as they relate to terms like "free will."
Without committing himself to the idea that human autonomy is compatible with determinism or incompatible (a position held by both libertarians and incompatibilists), Mele provides arguments in support of autonomous agents for both positions. He is, as he says, "officially agnostic about the truth of compatibilism" and describes his position as "agnostic autonomism."
Mele proposed a two-stage model of "Modest Libertarianism" that follows Daniel Dennett's 1978 "Valerian" model for decision making. Like Dennett, Mele requires that the indeterminism should come early in the overall process. He describes the latter - decision - part of the process as compatibilist (effectively determinist).
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Mele attended Wayne State University, and received his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Michigan in 1979. He took a position at Davidson College in 1979 as a visiting professor, which led to a tenured position at Davidson, where he remained for 21 years until accepting his position with Florida State.
Mele explores the concepts of autonomy or self-rule and the concept of self-control. as they relate to terms like "free will."
Without committing himself to the idea that human autonomy is compatible with determinism or incompatible (a position held by both libertarians and incompatibilists), Mele provides arguments in support of autonomous agents for both positions. He is, as he says, "officially agnostic about the truth of compatibilism" and describes his position as "agnostic autonomism."
Mele proposed a two-stage model of "Modest Libertarianism" that follows Daniel Dennett's 1978 "Valerian" model for decision making. Like Dennett, Mele requires that the indeterminism should come early in the overall process. He describes the latter - decision - part of the process as compatibilist (effectively determinist).
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May 18, 2021
The last paragraph of this book states:
This is not, however, an easy book to read. As is usual for academic books on the issue of free will vs. determinism vs. compatibilism, Mele gets into scholarly weeds that only specialists in his field would love. His book Free: Why Science Hasn’t Disproved Free Will is a more readable summary, written for the lay person, of his analysis of these issues.
In my preface, I quoted an e-mail message from someone who was upset by the news that neuroscientists had shown that free will is an illusion. She was, she said, “in a lot of despair.” My final moral is the title of a song: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Scientists have not shown this. Nor has anyone shown that there are no effective intentions. This is good news for just about everyone. (p. 161)This is an accurate summary of the book. Mele deconstructs and demythologizes, in great detail, the writings of Benjamin Libet, Daniel Wegner, and others purporting to show that our conscious minds do not initiate actions. Mele aptly explains the logical fallacies and empirical missteps leading to this conclusion and the related conclusion by Wegner and many others (not, however, by Libet) that we have no free will.
This is not, however, an easy book to read. As is usual for academic books on the issue of free will vs. determinism vs. compatibilism, Mele gets into scholarly weeds that only specialists in his field would love. His book Free: Why Science Hasn’t Disproved Free Will is a more readable summary, written for the lay person, of his analysis of these issues.
Displaying 1 of 1 review