Read the following journal article on neuroscience and free will and write an essay in which you answer the questions below.
What do you make of neuroscientific experiments purporting to show that the decision to do X is settled by neural events that occur before the conscious awareness of choosing to do X? Such experiments seem to suggest that our brain makes our decisions for us some time before we become aware of them and have the subjective feeling of choosing. In what way are these experiments relevant to the free will problem in your view? Assuming that such experimental results are reliable, would that be enough to show we lack free will and moral responsibility? Provide evidence in support of your main claims. (Please note that you are expected to engage in your presentation with the views and arguments on free will that we discussed in our course, such as van Inwagen’s Consequence argument and Ayer’s defense of Compatibilism. Since the bulk of the essay should be devoted to defending some philosophical thesis about free will and moral responsibility, your summary of these experimental findings should be very concise and include only information that you need to develop your philosophical argument.)
