Are intentions in tension with timing experiments?

Abstract

Libet’s timing experiments (Brain 106:623–642, 1983; Mind time. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2004) have resulted in some strong and unsavoury claims about human agency. These range from the idea that conscious intentions are epiphenomenal to the idea that we all lack free will. In this paper, I propose a new type of response to the various sceptical conclusions about our agency occasioned by both Libet’s work and other experiments in this testing paradigm. Indeed, my argument extends to such conclusions drawn from fMRI-based prediction experiments. In what follows, I will provide a brief description of these experiments, sketch arguments one may be tempted to draw on their basis, and argue that such arguments rely on a questionable premise: that experimental subjects have relevant proximal intentions (which, thus far, both proponents and opponents of these arguments agree on).