Free Will and the Brain
Neuroscientific, Philosophical, and Legal Perspectives

Examines how neuroscience can inform the concept of free will and associated practices of moral and criminal responsibility.

Walter Glannon (Edited by)

9781107036031, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 September 2015

308 pages, 2 b/w illus.
23.6 x 16 x 2.2 cm, 0.6 kg

'The rapidly accumulating insights into the functions and mechanisms of the brain have rekindled clinical, legal and philosophical interest in the concept of 'free will'. Philosopher Walter Glannon has assembled an expert international team of scientists, clinicians, philosophers and other scholars who dig deeply into the questions of if, and how, neuroscience changes our understanding of free will. Glannon's insightful introduction provides an overview of breadth and substantive depth. His contributors provide the latest and best thinking about this very complex problem.' John Z. Sadler, Daniel W. Foster, M.D. Professor of Medical Ethics, Southwestern Medical Center, University of Texas

Neuroscientific evidence has educated us in the ways in which the brain mediates our thought and behavior and, therefore, forced us to critically examine how we conceive of free will. This volume, featuring contributions from an international and interdisciplinary group of distinguished researchers and scholars, explores how our increasing knowledge of the brain can elucidate the concept of the will and whether or to what extent it is free. It also examines how brain science can inform our normative judgments of moral and criminal responsibility for our actions. Some chapters point out the different respects in which mental disorders can compromise the will and others show how different forms of neuromodulation can reveal the neural underpinning of the mental capacities associated with the will and can restore or enhance them when they are impaired.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Free will in light of neuroscience Walter Glannon
Part II. Conceptual Issues: 2. Is free will an observer-based concept rather than a brain-based one? A critical neuroepistemological account Georg Northoff
3. Evolution, dissolution and the neuroscience of the will Grant Gillett
4. The experience of free will and the experience of agency: an error-prone, reconstructive process Matthis Synofzik, Gottfried Vosgerau and Axel Lindner
Part III. Mental Capacities and Disorders of the Will: 5. Being free by losing control: what obsessive-compulsive disorder can tell us about free will Sanneke de Haan, Erik Rietveld and Damiaan Denys
6. Psychopathy and free will from a philosophical and cognitive neuroscience perspective Farah Focquaert, Andrea L. Glenn and Adrian Raine
7. How mental disorders can compromise the will Gerben Meynen
8. Are addicted individuals responsible for their behavior? Wayne Hall and Adrian Carter
9. Assessment and modification of free will via scientific techniques: two challenges Nicole A. Vincent
Part IV. Neural Circuitry and Modification of the Will: 10. Implications of functional neurosurgery and deep-brain stimulation for free will and decision-making Nir Lipsman and Andres M. Lozano
11. Reducing, restoring, or enhancing autonomy with neuromodulation techniques Maartje Schermer
Part V. Legal Implications of Neuroscience: 12. Neurobiology collides with moral and criminal responsibility: the result is double vision Steven E. Hyman
13. Neuroscience, free will and criminal responsibility Stephen J. Morse.

Subject Areas: Neurosciences [PSAN], Psychiatry [MMH], Neurology & clinical neurophysiology [MJN], Criminal law & procedure [LNF], Law [L], Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR], Physiological & neuro-psychology, biopsychology [JMM], Psychology [JM], Philosophy of mind [HPM], Philosophy [HP]