Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012) 915927

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Consciousness and Cognition

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/concog

Free will and consciousness: Experimental studies

Joshua Shepherd
Department of Philosophy, Florida State University, 151 Dodd Hall, Tallahassee, FL 32306-1500, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: What are the folk-conceptual connections between free will and consciousness? In this
Received 19 October 2011 paper I present results which indicate that consciousness plays central roles in folk concep-
Available online 3 April 2012 tions of free will. When conscious states cause behavior, people tend to judge that the
agent acted freely. And when unconscious states cause behavior, people tend to judge that
Keywords: the agent did not act freely. Further, these studies contribute to recent experimental work
Free will on folk philosophical afliation, which analyzes folk responses to determine whether folk
Consciousness
views are consistent with the view that free will and determinism are incompatible
Experimental philosophy
(incompatibilism) or with the opposite view (compatibilism). Conscious causation of
behavior tends to elicit pro-free will judgments, even when the causation takes place
deterministically. Thus, when controlling for consciousness, many folk seem to be compa-
tibilists. However, participants who disagree with the deterministic or cognitive scientic
descriptions given of human behavior tend to give incompatibilist responses.
2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction: consciousness and free will

Recent results in cognitive science indicate that consciousness plays less central roles in human behavior than human
experience suggests. For example, Libet (1985) famously found evidence of a certain neural signal readiness potentials
(RPs) in the supplementary motor area (SMA) indicating that preparation for an action, such as the exing of a wrist, begins
350 ms before agents report awareness of the urge to ex. Following in Libets wake, Soon, Brass, Heinze, and Haynes (2008)
found that neural activity preceding simple actions by several seconds is predictive of the decision to move: a result that
Soon et al. interpret as follows: our actions are initiated by unconscious mental processes long before we become aware
of the intention to act (2008, p. 543). In another well-known study, Wegner and Wheatley (1999) signicantly increased
agents experience of intentionally performing an action that they did not, in fact, perform. They conclude that the experi-
ence of will can be created by manipulation of thought and action. . . and this experience can occur even when the persons
thought cannot have created the action (1999, p. 489). These results are often taken to make trouble for free will (e.g., Libet,
1999; Smith, 2011).
Why should results about consciousness make trouble for free will?
The common conception of consciousness involves awareness of the world and ourselves perceptions of vivid red, hot
sunlight, the smell of grass, the feel of anger. The common conception of free will involves the abilities of agents our capac-
ities for controlling behavior, for making choices, for responding to reasons. Conceptions of consciousness and free will differ
in many ways, yet many think of them as related in important ways. In a recent Nature News piece science writer Kerri Smith
asserts that As humans, we like to think that our decisions are under our conscious control that we have free will (2011,
p. 23). The psychologist Roy Baumeister has argued that if there are any genuine phenomena associated with the concept of
free will, they most likely involve conscious choice (2008, p. 76). The philosopher Alfred Mele writes If all behavior were
produced only by nonconscious processes, and if conscious decisions (or choices) and intentions (along with their physical

E-mail address: jls09k@my.fsu.edu

1053-8100/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2012.03.004
916 J. Shepherd / Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012) 915927

Fig. 1. Study one, means for Free Will, Moral Responsibility and Up To statements.

correlates) were to play no role at all in producing any corresponding actions, free will would be in dire straits (2010, p. 43).
And the philosopher Timothy OConnor holds that conscious awareness of ones motivations. . . is vital to the sort of freedom
that consists in enjoying a signicant moral autonomy (2009, p. 121) (see Fig. 1).
It seems clear that there are intuitive connections between consciousness and free will. This does not entail that connec-
tions exist between the psychological and neurochemical processes that underpin consciousness and those that underpin the
exercise of free will (assuming, for the moment, that we have free will).1 The connections in question hold between the con-
ceptions of consciousness and free will that people possess. What is the nature of these connections?
This seems to be a question ripe for philosophical spade work. Additionally, there is reason to think that an empirical
approach aimed at folk conceptions will prove useful. Such an approach has already proved illuminating regarding folk con-
ceptions of free will (e.g., Baumeister, Crescioni, and Alquist, 2011; Baumeister, Masicampo, and Vohs, 2011; Monroe & Malle
2010; Stillman, Baumeister, & Mele, 2011), as well as folk conceptions of consciousness (e.g., Arico, Fiala, Goldberg, & Nichols
2011; Knobe & Prinz 2008; Sytsma & Machery 2010). What we want to address, of course, are the connections between con-
ceptions of free will and consciousness. While some work on free will, which I discuss in the next section, is indirectly
relevant, the studies reported below are the rst to directly address the issue.
The studies reported below test the following general hypotheses. First, when consciousness plays central causal roles in
an agents behavior, people will tend to judge that the agent acted freely. Second, when consciousness does not play central
causal roles in an agents behavior, people will tend to judge that the agent did not act freely. As we will see, both hypotheses
receive robust conrmation.
In the philosophical literature, much attention is given to the relation of free will and determinism the thesis that the
complete state of the world at any given time plus a complete statement of the laws of nature together entail all future
events. Those who nd the existence and exercise of free will compatible with determinism are called compatibilists; those
who do not are incompatibilists. Traditionally incompatibilism was assumed to represent folk intuitions, and this was taken
to saddle compatibilists with an explanatory burden. These assumptions can be investigated empirically, of course, and re-
cent work has done just that (for a review, see Sommers, 2010). A subsidiary goal of this paper, then, is to contribute to recent
experimental work on folk conceptions of free will that focuses on questions concerning participants philosophical afliation
(e.g., Nahmias, Coates, & Kvaran, 2007; Nichols & Knobe, 2007) i.e., whether folk answers to surveys are consistent with
incompatibilist or with compatibilist views .
In the studies I report below, I nd that conscious causation of behavior tends to elicit pro-free will judgments, even when
the causation takes place deterministically. Thus, when controlling for consciousness, many folk seem to be compatibilists.

1
Exploring the potential existence and nature of such connections is a difcult task, but one receiving increased attention in neuroscience and psychology
(e.g., Lau, 2009; Baumeister, Masicampo et al., 2011). In distinguishing consciousness and free will as phenomena from our conceptions of the notions, I do not
mean to suggest that work on our conceptions is irrelevant to work on the phenomena to which they refer. Without clarity regarding our conceptions of
consciousness or free will, it will be difcult to interpret data about their purported connections.
 J. Shepherd / Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012) 915927 917

However, I also nd a strong division between participants who agree that the deterministic (and cognitive scientic) sce-
narios are true of the actual world, and those who disagree. Those who agree are much more likely to give compatibilist re-
sponses, while those who disagree are much more likely to give incompatibilist responses. Interestingly, both groups seem to
agree on the relevance of consciousness. This is evidence that for folk compatibilists and folk incompatibilists alike, con-
scious causation of behavior is central to free will.

2. Study one

2.1. Participants

Participants were 193 undergraduates (101 male, 92 female) at [University removed] in introductory-level courses. Nei-
ther free will nor consciousness had been discussed in the courses.

2.2. Procedures

This study utilized a 2 (Abstraction: Abstract vs. Concrete)  2 (Mechanism: Mechanistic vs. Psychological)  2 (Con-
sciousness: Conscious vs. Unconscious) between subjects design. Participants saw one of eight scenarios, after which they
rated their agreement to a series of statements on a 16 scale, where 1 indicated strongly disagree and 6 indicated strongly
agree.
Some of the language in and design of this study mimics that used in earlier work on free will. I included an Abstraction
condition because much previous work on free will has uncovered a difference in free will judgments when scenarios are
presented abstractly or concretely. In general, when an agents action is described in concrete, specic terms, more partic-
ipants judge that the agent acted freely (e.g., Nichols & Knobe, 2007). The Mechanism condition is drawn from Nahmias et al.
(2007). In that study, Nahmias et al. hypothesized that participants would nd mechanistic descriptions of human behavior,
as opposed to psychological descriptions, threatening to free will. More specically, they hypothesized that people would give
pro-free will judgments if human behavior was said to be caused by the specic thoughts, desires and plans occurring in our
minds, and anti-free will judgments if human behavior was caused by the specic chemical reactions and neural processes
occurring in our brains (p. 224). This is what Nahmias et al. found.
There is an indirect connection to consciousness here. In short, it is plausible that in the minds of many participants
consciousness plays some role in agents psychological processes, but not in agents neurochemical processes. In other
words, it might be that assumptions about consciousness, rather than the difference between psychological and mechanistic
descriptions, drove Nahmias et al.s results. I sought to make this possibility explicit by adding consciousness as a separate
condition. I predicted that Consciousness, rather than Mechanism or Abstraction, would be the most signicant factor in par-
ticipants free will judgments. In general, I expected to nd that conscious causation gave rise to pro-free will judgments, and
that unconscious causation gave rise to anti-free will judgments.
What follows is a scenario which combines Consciousness, Mechanism, and Abstraction conditions.
Many neuroscientists are interested in understanding human decision making and action. Most respected neuroscientists
are convinced that conscious brain events, such as the chemical reactions and neural processes important for conscious
experience, are the actual causes of the decisions we make.
So, if these neuroscientists are right, the actual causes of a persons decisions and actions are that persons conscious brain
events (such as the neural processes important for conscious experience) brain events within that persons awareness.
In the Mechanism (Mechanistic vs. Psychological) condition, the following substitutes were made: psychologist for neuro-
scientist, mental event for brain event, desires and intentions for chemical reactions and neural processes. In the Consciousness
(Conscious vs. Unconscious) condition, the following substitutes were made: unconscious for conscious, unrelated to conscious
experience for important for conscious experience, outside of that persons awareness for within that persons awareness. When
Unconscious causation was emphasized, the following sentence was added to the end of paragraph two: Of course, most
people believe that their conscious brain events cause their decisions and actions, but according to the neuroscientists, these
people are wrong unconscious brain events do the causal work.
For the Concrete scenarios, the following paragraph was then added:
For example, after nishing his meal at El Tapatio, a man named Dale decides to leave without paying for the meal or
tipping his waitress. If the neuroscientists are right, the actual causes of Dales decision were conscious brain events
brain events within Dales awareness.
Participants then saw the following statements.
Please assume for now that the neuroscientists are right, and indicate whether you agree or disagree with the following
statements:

1. If the neuroscientists are right, then a persons decisions will be up to them.

2. If the neuroscientists are right, then people make decisions of their own free will.
918 J. Shepherd / Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012) 915927

3. If the neuroscientists are right, then people should be held morally responsible for their decisions.
4. If the neuroscientists are right, then when people do something bad, they deserve to be blamed for it.
5. If the neuroscientists are right, then when people do something good, they deserve to be praised for it.
6. If the neuroscientists are right, then people control their decisions.
7. If the neuroscientists are right, people deliberate about what to do.
8. The neuroscientists description is actually true of human beings.
9. Humans have free will because they have consciousness.

2.3. Results

I ran three separate 2  2  2 analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests for the statements (a) that a persons decisions will be up
to them, (b) that their decisions will be made of their own free will, and (c) that they should be held morally responsible for
their decisions. All three tests found signicant main effects for both Consciousness and Mechanism. Regarding (a), the test
revealed a signicant main effect for Consciousness, F(1, 193) = 51.03, p < .001, partial eta squared = .216, a main effect for
Mechanism, F(1, 193) = 8.77, p = .003, partial eta squared = .045, no effect for Abstraction, F(1, 193) = .21, p = .65, partial eta
squared = .001, and no interaction effects. Regarding (b) the test revealed a signicant main effect for Consciousness,
F(1, 193) = 34.45, p < .001, partial eta squared = .157, a main effect for Mechanism, F(1, 193) = 8.28, p = .004, partial eta
squared = .043, none for Abstraction, F(1, 193) = .81, p = .37, partial eta squared = .004, and no interaction effects. Regarding
(c), the test revealed a signicant main effect for Consciousness, F(1, 193) = 41.08, p < .001, partial eta squared = .182, a main
effect for Mechanism, F(1, 193) = 7.96, p = .005, partial eta squared = .041, none for Abstraction, F(1, 193) = .43, p = .52, partial
eta squared = .002, and no interaction effects.
Regarding participant judgment on free will and related notions (e.g., moral responsibility), scenarios emphasizing con-
scious causation of behavior saw means signicantly above the mid-point (e.g., for free will, M = 4.68, SD = 1.30,
t(89) = 8.617, p < .001). Scenarios emphasizing unconscious causation of behavior were mixed in Unconscious/Mechanistic
scenarios, means were signicantly below the midpoint (e.g., for free will, M = 2.95, SD = 1.56, t(54) = -2.64, p = .011), and in
Unconscious/Psychological scenarios, they did not signicantly differ from it (for free will, M = 3.75, SD = 1.54, t(47) = 1.13,
p = .265).
I compiled data concerning those who answered 4 (slightly agree) or higher and those who answered 3 (slightly dis-
agree) or lower to the statement that The neuroscientists description is actually true of human beings. It turned out that
responses to this statement correlated in interesting ways with other responses.
57.5% (111/193) agreed with this statement. Of those who agreed, 80% attributed free will to agents. Of those who dis-
agreed, 41.5% attributed free will. This difference was statistically signicant, v2 (1, N = 193) = 30.58, p < .001. Interestingly,
although the mean judgments for those who agreed were less in the unconscious conditions, this mean remained in the pro-
free will category (Conscious: M = 4.98, SD = 1.08; Unconscious: M = 4.02, SD = 1.53). Those who disagreed, as indicated by
the percentages reported above, gave harsher judgments of free will. Even in the conscious condition, the mean judgment of
those who disagreed (M = 3.88, SD = 1.48) was roughly the same as the unconscious condition mean for those who agreed.
Further, their mean rating of free will in the mechanistic condition was quite low (M = 2.85, SD = 1.50).
I wanted to know if these correlations were more than apparent. So I calculated Pearsons correlation coefcients between
responses to the actually true statement and statements about what was up to an agent, about free will, about moral
responsibility, and about blame. The latter four were all positively correlated with the actually true statement (see Table 1),
and with each other. Further, responses to the actually true statement signicantly predicted free will responses, b = .63,
t(191) = 9.20, p < .001, and actually true responses explained a signicant proportion of variance in free will scores,
R2 = .31, F(1, 191) = 84.57, p < .001.
Regarding statement nine Humans have free will because they have consciousness 83% of participants answered
slightly agree or higher (M = 4.57, SD = 1.23).

2.4. Discussion

This study constitutes a striking demonstration of the importance of consciousness to most peoples conception of free
will and moral responsibility. In general, when conscious processes played central causal roles in decision making, partici-
pants were willing to judge that agents make decisions of their own free will and that agents should be held morally respon-
sible for their decisions. But when consciousness did not play central causal roles, participants were much less likely to
attribute free will. This constitutes evidence in favor of the following two hypotheses. First, when consciousness plays cen-
tral causal roles in an agents behavior, people will tend to judge that the agent acted freely. Second, when consciousness
does not play central causal roles in an agents behavior, people will tend to judge that the agent did not act freely.
An interesting difference emerged between those who found the description true to reality and those who did not. Gen-
erally, although they were much more likely to do so when consciousness was emphasized, many of those who found the
description true remained willing to attribute free will and moral responsibility in all conditions. But those who disagreed
with the description were in general unwilling to attribute free will and moral responsibility, save in the conscious and non-
mechanistic scenario. This difference relates to the issue of folk philosophical afliation. Those who agreed tended to give
compatibilist responses, and those who disagreed tended to give incompatibilist responses. This suggests that the difference
 J. Shepherd / Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012) 915927 919

Table 1
Pearsons correlation coefcients for study one.

Correlations
ActuallyTrue FW Up to MR Blame
ActuallyTrue
Pearson Correlation 1 .554** .541** .493** .533**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000
N 193 193 193 193 193
FW
Pearson Correlation .554** 1 .770** .708** .656**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000
N 193 193 193 193 193
Up to
Pearson Correlation .541** .770** 1 .705** .633**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000
N 193 193 193 193 193
MR
Pearson Correlation .493** .708** .705** 1 .835**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000
N 193 193 193 193 193
Blame
Pearson Correlation .533** .656** .633** .835** 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 .000 .000
N 193 193 193 193 193
**
Correlation is signicant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

between folk compatibilists and folk incompatibilists has something to do with their views on the nature of the universe, and
of the causal roots of human behavior.
Surprisingly, Abstraction had no effect. This goes against the pattern found in all other published studies on free will.
Although it is unclear why Abstraction made no difference in this study, one plausible suggestion is that the description
of the decision-making process in each case which described the conscious or unconscious causal processes behind the
decision, and which plausibly triggered simulations of concrete instances of decision-making rendered each case, in effect,
concrete.2 This might contribute to the lack of an effect here.
There is a reason to worry about the above results. As readers may have noted, a difference between wording in conscious
vs. unconscious conditions represents a potential confound. In an attempt to make the unconscious causation of decisions
plausible, I included the following sentence, as I mentioned in Section 2.2: Of course, most people believe that their con-
scious brain events cause their decisions and actions, but according to the neuroscientists, these people are wrong uncon-
scious brain events do the causal work. It is possible that some participants inferred a lack of free will simply from the
agents false belief about the efcacy of their conscious brain events. Study two thus eliminated this potential confound.
Although study one offers evidence that folk conceptions of free will involve consciousness in an important way, much
extant work on free will concerns the relationship of free will to determinism. And the relationship of consciousness to folk
conceptions of free will in deterministic scenarios remains an open question. Study two sought to address this question, as
well as connect our current concern with consciousness to extant experimental literature on folk conceptions of free will.

3. Study two

3.1. Participants

Participants were recruited through Amazons Mechanical Turk, and were paid $0.14 to read a scenario and respond to the
statements, which included two comprehension questions. Participants who failed to answer both questions correctly, or
who failed to ll out the entire survey, were excluded. Analyses were run on the 179 participants (100 male, 79 female)
who correctly answered the comprehension questions.

3.2. Procedures

This study utilized a 2 (Abstraction: Abstract vs. Concrete)  2 (Mechanism: Mechanistic vs. Psychological)  2 (Con-
sciousness: Conscious vs. Unconscious) between subjects design. Participants saw one of eight scenarios, after which they
rated their agreement to a series of statements on a 16 scale, where 1 indicated strongly disagree and 6 indicated strongly

2
Thanks to Eddy Nahmias for this suggestion.
920 J. Shepherd / Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012) 915927

agree. The eight scenarios were kept similar to those in study one, with the following changes. The following sentence was
omitted: Of course, most people believe that their conscious brain events cause their decisions and actions, but according to
the neuroscientists, these people are wrong unconscious brain events do the causal work. And the following description of
determinism (which is similar to that used in Nahmias, Morris, Nadelhoffer, and Turner (2005)) was added to all cases.
Many eminent scientists are convinced that every event in our universe is caused by events which came before, all the
way back to the beginning of the universe. So, for example, imagine that our universe is re-created over and over again,
starting from the exact same initial conditions and with all the same laws of nature. In this universe the same initial con-
ditions and the same laws of nature cause the exact same events for the entire history of the universe, so that every single
time the universe is re-created, everything must happen the exact same way. For instance, in this universe a person
named Jill decides to steal a necklace at a particular time and then steals it, and every time the universe is re-created, Jill
decides to steal the necklace at that time and then steals it.
Finally, in addition to the statements used in study one, I added four questions. Their addition warrants brief discussion.
In a recent study, Nahmias and Murray (2011) hypothesize that though most folk are compatibilists, a misunderstanding of
determinism leads some to give incompatibilist responses. According to Nahmias and Murray, when presented with deter-
ministic scenarios, some participants mistakenly infer that an agents conscious self has been bypassed rendered causally in-
ert and that this bypassing judgment is responsible for participants anti-free will judgment (2011, p. 192). If this is right,
then many folk who give incompatibilist responses would be doing so mistakenly. They would not be judging that determin-
ism undermines free will, but rather that bypassing undermines free will a judgment many compatibilists would share.
Nahmias and Murray operationalized bypassing as the average response to four statements like the following:
[Want] If the scientists are right, what people want has no effect on what they end up doing.
[Control] If the scientists are right, people have no control over their decisions.
[Decision] If the scientists are right, a persons decision has no effect on what they end up doing.
[Belief] If the scientists are right, what a person believes has no effect on what they end up doing.
Nahmias and Murray give evidence that judgments of bypassing correlate with anti-free will judgments. The more a par-
ticipant judged that an agents beliefs, wants, and decisions had no effect on her behavior, the less the participant judged that
an agent acted freely. However, since nothing in the bypassing questions or in Nahmias and Murrays studies mentions con-
sciousness explicitly, their results if taken to tell us something about the role of the conscious self in folk conceptions of
free will are inconclusive. What we need are studies which explicitly contrast conscious with unconscious causation of
behavior. This should give us data concerning whether anti-free will judgments as well as pro-bypassing judgments in deter-
ministic scenarios are linked to judgments about the causal irrelevance of consciousness.

3.3. Results

I ran three separate 2  2  2 analysis of variance (ANOVA) for the statements (a) that a persons decisions will be up to
them, (b) that their decisions will be made of their own free will, and (c) that they should be held morally responsible for
their decisions. Regarding (a) the test revealed a main effect for Consciousness, F(1, 179) = 28.67, p < .001, partial eta
squared = .144, a main effect for Abstraction, F(1, 179) = 4.98, p = .027, partial eta squared = .028, no effect for Mechanism,
F(1, 179) = 1.03, p = .31, partial eta squared = .006, and no interaction effects. Regarding b] the test revealed a main effect
for Consciousness, F(1, 179) = 30.59, p < .001, partial eta squared = .152, a main effect for Abstraction, F(1, 179) = 4.21,
p = .042, partial eta squared = .024, none for Mechanism, F(1, 179) = .24, p = .63, partial eta squared = .001, and no interaction
effects. Regarding (c)], the test revealed a main effect for Consciousness, F(1, 179) = 26.88, p < .001, partial eta squared = .136,
no effect for Abstraction, Abstraction: F(1, 179) = 2.99, p = .085, partial eta squared = .017, no effect for Mechanism,
F(1, 179) = 2.61, p = .108, partial eta squared = .015, and no interaction effects. These results are in line with the impact of
concrete cases in most other studies on free will, and in this regard do not replicate study one.3 This study does replicate
the signicant impact of Consciousness. Means for judgments of all three variables were higher when consciousness played cen-
tral causal roles (see Fig. 2). These results do not replicate the impact of Mechanism in study one in the deterministic scenar-
ios, the impact of Mechanism disappeared.
Following Nahmias and Murray (2011), I computed a composite free will/moral responsibility score by averaging partic-
ipants responses to free will, moral responsibility, and blame statements. I also computed a composite bypassing score by
averaging participants responses to the four bypassing statements. As in Nahmias and Murrays studies, bypassing scores
were negatively correlated with free will scores (see Table 2). Further, consciousness was the primary feature driving bypass-
ing judgments. A 2  2  2 ANOVA on the bypassing composite score revealed a main effect for Consciousness,
F(1, 179) = 14.93, p < .001, partial eta squared = .08, no effect for Mechanism, F(1, 179) = 1.02, p = .314, partial eta
squared = .006, no effect for Abstraction, F(1, 179) = 1.34, p = .249, partial eta squared = .008, and no interaction effect.

3
The study reported here was rst run without comprehension questions. The effects reported here were all found in that study as well, with the exception
of the main effect for the Abstract condition for the free will and the up to statements. In that study, the Abstract condition had no effect.
 J. Shepherd / Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012) 915927 921

Fig. 2. Study two, means for Free Will, Moral Responsibility and Up To statements.

Table 2
Pearsons correlation coefcients for Free Will and Bypassing composite scores, study two.

Correlations
FW Composite Bypassing Composite
FW Composite
Pearson Correlation 1 .661**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
N 179 179
Bypassing Composite
Pearson Correlation .661** 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000
N 179 179
**
Correlation is signicant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Regarding the question of folk philosophical afliation, scenarios which combine conscious and deterministic conditions
are diagnostic. 102 participants saw such scenarios, and 67 attributed free will (i.e., answered slightly agree or higher to the
free will question. Thus, 66% gave compatibilist responses. Again, however, regarding the question of folk philosophical afl-
iation, separating the participants by reference to their agreement concerning whether the scientists description is actually
true proves enlightening. In conscious, deterministic scenarios, 56% of participants agreed with the statement that The sci-
entists description is actually true of human beings (57/102). 86% of them attributed free will (49/57). Of those who dis-
agreed, only 40% attributed free will. This difference is statistically signicant, v2 (1, N = 102) = 23.57, p < .001. Thus,
while a majority of participants in this study gave compatibilist responses, a majority of those who disagreed with the sci-
entists description gave incompatibilist responses.
The difference between those who agree with the scientists description and those who do not holds across all conditions.
51% of participants (92/179) responded slightly agree or better. Of these participants, 73% (67/92) agreed that agents make
decisions of their own free will. Of those who disagreed that the scientists had truly described human decision making, 25%
(22/87) agreed that the described agents made decisions of their own free will. This difference is statistically signicant, v2
(1, N = 179) = 40.42, p < .001. Responses to the actually true statement were again signicantly correlated with judgments of
free will and related concepts (see Table 3). Further, responses to the actually true statements seem to be importantly related
to bypassing judgments. Actually true responses were negatively correlated with bypassing judgments. Responses to the
actually true statement signicantly predicted bypassing responses, b = .279, t(178) = 3.88, p < .001, and actually true re-
sponses explained a signicant proportion of variance in bypassing scores, R2 = .078, F(1, 178) = 15.03, p < .001, suggesting
922 J. Shepherd / Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012) 915927

Table 3
Pearsons correlation coefcients for study two: responses to statements that the description was
actually true, to statements about free will, moral responsibility, and blame summed into one score,
and to the four bypassing statements, summed into one score.

Correlations
BypComp FWComp TrueOf
BypComp
Pearson Correlation 1 .661** .279**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
N 180 179 180
FWComp
Pearson Correlation .661** 1 .475**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
N 179 179 179
TrueOf
Pearson Correlation .279** .475** 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
N 180 179 180
**
Correlation is signicant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

that those who nd the descriptions true are less likely to judge that the agents conscious self as operationalized here
has been bypassed (see Fig. 3). This interpretation receives some support from the following comparison of responses to the
actually true statement with bypassing composite scores. Of those who agreed to the actually true statement, 52.5% (42/80)
had a bypassing score greater than 3.5. Of those who disagreed, 82.7% (67/81) had a bypassing score greater than 3.5. This
difference is statistically signicant, v2 (1, N = 161) = 16.81, p < .001.
Finally, I again asked participants to rate their agreement with the statement that Humans have free will because they
have consciousness. Again, agreement was very high. 91% (162/179) answered slightly agree or higher (M = 4.79, SD = .99).

3.4. Discussion

Study two offers further evidence for the centrality of consciousness in folk conceptions of free will. Even when an agents
behavior is deterministically caused, many participants will attribute free will if the behavior is caused by conscious states.
Given that almost everyone agreed with the statement Humans have free will because they have consciousness, the follow-

Fig. 3. Study two, means for Free Will and Bypassing composite scores separated according to participant agreement to the statement The scientists
description is actually true of human beings.
 J. Shepherd / Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012) 915927 923

ing claim seems justied. Most people take consciousness to play central causal roles in behavior, and most nd these roles
central to the exercise of free will. If conscious brain or mental events cause decisions, for example, a majority of participants
attributed free will. If, however, unconscious brain or mental events cause decisions, a majority of participants did not attri-
bute free will.
An interesting pattern separated those who agreed with the descriptions given as actually true, and those who disagreed.
How does this pattern relate to the question of folk philosophical afliation? First, those who agree with the descriptions are
much more likely to be compatibilists than those who disagree. The difference is sharp, suggesting that participant answers
to the actually true statement are diagnostic of further differences. The nature of these differences is a question for future
research. It might be that signicant percentages of the folk possess fundamentally different concepts or theories of free will
(on this issue, see Knobe & Doris 2010). In this connection, however, it is worth noting that consciousness is clearly central to
both agreers and disagreers conceptions of free will. This underscores the general importance of folk conceptions of con-
sciousness to folk views on free will.
Recall Nahmias and Murrays hypothesis regarding determinism (discussed in Section 3.2). On their view, though most
people are compatibilists, many nd determinism threatening to free will because they mistakenly infer that determinism
entails bypassing of the conscious self. In support of this hypothesis they offer correlations between bypassing judgments
and free will judgments. This study replicates these correlations, and suggests that those who disagree with the scenario
descriptions are much more likely to offer bypassing as well as anti-free will judgments (see Fig. 3). Interestingly, they
are likely to do so even when the agents conscious self is not causally bypassed even when her conscious states clearly
cause her behavior. Why would this be?
Three of the bypassing questions state that an agents desires, beliefs and decisions had no effect on what the agent did.
Nahmias and Murray seem to want these questions to be read literally. In other words, when participants agree that an
agents desires had no effect on what she decided to do, subjects are taken to judge that the desires play no real causal role.
But it is possible that participants read have no effect in a different way. When speaking of a game between American foot-
ball teams Louisiana State and Arkansas, for example, it makes sense to say that Louisiana States defense has no effect on
Arkansas offense, even though Louisiana State players are making tackles. It also makes sense to say that a philosophers
argument had no effect on an audience, even though the argument caused much thought, many aggressive questions,
and so on. Here what we are saying is something like the argument did not convince anyone, or the defense is powerless
to stop the offense. If participants read had no effect in this way, then their pro-bypassing responses could be consistent
with the view that agents desires, beliefs, and decisions play causal roles. Instead of asserting that desires, beliefs and deci-
sions play no causal roles, they could be asserting that desires, beliefs and decisions are powerless to change anything. This is
an issue that warrants further research.
Surprisingly, this study did not replicate the effect for Mechanism. Why not? One suggestion is that deterministic descrip-
tions prime participants to see agents mechanistically, and that the emphasis on consciousness in a sense counteracts the
effect of this prime. Although I nd this suggestion plausible, this is an issue ripe for further research.
A lacuna in this study deserves mention. Although the means for the free will and moral responsibility statements are
clearly lower here than in study one suggesting that determinism had an independent impact on free will judgments
differences between the cases prevent straightforward comparison. We need a way to determine the comparative impact
of determinism on free will judgments, once we have controlled for consciousness. Study three addresses this issue.

4. Study three

4.1. Participants

Participants were recruited through Amazons Mechanical Turk, and were paid $0.16 for reading the scenario and answer-
ing the prompts, which included two comprehension questions. Participants who failed to answer both questions correctly,
or who failed to ll out the entire survey, were excluded. Analyses were run on the 104 participants (63 male, 41 female)
who correctly answered the comprehension questions.

4.2. Procedures

This study utilized a 2 (Determinism: Determinism vs. Indeterminism)  2 (Consciousness: Conscious vs. Unconscious)
between subjects design. Participants saw one of four scenarios, followed by a series of statements, which were randomized
to eliminate order effects. Participants reported their agreement with the statements on a 16 scale, where 1 signied
strongly disagree and 6 signied strongly agree.
What follows is a scenario which combines Deterministic, Conscious conditions. The language which constitutes the Inde-
terministic condition is bracketed. In the Unconscious condition, unconscious mental events and processes replace conscious
thoughts and events, and outside of an agents awareness replaces within.
Most eminent scientists are convinced that every event in our universe is caused by earlier events, going all the way back
to the beginning of the universe. [Most eminent scientists are convinced that although every event in our universe is
caused by earlier events, earlier events dont have to cause the future effects that they cause.] So, for example, imagine that
924 J. Shepherd / Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012) 915927

our universe is re-created over and over again, starting from the exact same initial conditions and with all the same laws of
nature. In this universe the same initial conditions and the same laws of nature cause the exact same events for the entire his-
tory of the universe, so that every single time the universe is re-created with those initial conditions, everything will hap-
pen the exact same way, including everything that humans do. [the same initial conditions and the same laws of nature
cause all the later events, but sometimes one later event will happen, while at other times in other re-creations of the
universe a different later event will happen instead.]
Furthermore, most respected neuroscientists are convinced that at the time of action, conscious thoughts and events
thoughts and events within an agents awareness cause and direct an agents behavior.
So, if these scientists are right, (1) every event in our universe is caused such that if the universe were re-created with the
same initial conditions and laws, the event would happen again in the exact same way, [every event in our universe is
caused such that if the universe were re-created with the same initial conditions, different events could occur,] and (2)
at the time of action, conscious thoughts and events thoughts and events within an agents awareness cause and direct
an agents behavior.
Consider, for example, a man named Mark, who cheats on his taxes. If the scientists are right, then if the universe were re-
created, things would happen in the exact same way Mark would cheat on his taxes. [then if the universe were re-cre-
ated, things could turn out differently Mark might not cheat on his taxes.] Furthermore, conscious thoughts and events
those within Marks awareness cause and direct his arranging to cheat on his taxes.

After reading one scenario, participants saw the following statements, in some order.
Please assume for now that the scientists are right, and indicate whether you agree or disagree with the following
statements.

1. Marks conscious thoughts and events cause and direct his behavior.
2. If the scientists are right, then if the universe were re-created with the exact conditions and laws of nature, it is pos-
sible Mark would decide not to cheat on his taxes.
3. If the scientists are right, it is possible for Mark to have free will.
4. If the scientists are right, Mark is morally responsible for cheating on his taxes.
5. If the scientists are right, Mark deserves to be blamed for cheating on his taxes.
6. If the scientists are right, what Mark wants has no effect on what he ends up doing.
7. If the scientists are right, what Mark believes has no effect on what he ends up doing.
8. If the scientists are right, Marks decision to cheat has no effect on what he ends up doing.
9. If the scientists are right, Mark was in control of his decision to cheat.
10. If the scientists are right, then Mark has the ability to decide not to cheat on his taxes.
11. If the scientists are right, then Mark has no choice about what he does.
12. The scientists description is actually true of human beings.

Fig. 4. Study three, Bypassing scores compared across the Consciousness condition.
 J. Shepherd / Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012) 915927 925

4.3. Results

I computed a composite free will/moral responsibility score by averaging participants responses to free will,
moral responsibility, and blame statements. I also computed a composite bypassing score by averaging participants
responses to the four bypassing statements. A 2  2 ANOVA on the free will composite score revealed a main
effect for Consciousness, F(1, 104) = 12.81, p = .001, partial eta squared = .114, a main effect for Determinism,
F(1, 104) = 5.77, p = .018, partial eta squared = .055, and no interaction effect. Free will responses were highest in the Con-
scious, Indeterministic scenario (M = 4.50, SD = .96), and lowest in the Unconscious, Deterministic scenario (M = 3.09,
SD = 1.33).
A 2  2 ANOVA on the bypassing composite score revealed a main effect for Consciousness, F(1, 104) = 17.10, p < .001, par-
tial eta squared = .146, none for Determinism, F(1, 104) = .16, p = .69, partial eta squared = .002, and no interaction effect. The
means reveal that in the Conscious condition, participants tended to withhold a bypassing judgment, while in the Uncon-
scious condition, participants judged that bypassing had occurred (see Fig. 4). However, the lack of an effect for Determinism
indicates that when controlling for consciousness, indeterministic descriptions cause bypassing judgments as much as do
deterministic descriptions.
As in Nahmias and Murrays studies, bypassing scores were negatively correlated with free will scores. I calculated Pear-
sons Correlation Coefcients for all four cases individually, and as a single group. In all cases the correlations were highly
signicant (Determinism/Conscious: r(25) = .559, p < .005; Determinism/Unconscious: r(26) = .632, p < .002; Indetermin-
ism/Conscious: r(30) = .499, p < .006; Indeterminism/Unconscious: r(23) = .672, p < .001; All cases: r(104) = .639,
p < .001).
Recall that in studies one and two, I found that those who thought the scientists description true of real world decision-
making were more likely to attribute free will and related concepts, and that those who thought the description false of real
world decision-making were more likely to judge that the agents described do not have free will. Regarding philosophical
afliation, there are not enough participants in the diagnostic condition (Conscious/Deterministic) to provide much useful
data (48% (12/25) attributed free will). However, I again found similar correlations between responses to the actually true
statement and free will and bypassing judgments. When I analyzed the correlation between answers to the actually true
statement and the free will and bypassing composite scores, responses were positively correlated in the former case, and
negatively correlated in the latter case (see Table 4). Responses to the actually true statement signicantly predicted free
will responses, b = .95, t(102) = 4.34, p < .001, as well as bypassing responses, b = .201, t(102) = 2.07, p = .041. Actually true
responses explained a signicant proportion of variance in free will scores, R2 = .16, F(1, 102) = 18.83, p < .001, as well as
bypassing scores, R2 = .04, F(1, 102) = 4.30, p = .041. Further, of those who agreed with the scientists description, 71% (40/
56) attributed free will. But of those who disagreed, only 33% (16/48) attributed free will. This difference is signicant, v2
(1, N = 104) = 15.09, p < .001.
Finally, participants saw the following statement: If the scientists are right, Mark has the ability to decide not to cheat on
his taxes. Consciousness signicantly impacted judgments of Marks ability to decide other than he did. A 2  2 ANOVA on
ability answers revealed a main effect for Consciousness, F(1, 104) = 11.73, p < .002, partial eta squared = .105, and a main
effect for Determinism, F(1, 104) = 28.28, p < .001, partial eta squared = .220.

Table 4
Study three, Pearsons correlation coefcients for Free Will and Bypassing composite scores, and answers to the
statement that the scientists description is actually true.

Correlations
Actually true FW Composite Bypassing Composite
Actually true
Pearson Correlation 1 .395** .201*
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .041
N 104 104 104
FW Composite
Pearson Correlation .395** 1 .639**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
N 104 104 104
Bypassing Composite
Pearson Correlation .201* .639** 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .041 .000
N 104 104 104
*
Correlation is signicant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
**
Correlation is signicant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
926 J. Shepherd / Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012) 915927

4.4. Discussion

As with the rst two studies, this study offers evidence that consciousness plays a central role in folk conceptions of free
will. Participants were more likely to attribute free will to agents whose behavior was caused by conscious, as opposed to
unconscious, states.
Unlike many previous studies on folk conceptions of free will, this study explicitly contrasted deterministic with indeter-
ministic scenarios. Determinism signicantly impacted participant responses, indicating that many participants see the
prospect of determinism as a legitimate threat to free will: one independent of the threat posed by unconscious causation
of behavior. This should be unsurprising. For millennia, philosophers have argued that determinism is just such a threat.
Even so, I think that this result suggests lines of further research. For example, determinism might impact participant re-
sponses in two distinct ways. It could be that some subset of the population nds free will and determinism incompatible,
and thus denies free will in deterministic scenarios. Or it could be that many folk compatibilists nonetheless lower their judg-
ment answering slightly agree instead of agree when presented with a free will prompt, for example (we need not de-
mand that folk compatibilists be unbothered by determinism). Given the focus in current experimental work on philosophical
afliation, it is important to understand the severity of determinisms inuence on participant responses.
This study replicated previous results regarding bypassing, with an interesting twist. In this study, free will and bypassing
scores were negatively correlated. But determinism was not found to uniquely cause bypassing indeterministic scenarios
saw equal judgments of bypassing. Why would this be? While it seems that further research is needed on this question, the
following strikes me as a plausible hypothesis. In study three both deterministic and indeterministic descriptions involved
winding the causal clock back to the universes beginning. Such descriptions plausibly prime participants to see agents as
powerless, inconsequential nodes in a massive causal chain. If this is right, it could be that artifacts of the presentation of
scenarios give rise (when they do) to bypassing judgments, as well as to anti-free will judgments. Future work might explore
this possibility by developing descriptions of determinism and indeterminism that emphasize more local causal processes.
Interestingly, these results evince a close relationship between consciousness and the ability to decide otherwise.
Although participants correctly answered a comprehension question indicating they understood the deterministic nature
of the scenario, in conscious conditions participants rated an agents ability to decide other than he did signicantly higher
(Conscious M = 3.28, SD = 1.40; Unconscious M = 2.35, SD = 1.29). That neither mean is above the midline suggests that
although many participants could not ascribe the ability to decide otherwise to the agent in question, the emphasis on con-
sciousness made this judgment more difcult.
The ability to do otherwise plays a central role in free will debates. Incompatibilists often assert that this ability is central
to free will, and that agents in deterministic universes do not possess this ability. Some compatibilists agree that the ability
to do otherwise is important for free will, but that incompatibilists have the wrong understanding of the notion. These com-
patibilists argue that the ability to do otherwise should be understood conditionally an agent can do otherwise if she de-
sires or intends otherwise. So we have a dispute about how to understand the ability to do otherwise. In this connection, one
suggestion of the result at issue is that when consciousness is emphasized, participants tend to adopt a conditional theory of
ability to do otherwise. In other words, when participants assert that a subject could have done otherwise, they are assert-
ing that he could have done so if he wanted to, or if the past contained some relevant difference.
There is another possibility. Mele (2003) distinguishes between specic and general abilities. Specic abilities are those
we have at a time. A second ago, for example, I had the specic ability to type this sentence. I did not have the specic ability
to hit a tennis ball (neither a racket nor a ball are in my ofce). But I had the general ability to hit a tennis ball. Might agents
be primed by the emphasis on consciousness to attribute general, rather than specic, abilities to agents? The issue deserves
further research.

5. Conclusion

In these studies I sought to test two general hypotheses. First, when consciousness plays central causal roles in an agents
behavior, people will tend to judge that the agent acted freely. Second, when consciousness does not play central causal roles
in an agents behavior, people will tend to judge that the agent did not act freely. Both hypotheses have received robust con-
rmation. Consciousness plays a central role in folk conceptions of free will.
I also sought to contribute to recent experimental work on folk conceptions of free will. I found that conscious causation
of behavior tends to elicit pro-free will judgments, even when the causation takes place deterministically. Thus, when con-
trolling for consciousness, many folk seem to be compatibilists. However, I also found a strong division between participants
who agree that the deterministic and cognitive-scientic scenarios are true of the actual world, and those who disagree.
Those who agree are much more likely to give compatibilist responses, while those who disagree are much more likely to
give incompatibilist responses.4 The nature of and reasons for this sharp difference constitutes an interesting question for fu-
ture research. It seems, for example, that those who disagree are more likely to judge that an agents desires, beliefs, and deci-
sions have no effect on her behavior. In the spirit of Nahmias and Murray (2011), I have hypothesized that such judgments

4
In this connection, however, it is worth noting that both groups seem to agree on the relevance of consciousness. Thus, whatever the relationship between
folk understandings of determinism and folk conceptions of free will, it seems that consciousness is central to the latter.
 J. Shepherd / Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012) 915927 927

might stem from features of descriptions of determinism, features shared by some descriptions of indeterminism. Such features
might, for example, prime participants to see agents mechanistically (study 2), or as inconsequential nodes in massive causal
chains (study 3). Future research might fruitfully explore these possibilities.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Josh Knobe, Al Mele, Eddy Nahmias, Shaun Nichols and two anonymous reviewers for
helpful discussion and comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

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