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Correspondence |
10 Harley Street, London W1G 9PF, UK. E-mail: Paulcrichton72{at}aol.com
Although I agree with Professor Henderson (2005) that we should acknowledge that many psychiatric patients have a greater degree of volition, or free will, and hence of moral responsibility, than they are often considered to have, I think that he has made things far too easy for himself.
Professor Henderson has simply assumed that we have free will, at the same time maintaining that ‘as brain function comes to be increasingly understood, it is possible that abnormal behaviour will be attributed less to the person’s power of choice in regard to action, and more to abnormalities of brain function or genotype’. Both these assumptions are not uncontroversial and would deserve at least some arguments to lend them plausibility. One of many questions which arise here is ‘why should only abnormal behaviours be attributed less to the person’s power of choice in regard to action and more to abnormal brain function?’ Could not normal behaviour equally be attributed less to the free will of the agent and more to normal brain function as we come to understand brain function better? Henderson has given us no reason to think that this could not be the case with normal behaviour as well.
Interestingly Henderson cites Libet et al (1999) but curiously omits to mention Libet’s famous discovery of a readiness potential arising in the brain some 350 ms before a conscious decision to act is experienced. This finding is usually interpreted as evidence of unconscious initiation of the volitional process, and hence as evidence against freedom of the will. Henderson also quotes Alper (1998): ‘Even if human beings are genetically deterministic systems, their behaviour may still be unpredictable and they may still possess free will’. But if our behaviour is unpredictable or random, then we do not have free will, because free will implies that we are autonomous agents who can bring about our actions intentionally.
REFERENCES
Alper, J. S. (1998) Genes, free will and criminal responsibility. Social Science and Medicine, 46, 1599 -1661.
Henderson, S. (2005) The neglect of volition.
British Journal of Psychiatry,
186, 273
-274.
Libet, B., Freeman, A. & Sutherland, K. (1999) The Volitional Brain. Oxford: Blackwell.
9 Timbarra Crescent, O’Malley, ACT 2606, Australia. E-mail: ashenderson{at}netspace.net.au
Dr Crichton’s points are most useful. He can be assured that I tried to make the topic as easy as possible for the reader, not for myself. He is correct that I have not considered whether free will really exists, simply choosing to make volition the central topic of the editorial. Yes, what I have said applies just as much to minds free of mental illness. There, biological contributions to behaviour are equally likely to be present. What I wrote deliberately did not consider the unconscious, whether or not its presence might be revealed by readiness potentials preceding an action. We are all aware that psychoanalytic theory has made extensive proposals about unconscious origins for normal behaviour. But psychoanalysis and free will are matters to be considered elsewhere, preferably by philosophers rather than clinicians. For myself, I simply retain an interest in the place of personal responsibility in the presence of mental illness. It has been encouraging that the editorial has already caught the attention of some senior judges and lawyers.
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