Effective Intentions: The Power of Conscious Will

193 Pages·2009·1.79 MB·English

by  Alfred R. Mele

EFFECTIVEINTENTIONS
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E ective Intentions
The Power of Conscious Will
ALFREDR.MELE
1
2009
3
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Mele,AlfredR.,1951–
Effectiveintentions:thepowerofconsciouswill/AlfredR.Mele.
p.cm.
ISBN978-0-19-538426-0
1.Will. 2.Consciousness. 3.Intentionalism.
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Preface
In November 2007, while I was working on this book, I
receivedthefollowinge-mailmessagefromsomeoneIdon’t
know.
DearDr.Mele,
IrecentlypurchasedaDVDbyDr.StephenWolinsky....He
explainsfromthepointofneurosciencethatthereisnosuch
thing as free will, as we can only perceive an action after it
has already occurred. Can you please help me with this? I
can understand that I don’t know what thought will occur
next.Butthatthathasalreadyhappenedisbeyondcompre-
hension.ThankyouasIaminalotofdespair.
The belief that scientists have proved that there is no such
thing as free will is disturbing. (Indeed, there is some evi-
dencethatthisbeliefhasundesirableeffectsonbehavior;see
Vohs and Schooler 2008.) But don’t despair. They haven’t
provedthis,asIexplaininthisbook.Norhasanyoneproved
thatthereisnosuchthingasaneffectiveintention,asIalso
explain.
Effective intentions are (roughly) intentions that issue in
corresponding actions. For example, if I have an effective
intention to explain this book’s title in this preface, it is
(roughly) an intention to do that that issues in my doing
it. In fact, I do intend to explain the title—especially the
subtitle.
(cid:2)
viii Preface
The editors of a recent volume titled Does Consciousness
CauseBehavior? write:“Thewidepromulgationoftwonew
linesofgenuinelyscientific...evidencehasseizedthephilo-
sophical and scientific imagination and again brought the
whole question [whether consciousness causes behavior] to
the forefront of intellectual debate” (Pockett, Banks, and
Gallagher 2006, p. 1). They identify Benjamin Libet and
Daniel Wegner as the sources of these two new lines of evi-
dence.Wegner’sbest-knownworkinthisconnectionisThe
IllusionofConsciousWill(2002),abookthathasattracteda
great deal of attention. Now, I have a bit of an aversion to
using “will” as a noun (except in a legal context), because
“will” used in that way is suggestive of the nonnatural and
even the supernatural to some readers. Readers who know
that I have written a book titled Free Will and Luck (2006)
mayfindwhatIjustsaidsurprising.ButthereIdefine“free
will” as the power or ability to perform free actions, and I
treattheconceptoffreeactionasthemorebasicone.(“Free
action” has less of a tendency than “free will” to conjure
up the supernatural in readers’ minds.) In any case, one
thingIdointhepresent bookistoexaminedataandargu-
ments that various scientists and philosophers have offered
in support of the illusion thesis about “conscious will” and
argue that they leave my thesis—that there are effective
intentions—unscathed. My subtitle is intended as a snappy
wayofsignalingsomereaders—thosefamiliarwithworklike
Wegner’s—aboutanimportantpartofthescientificcontext
ofthisbook.
Portionsofthisbookderivefrompublishedworkofmine.
Parts of chapters 1 and 2 derive from “Conscious Inten-
tions,” in Campbell, O’Rourke, and Silverstein (in press).
Chapters3 and 4 incorporate material from chapter 2 of
Mele (2006), and section 2 of chapter 4 borrows from a
section of Mele (2008a). Parts of chapter 5 derive from
Mele(2004)andMele(2008b).Chapter6derivesfromMele
(2008a).Finally,chapter8incorporatessomematerialfrom
(cid:2)
Preface ix
“Free Will: Theories, Analysis, and Data,” in Pockett et al.
(2006)andMele(2008b).
Someofthematerialinthisbookwaspresentedatacon-
ferenceonconsciousnessandfreeactiononAmeliaIsland,a
workshoponfreewillinBanff,aworkshoponLibet’swork
in Tucson, the Cargèse School on Consciousness, Davidson
College, Franklin and Marshall College, the Johann Wolf-
gang Goethe University, Missouri Western State University,
the National Institutes of Health, Simon Fraser University,
Stanford University, Syracuse University, Washington State
University, and the universities of Birmingham, California–
Riverside, Cologne, Edinburgh, Maryland, North Florida,
Oxford,Potsdam,QuébecàTrois-Rivières,andSydney.Iam
grateful to my audiences for their help. For useful feedback
on some of the ideas in this book or advice about some of
the topics I discuss, I am grateful to students in seminar
discussions of an early draft of this book at Florida State
University and to John Baer, Bill Banks, Roy Baumeister,
Michael Bratman, Peter Carruthers, Randy Clarke, Shaun
Gallagher, Peter Gollwitzer, Patrick Haggard, Mark Hallett,
Richard Holton, Philipp Hübl, Eddy Nahmias, Sue Pockett,
and Tyler Stillman. Neil Levy and Tim Bayne (the latter as
a referee) commented on a draft of this book, as did an
anonymousreferee.Iamgratefultothemfortheirguidance.
I completed a draft of this book during my tenure of
a 2007–2008 NEH Fellowship and a 2007–2008 sabbatical
leavefromFloridaStateUniversity.Anyviews,findings,con-
clusions,orrecommendationsexpressedinthisbookdonot
necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the
Humanities. I am grateful to the NEH and FSU for their
support.