title: The neurobiology of decision-making and responsibility: reconciling mechanism and mindedness.
abstract: This essay reviews recent developments in neurobiology which are beginning to expose the mechanisms that underlie some elements of decision-making that bear on attributions of responsibility. These "elements" have been mainly studied in simple perceptual decision tasks, which are performed similarly by humans and non-human primates. Here we consider the role of neural noise, and suggest that thinking about the role of noise can shift the focus of discussions of randomness in decision-making away from its role in enabling alternate possibilities and toward a potential grounding role for responsibility.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Washington Seattle, WA, USA.
authors.forename: Michael N
authors.initials: MN
authors.lastname: Shadlen
authors.forename: Adina L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Roskies