A perception of free will

Ever since it has become possible for scientists to study the living brain using advanced non-invasive techniques like EEGs and functional MRI, researchers have begun to watch decision-making processes at work in real time. One puzzling finding so far is that a person’s brain seems to commit to certain decisions before the person becomes aware of having made them.

Although the findings are controversial, the startling implications of this discovery were neatly summed up in New Scientistrecently : "Around 30 years ago psychologist Benjamin Libet discovered that if you ask people to make voluntary movements, their brains initiate the movement before they become consciously aware of any intention to move... leading many neuroscientists to conclude that free will is an illusion"

The question that immediately arises is, in that case what makes us maintain the illusion at all and, more importantly , why? The obvious answer, of course, is that without free will, moral responsibility for any of our actions ceases. Because if every act of ours is inexorably determined from previous causes, then we can hardly be blamed for them.

Now if there’s no ultimate purpose to our existence and we’re the result of chemistry and physics then this really doesn’t matter. But if there’s a moral dimension to the universe then it certainly makes a lot of sense to suppose that a perception of morality would necessarily have to be superimposed on us - even if free will didn’t exist. That such, indeed, is the case shows there may be moral guidance too