Does Consciousness Cause Behavior?

Our intuition tells us that we, our conscious selves, cause our own voluntary acts.
Yet scientists have long questioned this; Thomas Huxley, for example, in 1874 compared mental events
to a steam whistle that contributes nothing to the work of a locomotive. New experimental evidence
(most notable, work by Benjamin Libet and Daniel Wegner) has brought the causal status of human
behavior back to the forefront of intellectual discussion. This multidisciplinary collection
advances the debate, approaching the question from a variety of perspectives.

The
contributors begin by examining recent research in neuroscience that suggests that consciousness
does not cause behavior, offering the outline of an empirically based model that shows how the brain
causes behavior and where consciousness might fit in. Other contributors address the philosophical
presuppositions that may have informed the empirical studies, raising questions about what can be
legitimately concluded about the existence of free will from Libet's and Wegner's experimental
results. Others examine the effect recent psychological and neuroscientific research could have on
legal, social, and moral judgments of responsibility and blame -- in situations including
A Clockwork Orange-like scenario of behavior
correction.

Contributors: William P. Banks, Timothy Bayne, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore,
Suparna Choudhury, Walter J. Freeman, Shaun Gallagher, Susan Hurley, Marc Jeannerod, Leonard V.
Kaplan, Hakwan Lau, Sabine Maasen, Bertram F. Malle, Alfred R. Mele, Elisabeth Pacherie, Richard
Passingham, Susan Pockett, Wolfgang Prinz, Peter W. Ross