Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Media Portrayal of a Landmark Neuroscience Experiment on Free Will

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Science and Engineering Ethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The concept of free will has been heavily debated in philosophy and the social sciences. Its alleged importance lies in its association with phenomena fundamental to our understandings of self, such as autonomy, freedom, self-control, agency, and moral responsibility. Consequently, when neuroscience research is interpreted as challenging or even invalidating this concept, a number of heated social and ethical debates surface. We undertook a content analysis of media coverage of Libet’s et al.’s (Brain 106(Pt 3):623–642, 1983) landmark study, which is frequently interpreted as posing a serious challenge to the existence of free will. Media descriptions of Libet et al.’s experiment provided limited details about the original study. Overall, many media articles reported that Libet et al.’s experiments undermined the existence of free will, despite acknowledging that several methodological limitations had been identified in the literature. A propensity to attribute greater credibility than warranted to neurobiological explanations could be at stake.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Banks, W. P., & Pockett, S. (2007). Benjamin Libet’s work on the neuroscience of free will. In M. Velmans & S. Schneider (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to consciousness (pp. 657–670). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Baumeister, R. F., Masicampo, E. J., & DeWall, C. N. (2009). Prosocial benefits of feeling free: Disbelief in free will increases aggression and reduces helpfulness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(2), 260–268. doi:10.1177/0146167208327217.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bayne, T. (2011). Libet and the case for free will scepticism. In R. Swinburne (Ed.), Free will and modern science (pp. 25–46). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Bourke, V. (1964). Will in western thought. New York: Sheed and Ward.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cave, S. (2007, March 24). I think therefore I am, I think. London: Financial Times.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dennett, D. C. (1984). Elbow room: The varieties of free will worth wanting. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dilman, I. (1999). Free will: An historical and philosophical introduction. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Douglas, K. (2010). Picking our brains: How powerful is the subconscious? New Scientist, 206, 32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ent, M. R., & Baumeister, R. F. (2014). Embodied free will beliefs: Some effects of physical states on metaphysical opinions. Consciousness and Cognition, 27, 147–154. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2014.05.001.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Falk, D. (2003, January 23). Free will may be an illusion: But you must believe in it. National Post.

  • Farah, M. J., & Hook, C. J. (2013). The seductive allure of “seductive allure”. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8(1), 88–90. doi:10.1177/1745691612469035.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fischer, J. M. (1994). The metaphysics of free will: An essay on control. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frankfurt, H. G. (1971). Freedom of the will and the concept of a person. The Journal of Philosophy, 68(1), 5–20. doi:10.2307/2024717.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fried, I., Mukamel, R., & Kreiman, G. (2011). Internally generated preactivation of single neurons in human medial frontal cortex predicts volition. Neuron, 69(3), 548–562.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Habermas, J. (1968). Technik und wissenschaft als “ideologie”. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haggard, P. (2008). Human volition: Towards a neuroscience of will. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9(12), 934–946. doi:10.1038/Nrn2497.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haggard, P., Clark, S., & Kalogeras, J. (2002). Voluntary action and conscious awareness. Nature Neuroscience, 5(4), 382–385.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halligan, P., & Oakley, D. (2000). Greatest myth of all. New Scientist, 168, 35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halliwell, E. (2009, March 5). A sense of self. Guardian Unlimited.

  • Harris, S. (2011, December). The free will delusion. New Statesman, 46.

  • Harris, S. (2012). Free will. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hinrichs, B. (1997). Brain research and folk psychology. The Humanist, 57, 26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Illes, J., Moser, M. A., McCormick, J. B., Racine, E., Blakeslee, S., Caplan, A., et al. (2010). Neurotalk: Improving the communication of neuroscience research. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(1), 61–69.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kane, R. (1996). The significance of free will. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kane, R. (Ed.). (2002). The Oxford handbook of free will. Oxford: Oxfords University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klemm, W. R. (2010). Free will debates: Simple experiments are not so simple. Advances in Cognitive Psychology, 6, 47–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krueger, F., Hoffman, M., Walter, H., & Grafman, J. (2014). An fMRI investigation of the effects of belief in free will on third-party punishment. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(8), 1143–1149. doi:10.1093/scan/nst092.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Libet, B. (1999). Do we have free will? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6(8–9), 47–57.

    Google Scholar 

  • Libet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W., & Pearl, D. K. (1983). Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness-potential). The unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act. Brain, 106(Pt 3), 623–642.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Libet, B., Wright, E. W., Jr., & Gleason, C. A. (1982). Readiness-potentials preceding unrestricted ‘spontaneous’ vs. pre-planned voluntary acts. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 54(3), 322–335.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lynn, M. T., Van Dessel, P., & Brass, M. (2013). The influence of high-level beliefs on self-regulatory engagement: Evidence from thermal pain stimulation. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 614. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00614.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacKenzie, M. J., Vohs, K. D., & Baumeister, R. F. (2014). You didn’t have to do that: Belief in free will promotes gratitude. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(11), 1423–1434. doi:10.1177/0146167214549322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maeda, F., Kleiner-Fishman, G., & Pascual-Leone, A. (2002). Motor facilitation while observing hand actions: Specificity of the effect and role of the observer’s orientation. Journal of Neurophysiology, 87(3), 1329–1335.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maye, A., Hsieh, C., Sugihara, G., & Brembs, B. (2007). Order in spontaneous behavior. PLoS One, 2(5), e443.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCabe, D. P., & Castel, A. D. (2008). Seeing is believing: The effect of brain images on judgments of scientific reasoning. Cognition, 107(1), 343–352.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mele, A. (2009). Effective intentions: The power of conscious will. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mele, A. R. (2014). Free: Why science hasn’t disproved free will. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mess, H. A. (1943). Chance, free will and the social sciences. Philosophy, 18(71), 231–239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Monroe, A. E., Dillon, K. D., & Malle, B. F. (2014). Bringing free will down to earth: People’s psychological concept of free will and its role in moral judgment. Consciousness and Cognition, 27, 100–108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Montague, P. R. (2008). Free will. Current Biology, 18(14), R584–R585. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2008.04.053.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morse, S. (2006). Brain overclaim syndrome and criminal responsibility: A diagnostic note. Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 3, 397–412.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morse, S. (2007). The non-problem of free will in forensic psychiatry and psychology. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 25, 203–220.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nahmias, E. (2011, November 11). Is neuroscience the death of free will? The New York Times.

  • Nettler, G. (1959). Cruelty, dignity, and determinism. American Sociological Review, 24(3), 375.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nettler, G. (1961). Good men, bad men, and the perception of reality. Sociometry, 24(3), 279.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Overbye, D. (2007, January 2). Free will: Now you have it, now you don’t. The New York Times, F1.

  • Pereboom, D. (2001). Living without free will. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pockett, S., & Miller, A. (2007). The rotating spot method of timing subjective events. Consciousness and Cognition, 16, 241–254.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Racine, E., Bar-Ilan, O., & Illes, J. (2005). fMRI in the public eye. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 6(2), 159–164.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Racine, E., Waldman, S., Rosenberg, J., & Illes, J. (2010). Contemporary neuroscience in the media. Social Science and Medicine, 71(4), 725–733.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Restak, R. (1988, March 27). Your brain has a mind of its own. The Washington Post.

  • Rigoni, D., Kuhn, S., Gaudino, G., Sartori, G., & Brass, M. (2012). Reducing self-control by weakening belief in free will. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(3), 1482–1490. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2012.04.004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rigoni, D., Kuhn, S., Sartori, G., & Brass, M. (2011). Inducing disbelief in free will alters brain correlates of preconscious motor preparation: The brain minds whether we believe in free will or not. Psychological Science, 22(5), 613–618. doi:10.1177/0956797611405680.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rigoni, D., Pourtois, G., & Brass, M. (2015). ‘Why should I care?’ Challenging free will attenuates neural reaction to errors. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10(2), 262–268. doi:10.1093/scan/nsu068.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rigoni, D., Wilquin, H., Brass, M., & Burle, B. (2013). When errors do not matter: Weakening belief in intentional control impairs cognitive reaction to errors. Cognition, 127(2), 264–269. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.01.009.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosen, J. (2007, March 11). The brain on the stand. New York: The New York Times.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roskies, A. (2006). Neuroscientific challenges to free will and responsibility. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10(9), 419–423. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2006.07.011.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roskies, A. L. (2010). How does neuroscience affect our conception of volition? Annual Review of Neuroscience, 33(1), 109–130. doi:10.1146/annurev-neuro-060909-153151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ross, O. (2011, October 2). Whatever happened to man’s free will? The Toronto Star.

  • Saigle, V., Dubljevic, V., Racine, E. (2015). The impact of a landmark paper on free will: Reconsidering the legacy of the Libet et al. EEG experiment. AJOB Neuroscience, 6(4), 91.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schurger, A., Sitt, J. D., & Dehaene, S. (2012). An accumulator model for spontaneous neural activity prior to self-initiated movement. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109(42), E2904–E2913.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sentinel, C. S. (2007, May 14). Real veto power. The Christian Science Monitor.

  • Soon, C. S., Brass, M., Heinze, H. J., & Haynes, J. D. (2008). Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain. Nature Neuroscience, 11(5), 543–545. doi:10.1038/nn.2112.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spinney, L. (2004, August 12). I’m not guilty: but my brain is. The Guardian.

  • Stillman, T. F., Baumeister, R. F., Vohs, K. D., Lambert, N. M., Fincham, F. D., & Brewer, L. E. (2010). Personal philosophy and personnel achievement: Belief in free will predicts better job performance. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1, 43–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Strawson, G. (2011). Freedom and belief (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strawson, P. F. (1962). Freedom and resentment. Proceedings of the British Academy, 48, 1–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tallis, F. (2002, February 10). Science supports Dr Freud. The Sunday Times.

  • Trevena, J., & Miller, J. (2010). Brain preparation before a voluntary action: Evidence against unconscious movement initiation. Consciousness and Cognition, 19(1), 447–456.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Inwagen, P. (1983). An essay on free will. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Viney, W., Parker-Martin, P., & Dotten, S. (1988). Beliefs in free will and determinism and lack of relation to punishment rational and magnitude. Journal of General Psychology, 115, 15–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Viney, W., Waldman, D., & Barchilon, J. (1982). Attitudes towards punishment in relation to beliefs in free will and determinism. Human Relations, 35, 939–950.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vohs, K. D., & Baumeister, R. F. (2009). Addiction and free will. Addiction Research and Theory, 17(3), 231–235. doi:10.1080/16066350802567103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vohs, K. D., & Schooler, J. W. (2008). The value of believing in free will: Encouraging a belief in determinism increases cheating. Psychological Science, 19(1), 49–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wasserman, D., & Johnston, J. (2014). Seeing responsibility: Can neuroimaging teach us anything about moral and legal responsibility? Hastings Center Report, 45(2), S37–S49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wegner, D. (2002). The illusion of conscious will. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weisberg, D. S., Keil, F. C., Goodstein, J., Rawson, E., & Gray, J. R. (2008). The seductive allure of neuroscience explanations. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(3), 470–477.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

Support for this work comes from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Racine), the Fonds de recherche du Québec—Santé for career awards (Racine) and the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships Programme (Dubljevic). We extend our thanks to members of the Neuroethics Research Unit for feedback on study materials and on previous versions of this manuscript. Special thanks to Simon Rousseau-Lesage and Kaylee Sohng for their editorial assistance in the preparation of this manuscript.

Funding

The authors would like to thank members of the Neuroethics Research Unit for their feedback on previous version of this manuscript. Funding for this study came from a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (ER), a Banting fellowship (VD), and a career award from the Fonds de recherche du Québec—Santé (ER).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Neuroethics Research Unit, Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM), 110 avenue des Pins Ouest, Montreal, QC, H2W lR7, Canada

    Eric Racine, Valentin Nguyen, Victoria Saigle & Veljko Dubljevic

  2. Department of Experimental Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Eric Racine & Victoria Saigle

  3. Department of Medicine and Department of Social and Preventative Medicine, Université de Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Eric Racine

  4. Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Eric Racine & Veljko Dubljevic

Authors
  1. Eric Racine
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Valentin Nguyen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Victoria Saigle
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Veljko Dubljevic
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eric Racine.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

None to declare.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 22 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Racine, E., Nguyen, V., Saigle, V. et al. Media Portrayal of a Landmark Neuroscience Experiment on Free Will. Sci Eng Ethics 23, 989–1007 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9845-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-016-9845-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation