DANIEL C. DENNETT COUNTERARGUMENT AGAINST COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE APPROACH TO FREE WILL IS AN ILLUSION

Abstract

This research paper will make an attempt to explore how Daniel C. Dennett with his evolutionary approach will tries to negate the cognitivist claims that free will is illusion. Generally lay person believes that free will is not as concrete as other things, it is just an abstract metaphysical concept which has been puzzling our mind for a very long time. What cognitive neuroscientist claim is that since all our actions are pre-determined and controlled by our brain neural activity, so human beings don’t possess any kind of free will and moral responsibility.
As a reaction to cognitive claims, Dennett states that “Free will is worth wanting” which means the power to be active agents, biological devices that respond to environment with rational, desirable courses of action.Dennettconsidered a ‘compatibilist kind of free will’ which means that he accepts the universe is deterministic,but at the same time he concedes that free will is compatible with determinism. We like to think of ourselves as rational agents who exercise conscious control over most of our actions and decisions. Yet in recent years, neuroscientists have claimed to prove that free will is simply an illusion that our brains decide for us before our conscious minds even become aware. But what kind of evidence do these scientists rely on to support their sweeping conclusions? Is the "free will" they talk about the same kind of free will that philosophers have puzzled about for millennia? And could science ever prove that we lack the kind of freedom needed for moral responsibility?Can neuroscience answer the question of whether we have free will? Or is this issue best left to philosophy? Hence, this research paper will attempt to evaluate how Dennett with his conception of moral competence has made an endeavor to provide plausible arguments against the cognitive claim that free will is illusion.