Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Consciousness and Agency

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Book cover Handbook of Neuroethics

Abstract

There are three projects within the cognitive science of agency and consciousness that are of particular interest to neuroethics: the descriptive project, the genetic project, and the substantive project. The descriptive project is concerned with characterizing our everyday experience of, and beliefs about, agency. What is the folk view of agency? The aim of the genetic project is to give an account of the psychological mechanisms involved in constructing our experience of, and beliefs about, agency. How is the folk view of agency to be explained? The substantive project is concerned with determining the degree to which our experiences of, and beliefs about, agency are correct and to what degree they might need to be revised in light of findings from the cognitive sciences. Is the folk view of agency basically correct or does it need to be modified in fundamental ways (as “will skeptics” argue)? This entry provides an overview of recent research relating to all three projects.

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

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 999.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 999.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Aarts, H., Custers, R., & Wegner, D. (2005). On the inference of personal authorship: Enhancing experienced agency by priming effect information. Consciousness and Cognition, 14(3), 439–458.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aarts, H., Custers, R., & Marien, H. (2009). Priming and authorship ascription: When nonconscious goals turn into conscious experiences of self-agency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 967–979.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Banks, B., & Pockett, S. (2007). Benjamin Libet’s work on the neuroscience of free will. In M. Velmans & S. Schneider (Eds.), The Blackwell companion to consciousness. Malden: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bayne, T. (2006). Phenomenology and the feeling of doing: Wegner on the conscious will. In S. Pockett, W. P. Banks, & S. Gallagher (Eds.), Does consciousness cause behavior? (pp. 169–186). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bayne, T. (2008). The phenomenology of agency. Philosophy Compass, 3, 1–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bayne, T. (2010). Agentive experiences as pushmi-pullyu representations. In J. Aguilar, A. Buckareff & K. Frankish (Eds.), New Waves in the Philosophy of Action. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 219–36.

    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 

  • Bayne, T., & Pacherie, E. (2007). Narrators and comparators: The architecture of agentive self-awareness. Synthese, 159, 475–91.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blakemore, S.-J., Wolpert, D. M., & Frith, C. D. (2002). Abnormalities in the awareness of action. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6(6), 237–242.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cullen, K. E. (2004). Sensory signals during active versus passive movement. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 14, 698–706.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deecke, L., Becker, W., Grözinger, B., Scheid, P., & Kornhuber, H. H. (1973). Human brain potentials preceding voluntary limb movements. In W. C. McCallum & J. R. Knott (Eds.), Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiological supplement: Event-related slow potentials of the brain: Their relations to behavior (Vol. 33, pp. 87–94). Elsevier: Amsterdam.

    Google Scholar 

  • Desantis, A., Roussel, C., & Waszak, F. (2011). On the influence of causal beliefs on the feeling of agency. Consciousness and Cognition, 20(4), 1211–1220.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Desantis, A., Weiss, C., Schutz-Bosbach, S., & Waszak, F. (2012). Believing and perceiving: Authorship belief modulates sensory attenuation. PLoS ONE, 7(5), e37959.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Farrer, C., Franck, N., Georgieff, N., Frith, C. D., Decety, J., & Jeannerod, M. (2003). Modulating the experience of agency: A positron emission tomography study. Neuroimage, 18, 324–333.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Feltz, A., & Cokely, E. (2009). Do judgments about freedom and responsibility depend on who you are?: Personality differences in intuitions about compatibilism and incompatibilism. Consciousness and Cognition, 18, 342–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fourneret, P., & Jeannerod, M. (1998). Limited conscious monitoring of motor performance in normal subjects. Neuropsychologia, 36(11), 1133–1140.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frith, C., Blakemore, S., & Wolpert, D. (2000). Abnormalities in the awareness and control of action. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 355(1404), 1771–1788.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gallagher, S. (2007). The natural philosophy of agency. Philosophy Compass, 2(2), 347–357.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gomes, G. (1999). Volition and the readiness potential. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6(8–9), 59–76.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haggard, P., & Eimer, M. (1999). On the relation between brain potentials and the awareness of voluntary movements. Experimental Brain Research, 126, 128–133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haggard, P., & Tsakiris, M. (2009). The experience of agency: Feeling, judgment and responsibility. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(4), 242–246.

    Article  Google Scholar 

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

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horgan, T. (2010). The phenomenology of agency and the Libet results. In W. Sinnott-Armstrong & L. Nadel (Eds.), Conscious will and responsibility: A tribute to Benjamin Libet. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horgan, T., Tienson, J., & Graham, G. (2003). The phenomenology of first-person agency. In S. Walter & H.-D. Heckmann (Eds.), Physicalism and mental causation: The metaphysics of mind and action (pp. 323–40). Exeter: Imprint Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knobe, J. (2003a). Intentional action and side effects in ordinary language. Analysis, 63, 190–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knobe, J. (2003b). Intentional action in folk psychology: An experimental investigation. Philosophical Psychology, 16, 309–324.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knoblich, G., & Kircher, T. T. J. (2004). Deceiving oneself about being in control: Conscious detection of changes in visuomotor coupling. Journal of Experimental Psychology-Human Perception and Performance, 30(4), 657–666.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levy, N. (2005). Libet’s impossible demand. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 12, 67–76.

    Google Scholar 

  • Libet, B. (1985). Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8, 529–566.

    Article  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, 623–642.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malle, B., & Knobe, J. (1997). The folk concept of intentionality. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 33, 101–121.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCallum, W. C. (1988). Potentials related to expectancy, preparation and motor activity. In T. W. Picton (Ed.), Human event-related potentials (EEG handbook, Vol. 3, pp. 427–534). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Google Scholar 

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

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Metcalfe, J., & Greene, M. J. (2007). Metacognition of agency. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136(2), 184–199.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, J. W., & Fletcher, P. C. (2012). Sense of agency in health and disease: A review of cue integration approaches. Consciousness and Cognition, 21(1), 68–59.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moore, J. W., & Haggard, P. (2008). Awareness of action: Inference and prediction. Consciousness and Cognition, 17(1), 136–144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, J. W., Wegner, D. M., & Haggard, P. (2009). Modulating the sense of agency with external cues. Consciousness and Cognition, 18, 1056–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nahmias, E. (2002). When consciousness matters: A critical review of Daniel Wegner’s. The Illusion of Conscious Will, Philosophical Psychology, 15(4), 527–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nahmias, E. (2013). Is free will an illusion? Confronting challenges from the modern mind sciences. In W. Sinnott-Armstrong (Ed.), Moral psychology (Freedom and responsibility, Vol. 4). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nahmias, E., Morris, S., Nadelhoffer, T., & Turner, J. (2004). The phenomenology of free will. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 11(7–8), 162–79.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nahmias, E., Morris, S., Nadelhoffer, T., & Turner, J. (2005). Surveying freedom: Folk intuitions about free will and moral responsibility. Philosophical Psychology, 18(5), 561–584.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nichols, S. (2004). The folk psychology of free will: Fits and starts. Mind and Language, 19, 473–502.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nichols, S. (2011). Experimental philosophy and the problem of free will. Science, 331(6023), 1401–3.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nichols, S., & Knobe, J. (2007). Moral responsibility and determinism: The cognitive science of folk Intuitions. Nous, 41, 663–685.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pacherie, E. (2008). The phenomenology of action: A conceptual framework. Cognition, 107(1), 179–217.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rigoni, D., Kühn, 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), 613–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roskies, A. (2010a). How does neuroscience affect our conception of volition? Annual Review of Neuroscience, 33, 109–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roskies, A. (2010b). Why Libet’s studies don’t pose a threat to free will. In W. Sinnott-Armstrong & L. Nadel (Eds.), Conscious will and responsibility (pp. 11–22). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sato, A. (2009). Both motor prediction and conceptual congruency between preview and action-effect contribute to explicit judgment of agency. Cognition, 110(1), 74–83.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sato, A., & Yasuda, A. (2005). Illusion of sense of self-agency: Discrepancy between the predicted and actual sensory consequences of actions modulates the sense of self-agency, but not the sense of self-ownership. Cognition, 94(3), 241–255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schlegel et al. (2013). Barking up the wrong free: readiness potentials reflect processes independent of conscious will. Experimental Brain Research. DOI:10/1007/s00221-013-3479-3.

    Google Scholar 

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

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sellars, W. (1962). Philosophy and the scientific image of man. In R. Colodny (Ed.), Frontiers of science and philosophy (pp. 35–78). Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sinnott-Armstrong, W., & Nadel, L. (2010) Conscious will and responsibility. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sommers, T. (2010). Experimental philosophy and free will. Philosophy Compass, 5(2), 199–212.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Synofzik, M., Vosgerau, G., & Newen, A. (2008). Beyond the comparator model: A multi-factorial two-step account of agency. Consciousness and Cognition, 17(1), 219–239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trevena, J. A., & Miller, J. (2002). Cortical movement preparation before and after a conscious decision to move. Consciousness and Cognition, 11, 162–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsakiris, E., & Haggard, P. (2003). Awareness of somatic events associated with a voluntary action. Experimental Brain Research, 149(4), 439–446.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, J., & Nahmias, E. (2006). Are the folk agent-causationists? Mind and Language, 21(5), 597–609.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wakefield, J., & Dreyfus, H. (1991). Intentionality and the phenomenology of action. In E. Lepore & R. van Gulick (Eds.), John Searle and his critics (pp. 259–70). Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

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

    Google Scholar 

  • Wegner, D. M., & Wheatley, T. (1999). Apparent mental causation: Sources of the experience of will. American Psychologist, 54, 480–491.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wegner, D. M., Fuller, V. A., & Sparrow, B. (2003). Clever hands: Uncontrolled intelligence in facilitated communication. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(1), 5–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledges the support of the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Central European University in Budapest (Pacherie) and the John Templeton Foundation (Bayne).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philosophy, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, M13 9PL, Manchester, UK

    Tim Bayne

  2. Institut Jean Nicod – UMR 8129, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, Paris, France

    Elisabeth Pacherie

Authors
  1. Tim Bayne
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Elisabeth Pacherie
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tim Bayne .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Jens Clausen

  2. The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

    Neil Levy

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this entry

Cite this entry

Bayne, T., Pacherie, E. (2015). Consciousness and Agency. In: Clausen, J., Levy, N. (eds) Handbook of Neuroethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4707-4_117

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4707-4_117

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-007-4706-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-4707-4

  • eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation