On Free Will

 Our ability to make voluntary decisions, also known as free will, is one of the most vital aspects of human life. Most people, when prompted, tend to believe in free will and moral responsibility (Nahmias et al, 2005), yet many psychologists claim this intuition is wrong. Some research indicates that choices are determined by “nudges” to a certain outcome (Sunstein, 2022), and therefore external factors influence our choices far more than any cognitive process. This argument aligns with the knowledge that consciousness is rooted in neural coding and preconceived notions (Johansson, 2005), if consciousness and free will are intertwined. However, these arguments are misguided; although outside influences do shift the decisions we make, the decision itself is still implemented by deliberate, physiological processes in the brain. Therefore, free will is a well-established component of neurocognitive awareness, even when not within direct conscious thought. 

It is well established that external factors in our lives influence our decision-making, perhaps under the nose of direct consciousness. Some researchers prove these influences, then use their results to prove that free will must be inconsequential. For example, Johansson and others in Science ran an experiment where they showed pictures of women’s faces to participants (n=120), then asked the participants to choose which face they believed was more attractive (Johansson, 2005). The participant was then asked why they chose this picture. However, for one fifth of trials, the picture they chose was covertly switched with another, far different photograph. In these situations, a significant number of participants did not notice the change in picture, and they ended up giving nonsensical reasoning for their initial feelings (Johansson, 2005). For example, if the first image didn’t have a necklace, but the switched image did, the participant may say that the reason they liked the first image was due to the necklace. This argument simply does not apply to their original image, yet many participants failed to notice this. This outcome was equally significant over age and sex differences (Johansson, 2005). This phenomenon is referred to as choice or change blindness, and the conclusion from this experiment is that participants were successfully manipulated to defend a choice that clearly contradicted their initial feelings. This is a form of subliminal priming that serves as one of the most notable arguments for determinism: that our actions are determined by events outside of our control.

Despite this evidence, many researchers argue that this inference is misguided. According to Mudrik and others in Cognitive Science, evidence for nonconscious influences on decisions doesn’t remove our capacity for free will (Mudrik, 2022). This criticizes the ideology of determinism, and particularly how it is readily associated with external manipulation. The next inference from this claim, that humans therefore have no free will and cannot be held responsible, is misguided. Simply lacking total control does not mean we have no control at all (Mudrik, 2022). There are two primary ways in which our decisions are skewed, according to Mudrik; the first is subliminal priming, which is that invisible factors cause people to make a choice that goes against their conscious preferences. The next is nudging, which is when extremely small influences “nudge” a person to make a decision, even if they had reasons to ignore these prompts (Mudrik, 2022). The main issue with these theories is that becoming more aware of these factors allows us to consciously consider them and ignore them more easily. Would this not, then, allow us to be “freer”? This is the basic idea behind compatibilism, which is that although causal changes are strong, we still act as free individuals. This is proven in the sense that without external and intentional manipulations, our actions are caused by our desires.

These understandings are directly connected to our understanding of free will. One of the main arguments for the absence of free will is that the brain does not precede unconscious decisions, a concept that many researchers refute. In a study by Soon et al in Nature, they ran an experiment on which regions of the brain can reliably show conscious intentions before making a decision. Participants were put in front of a screen and focused on the center of the screen, where a flurry of letters appeared. Then, they were freely let to press either a left or a right button (Soon, 2008). During these trials, fMRIs recorded their brain activity. The researchers found that 88.6% of the intentions to press either button were consciously formed about a second before their finger moved. Both left and right buttons were pressed equally (Soon, 2008). They saw that the frontal and parietal cortex did most of the processing for this decision, possessing much of the information for this choice. This influence was present for up to ten seconds before the decision was made (Soon, 2008). Therefore, the process occurs outside of motor areas of the brain, but in information processing centers as well.

Koenig-Robert in Scientific Reports came to a very different conclusion in 2019, asking participants to relax, then picture one of two images at their own pace. Their brain activity was then recorded using fMRI. Imagery content in the brain was observed nearly 11 seconds before the decision in the visual, frontal, and subcortical areas of the brain (Koernig-Robert, 2019). Information collected from the visual cortex indicated that there were predictive patterns present prior to the decision. The researchers then ran a control experiment measuring the reliability of this style of assessment, and they found that the experimental reports were indeed reliable (Koernig-Robert, 2019). They saw the predictive imagery in the brain, and instead came to the conclusion that these decisions were informed by preexisting biases instead of voluntary choice. “Current or prior neural representations”, according to Koernig-Robert, were a stronger indicator of choice than conscious choice. This conclusion aligns itself with the idea that decision making is incompatible with total free will, being closer to subliminal priming than higher functioning. This begs the question: do internal biases and manipulations interfere with free will? Again, Mudrik indicates that awareness of these biases allow us to overcome them, allowing ourselves to align fully with our conscious opinions. 

In essence, the influence of external or internal factors are not indicative of a lack of free will. While outside factors can significantly influence the decisions we make, our actions supersede the notion of “nudges”. Within the brain, nonconscious decisions are prefaced with over 10 seconds of higher brain activity, incorporating information processing centers far before we make a choice. Therefore, we should not ignore our own potential for decision-making, nor disregard it in favor of “choice blindness”. Unconscious influences do affect degrees of control over our choices, but they do not eliminate free will as a concept. Although we may not be “free” in certain circumstances, this does not mean that we are never free in any circumstance. To accept the idea that our world makes our choices removes our right to think critically, which is a vital facet of human consciousness. To take advantage of our own opportunities, free will must be championed as an individual capability, one that can supersede any manipulations outside of the human mind.

Works Cited

Mudrik L, Arie IG, Amir Y, Shir Y, Hieronymi P, Maoz U, O'Connor T, Schurger A, Vargas M, Vierkant T, Sinnott-Armstrong W, Roskies A. Free will without consciousness? Trends Cogn Sci. 2022 Jul;26(7):555-566. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2022.03.005. Epub 2022 Apr 12. PMID: 35428589.

Sunstein, C.R. The distributional effects of nudges. Nat Hum Behav 6, 9–10 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01236-z

Eddy Nahmias enahmias@gsu.edu , Stephen Morris , Thomas Nadelhoffer & Jason Turner (2005) Surveying Freedom: Folk Intuitions about free will and moral responsibility, Philosophical Psychology, 18:5, 561-584, DOI: 10.1080/09515080500264180

Soon, C., Brass, M., Heinze, HJ. et al. Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain. Nat Neurosci 11, 543–545 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2112

Koenig-Robert, R., Pearson, J. Decoding the contents and strength of imagery before volitional engagement. Sci Rep 9, 3504 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-39813-y

Choice Blindness: Johansson P, Hall L, Sikström S, Olsson A. Failure to detect mismatches between intention and outcome in a simple decision task. Science. 2005 Oct 7;310(5745):116-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1111709. PMID: 16210542.