Free Will and the Brain

Walter Glannon is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Calgary. His research interests are primarily in the areas of bioethics and neuroethics, and he has published on free will and moral and criminal responsibility, with a focus on how cognitive and clinical neuroscience has influenced how we conceive of and assess these concepts and associated practices. His publications include Brain, Body and Mind: Neuroethics with a Human Face (2011), Bioethics and the Brain (2007) and Biomedical Ethics (2005). In 2010 he was the recipient of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation for the project 'Diminishing and Enhancing Free Will'. Free Will and the Brain is the product of this project.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Free will in light of neuroscience Walter Glannon; Part II. Conceptual Issues: 2. Is free will an observer-based concept rather than a brain-based one? A critical neuroepistemological account Georg Northoff; 3. Evolution, dissolution and the neuroscience of the will Grant Gillett; 4. The experience of free will and the experience of agency: an error-prone, reconstructive process Matthis Synofzik, Gottfried Vosgerau and Axel Lindner; Part III. Mental Capacities and Disorders of the Will: 5. Being free by losing control: what obsessive-compulsive disorder can tell us about free will Sanneke de Haan, Erik Rietveld and Damiaan Denys; 6. Psychopathy and free will from a philosophical and cognitive neuroscience perspective Farah Focquaert, Andrea L. Glenn and Adrian Raine; 7. How mental disorders can compromise the will Gerben Meynen; 8. Are addicted individuals responsible for their behavior? Wayne Hall and Adrian Carter; 9. Assessment and modification of free will via scientific techniques: two challenges Nicole A. Vincent; Part IV. Neural Circuitry and Modification of the Will: 10. Implications of functional neurosurgery and deep-brain stimulation for free will and decision-making Nir Lipsman and Andres M. Lozano; 11. Reducing, restoring, or enhancing autonomy with neuromodulation techniques Maartje Schermer; Part V. Legal Implications of Neuroscience: 12. Neurobiology collides with moral and criminal responsibility: the result is double vision Steven E. Hyman; 13. Neuroscience, free will and criminal responsibility Stephen J. Morse.