Commonsense psychology, dual visual streams, and the individuation of action

TY - JOUR

T1 - Commonsense psychology, dual visual streams, and the individuation of action

AU - Grünbaum, Thor

PY - 2012/2

Y1 - 2012/2

N2 - Psychologists and philosophers are often tempted to make general claims about the importance of certain experimental results for our commonsense notions of intentional agency, moral responsibility, and free will. It is a strong intuition that if the agent does not intentionally control her own behavior, her behavior will not be an expression of agency, she will not be morally responsible for its consequences, and she will not be acting as a free agent. It therefore seems natural that the interest centers on the notion of intentional control. If it can be experimentally shown that agents do as a matter of fact not control their own actions, even though they think they do, it will have far reaching consequences for our moral psychology. In this paper I look at recent eliminative arguments allegedly demonstrating that our commonsense notion of intentional control is incompatible with experimental data in support of the dual visual stream theory.

AB - Psychologists and philosophers are often tempted to make general claims about the importance of certain experimental results for our commonsense notions of intentional agency, moral responsibility, and free will. It is a strong intuition that if the agent does not intentionally control her own behavior, her behavior will not be an expression of agency, she will not be morally responsible for its consequences, and she will not be acting as a free agent. It therefore seems natural that the interest centers on the notion of intentional control. If it can be experimentally shown that agents do as a matter of fact not control their own actions, even though they think they do, it will have far reaching consequences for our moral psychology. In this paper I look at recent eliminative arguments allegedly demonstrating that our commonsense notion of intentional control is incompatible with experimental data in support of the dual visual stream theory.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

U2 - 10.1080/09515089.2011.569911

DO - 10.1080/09515089.2011.569911

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0951-5089

VL - 25

SP - 25

EP - 47

JO - Philosophical Psychology

JF - Philosophical Psychology

IS - 1

ER -