If humans are purely physical, and the brain does the work formerly assigned to the mind or soul, then how can it fail to be the case that our thoughts and actions are determined by the laws of neurobiology, and that free will, moral responsibility, and reason itself are in jeopardy? Bringing together insights from both philosophy and neuroscience, this book defends a non-reductive version of physicalism whereby humans are (sometimes) the authors of their own thoughts and actions. One resource is an account of mind as embodied and constituted by action-feedback-evaluation-action loops in the e ... More

If humans are purely physical, and the brain does the work formerly assigned to the mind or soul, then how can it fail to be the case that our thoughts and actions are determined by the laws of neurobiology, and that free will, moral responsibility, and reason itself are in jeopardy? Bringing together insights from both philosophy and neuroscience, this book defends a non-reductive version of physicalism whereby humans are (sometimes) the authors of their own thoughts and actions. One resource is an account of mind as embodied and constituted by action-feedback-evaluation-action loops in the environment, ‘scaffolded’ by culture. Another is a non-mysterious account of downward (mental) causation explained in terms of a complex, higher-order system exercising constraints on lower-level processes. These resources are utilized to take on two problems in philosophy of mind: the meaningfulness of language, and the causal efficacy of the mental. Solutions to these problems are a prerequisite to addressing the central problem of the book: how can biological organisms be free and morally responsible? The book argues that the real problem is not neurobiological determinism, but neurobiological reductionism. The relevant question is whether humans, as whole persons, exert downward causation over some of their own parts and processes. If all organisms do this to some extent, what needs to be added to this animalian flexibility to constitute free and responsible action? The keys are sophisticated language and hierarchically ordered cognitive processes allowing (mature) humans to evaluate their own actions, motives, goals, and moral principles.