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A Discrete Cause Named Desire: Libet , Newcombe and Psychological Explanation

This paper evaluates the psychological explanations of desire and its role in voluntary actions through the lens of theories from Libet, Newcomb, and recent findings in neuroscience. It investigates the causal-explanatory relationships and challenges the exclusion principle that states if property F is causally sufficient for property G, then no distinct property F* that supervenes on F can cause G. The study highlights the complexity of decision-making, differentiating between self-initiated actions and reasoned decisions, and emphasizes the importance of evaluating the consequences of actions in understanding voluntary behavior.

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A Discrete Cause Named Desire: Libet , Newcombe and Psychological Explanation

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  1. A Discrete Cause Named Desire: Libet, Newcombe and Psychological Explanation Simon Bowes, E-Intentionality, 16/11/2010

  2. Psychologically flawed explanation ? Causal-explanatory relation? B&D D&A N N&A Subvenient Sufficiency Exclusion? Realisation relation

  3. Libet (1999, pp. 50-51 )

  4. Libet plus (Haynes, J-D et al., 2008)

  5. Newcomb (Gardener, 1974)

  6. Making a difference • The exclusion principle: If a property F is causally sufficient for a property G, then no distinct property F* that supervenes on F causes G (given physical causal closure). (List & Menzies, forthcoming, p. 3) • Proportional causation: Pecking Parrots and Reaching Monkeys (ibid. p. 4) • Truth conditions for making a difference: The presence of F makes a difference to the presence of G in the actual world if and only if it is true in the actual world that (i) F□→G; and (ii) ~F□→~G. “Satisfaction of these conditions ensures that causes are specific enough for their effects, but no more specific than needed.” (ibid. p. 6) • Crimson coloured spots are sufficient for pecking, but it is red spots that cause pecking (since (ii) is not fulfilled by crimson), even though red is in this case realised by crimson. • Exclusion principle is false as stated. (ibid. p. 10)

  7. Multiple Systems Theory • Not all decisions are the same. • “self-initiated quick flexion of the right hand” (Libet, 1999, p. 48) might not be a good model for rational action. • Are the desires involved in ‘quick flexions’ of the same type as those in reasoned deciding? • “Value systems, and therefore the behavioral systems they support, vary according to the nature and origin of their sensitivity to the motivational state of a subject, its knowledge about its environment, as well as their intrinsic timescales.” (Dayan, 2008)

  8. “voluntary action needs to be tightly linked to a mechanism that evaluates the consequences of voluntary actions.” (Brass & Haggard, 2010)

  9. Wittgenstein PI §627 Examine the following description of a voluntary action: “I form the decision to pull the bell at 5 o’clock, and when it strikes, my arm makes this movement.”-Is that the correct description, and not this one:”..... and when it strikes 5, I raise my arm”? – One would like to supplement the first description: “and see! My arm goes up when it strikes 5.” And this “and see!” is precisely what doesn’t belong here. I do not say “See, my arm is going up!” when I raise it.

  10. Bibliography • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Shades_of_red • Brass, M., Haggard, P. (2010) “The hidden side of intentional action: the role of the anterior insular cortex”, Brain StructFunct, 214:603–610, Springer-Verlag • Dayan, P. (2008) “The Role of Value Systems in Decision Making”, in Engel, C. & Singer, W. (Eds.) Better Than Conscious? Decision Making, the Human Mind, and Implications For Institutions, MIT Press, pp. 51-70 • Gardener, M. (1974) “Reflections on Newcomb's problem: a prediction and free-will dilemma”, Scientific American, March 1974 • Haynes, J-D., Soon, C.S., Brass, M., Heinze, H-J. (2008) “Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain”, Nature Neuroscience, 11, No. 5, pp. 543-545 • Libet, B. (1999) “Do We Have free Will?”, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6, No. 8–9, pp. 47–57, Imprint Academic • List, C., Menzies P. (forthcoming) “Non-Reductive Physicalism and the Limits of the Exclusion Principle”

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