title: Probing folk-psychology: Do Libet-style experiments reflect folk intuitions about free action?
abstract: There is an ongoing debate in philosophy and psychology about when one should consider an action to be free. Several aspects are frequently suggested as relevant: (a) a prior intention, (b) a conscious action-related thought, (c) prior deliberation, (d) a meaningful choice, (e) different consequences of the action, and (f) the duration between intention and action. Here we investigated which criteria laypeople adopt and thus probed their intuitions about free actions in three surveys based on daily life scenarios. First, our results indicate that laypeople consider a conscious intention important for an action to be free. Second, laypeople consider spontaneous actions without consequences to be freer than actions with prior deliberation. Third, laypeople consider proximal rather than distal intentions relevant when it comes to judging actions as free. Taken together, these results suggest that simple laboratory experiments on action choices reflect laypeople's intuitions of free actions to a considerable degree.
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Charité - Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: robert.deutschlander@bccn-berlin.de.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Deutschländer
authors.affiliation: Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pauen
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Charité - Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany; Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Berlin Center of Advanced Neuroimaging, Charité - Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany; Cluster of Excellence NeuroCure, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Department of Psychology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Clinic of Neurology, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: haynes@bccn-berlin.de.
authors.forename: John-Dylan
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Haynes
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003243:Consciousness / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D019545:Intuition; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D014836:Volition / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Experimental philosophy; Folk-psychology; Free action; Libet-experiment