Knowing Your Choice Before You Choose

In 1980s, neuroscientists joined philosophers and psychologists in the investigation of volitional actions and freedom of will. In a series of experiments pioneered by Benjamin Libet (1985), it was observed that some neural activities correlated with volitional action regularly precedes the conscious will to perform it, which suggests that what appears to be a free action may actually be predetermined by some neural activities, even before the conscious intention to act arises. Shortly after publication of that study, Libet’s findings and interpretations were started to be criticized on philosophical and methodological grounds. In this study, the legitimacy of the criticisms directed to Libet’s and his successors’ experiments is discussed by taking recent neuroscience studies on volition into account and it is argued that these criticisms are not sufficient to eliminate the doubt that these experiments casted on the freedom of the will.


Introduction
Choosing from among the possible options available to an individual is one of the most indisp ensable human abilities. Individuals tend to assume that these choices are free, at least when they do not investigate the question from a philosophical or scientific persp ective. From this point of view, we influence our future, at the very moment we make a deliberate decision. 2 On the other hand, some philosophical and scientific studies threaten this intuitive belief that our choices are free. Determinism is perceived as a threat to freedom of will by incompatibilist thinkers. For an incompatibilist, if our decisions are determined before we make them, it cannot be true that we have genuine alternatives and it cannot be true that we make this decision freely (Van Inwagen, 1978;Ginet, 1996;Kane, 1999).
Benjamin Libet's (1985) seminal work poses a challenge related to determination and causal efficacy of conscious will. Libet's work was based on an experiment in which participants were asked to flex their finger or wrist whenever they want to do so. Meanwhile, using a rotating clock dial the participants noted when they first had the intention to flex, the timing of the actual flex was recoded. Simultaneously, Libet measured the readiness potential (RP)-an electrophysiological event in the supplementary motor area (SMA)-and observed that the RP regularly preceded the participants' awareness of their intention to flex by 200 ms. These findings indicate that there was a physical indication in the brain that the participants would flex their finger even before they were consciously aware of their intention to do so. By challenging the dominant intuition that conscious will is driving power of volitional act ions, Libet's work was considered ground-breaking and remains an important reference point. If we consider Libet's research method sound, then it could be concluded that intention is nothing more than the mediator between unconscious neurobiological act ivity (the cause of any act ion) and resulting act ion. It is even possible that conscious intention is only an epiphenomenon, lacking any causal power. On the other hand, acceptance of Libet's findings is not universal; his research methods and his interpretations of the results have been widely criticized.
The present study aims to provide an overview of the current philosophical and scientific literature related to the Libet's work on free will, in an effort to show that Libet's findings present an important obstacle to the libertarians (in the context of metaphysical freedom), who defend that there are genuine alternative possibilities available to people when they make a decision. In each of the following sections a particu-lar objection to relevance of Libet's experiment to free will is presented and discussed, which, in total, will illustrate that the experiment substantially strengthens the view that we do not exercise free will, since we may not really be choosing our act ions among from genuine alternative possible act ions.

Concerns on Measurement and Interpretation of the Gap Between RP and Conscious Will
Before stepping into conceptual discussions on free will, in this section, some remarks about the concerns on the amount and interpretation of the time gap between RP and conscious will, will be made. Such criticisms of Libet center on the fact that given a number of variables involved in his experiment the 200-ms gap between RP and awareness of will might in fact be insignificant (Libet, 1985, p. 539). Such criticism address mainly two possible alternative explanations for 200-ms gap: (1) The amount of time the participants needed to be aware of their will; (2) the amount of time the participants needed to read the clock. 3 Moreover, Daniel. C. Dennett (1991;2004) and Filippo Tempia (2008) argue that Libet's very interesting finding may be a result of inaccurate perception of the participants about the order of internal events esp ecially when very short periods of time are concerned. 4 These methodological problems become less of a concern over time; since (1) several subsequent experiments dramatically extended the measured time gap between physical markers (such as RP) and conscious awareness of will from the 200 ms noted by Libet to as much as 7-10 seconds (Fried, Mukamel, & Kreiman, 2011;Soon, Brass, Heinze, & Haynes, 2008) 5 and (2) several other experiments support the hypothesis that there are causal relationships between neural states preceding conscious will and conscious will itself (Brasil-Neto, Pascual-Leone, Valls-Solé , Cohen , & Hallett, 1992;Fried, et al., 1991;Desmurget, et al., 2009;Haggard & Eimer, 1999). 6

What Counts as Free Action?
Considering the complexity of human behavior, Libet's decision to base his experiment on the simple and easy to observe/measure behavior of finger/wrist flexion is methodologically wise; however, the very same decision is also a primary reason why Libet's work remains underappreciated. Critics of his work, esp ecially philosophers, question the 2 For a discussion on the subjective experience of free will and its implications on the problem of free will, see Arıkan Sandıkçıoglu, 2016.
3 See Wasserman, 1985. 4 See also Bayne, 2011 andDominika, et al., 2018. 5 See also Soon, He, Bode, & Haynes, 2013. 3 pertinence of the act ion measured by Libet to infer daring conclusions on free will. John Searle states that, "(…) the examples used in the study of the readiness potential tend to be rather trivial examples of human behavior" (Searle, 2010, p. 125). Searle suggests that a more appropriate (less trivial) behavior/act ion for investigation would be (if it were possible to investigate) Churchill's decision in 1940 to continue fighting the Germans. Alfred R. Mele (2009, p. 83) contends that the "trivial" act ions measured in readiness potential studies are similar to Buridan scenarios in which participants must choose between two equally attract ive alternatives. Bruno G. Breitmeyer similarly does not consider finger/wrist flexion a "meaningful act ion, " given its low cost/benefit function (Libet, 1985, p. 539). He considers the act ion that Libet studied to be habitual, in William James' sense (1950). Searle, Mele and Breitmeyer thusly fundamentally question Libet's philosophical interpretation of his findings based on the claim that the assigned task does not qualify as a valid or at least interesting example of an expression of free will, since finger/wrist flexion does not bring about important differences, under given circumstances.
It is true that in the setting of Libet's experiment, finger/ wrist flexion was devoid of any major ethical or pragmatic value, and a less controversial version of the experiment would involve a more significant value for the subjects. In the next section, I will suggest a version of Libet's experiment which clearly involves more significant ethical and/or pragmatic value(s), without causing any extra complications affecting the experiment's feasibility and defend that the debates on the ethical/pragmatic significance of studied act ion can experimentally be settled.
On the other hand, since such an experiment has not yet been conducted, 7 in this section, the subject will be discussed conceptually and theoretically. Even if it is true that finger/writs flexion in the Libet's experiment does not involve major values, I defend that the act ions in question are associated with some degree of ethical and/or pragmatic values. Conscious intentional act ion in the absence of motive is conceptually impossible, as such act ions are performed explicitly to achieve a goal, regardless of the degree of its significance. One then might question what motivation is there to perform finger/wrist flexion and what motivation is there to perform it at a particular time in an experimental setting. As John S. Stamm and Libet indicate, boredom might have been a motive for performing finger/wrist flexion at any time during the allotted time period (Libet, 1985). It's also possible that Libet's participants' motivation for performing finger/wrist flexion had to do with meeting their obligation of being a participant of the experiment and/or they may have just wanted to please the researcher(s). As the participants were deciding when to perform the finger/wrist flexion, let's consider what their internal monologue might have been: "Do I really want to flex now?"; "If I wait a little longer will I have a stronger desire to flex?"; "Am I waiting too long?"; "Should I flex spontaneously?"; Should I choose a time to flex in advance?"; "The previous time I flexed too early, maybe I will flex later this time" . These are just a few examples of the possible thoughts' participants might have had in association with Libet's experimental model, and they imply that despite the conclusions of Libet's critics, a simple finger/wrist flexion, in fact, may involve some degree of ethical and/or pragmatic value. 8 Another weakness of standard Libet-style experiments is about the number of repetitions the participants need to do. In order to gather enough neural data, participants need to do the same task many times and this might be causing them to start making decisions automatically without being mentally and emotionally involved in the task. So even if the act ions being studied involve a degree of ethical and/or pragmatic value, this value induces less and less mental/emotional response from the participants, after doing excessive repetitions. This is a fair concern and I believe that the experimental paradigm that I will present in the next section will not be suffering from this concern as much as most current studies do. On the other hand, even if I agree that the small amount of ethical/ pragmatic value(s) involved in Libet-style experiments would induce even smaller mental/emotional involvement after many repetitions; for the reasons mentioned above, I defend that there should be a degree of mental/emotional involvement. Boredom and responsibility to complete the task could become the main motives after many repetitions; however, these motives too are related to ethical/pragmatic values. Important or trivial all decisions share a few charact eristics: They are conscious and they are made in an effort to reach an important or unimportant goal throughout a probabilistic or deterministic interact ion with the environment. Lower-order, less significant decisions are not qualitatively different from higher-order, more substantial decisions, in that resp ect. No matter how relatively significant or insignificant it may be, it is conceptually necessary that they involve some subjective pragmatic/ethical value; otherwise, we would have no reason to choose.
Bridgeman raises another criticism to Libet: For Bridgeman act ions of the participants in the experiment were not a consequence of free choice, since the participants were told by 4 the experimenter to act within certain boundaries (Libet, 1985, p. 540). Obviously, there are certain restrictions under which the participants made their choices; however, Bridgeman' s point is not quite as simple as it appears, because no matter what intentional act ion is considered, an individual must necessarily act under some limitations (i.e. social norms, abilities, laws of physics). Therefore, an act ion' s being performed under certain limitations, does not show that it is not a pertinent act ion to investigate free choices. In Libet' s case of deciding when to perform finger/wrist flexion, the participants were limited by the experimental protocol while they were also had alternatives to select the time to flex. Searle' s example of Churchill' s decision to continue fighting the Germans, which Bridgeman himself would consider to be a legitimate instance of a free decision, was also subjected to limitations-economic, military, and political. Every decision is associated with some limiting factors that may or may not be a result of the individual' s earlier decisions, but despite the fact that such factors limit the number of alternative act ions, they do not determine choice per se. That is precisely why we refer to this act ivity as deciding; conceptually sp eaking, decisions require not infinite, but at least two possible alternatives. Since Libet' s participants did have numerous alternatives for the timing of finger/wrist flexion, I insist that the experiments are relevant to free will in a philosophical sense. If deciding when to perform finger/wrist flexion and continuing to fight the Germans during WWII are claimed to be substantially different types of decisions, then a clear qualitative difference must be shown.
Last but not least, Libet's participants believed that they chose their act ion freely; "Subjects reported that they were aware of the urge or intention to move before every act in the series; that is, the acts were not automatic or involuntary 'tics'" (Libet, 1985, p. 532). Even if used only to challenge the participants' belief that they chose to perform the act ion freely, Libet's finding is extremely interesting and remains relevant to the question of free will. 9

A Methodological Suggestion to Study Ethically/Pragmatically More Significant Actions
In line with the critics discussed in the previous section, Libet has pointed some difficulties associated with studying free will experimentally: There are several concerns about the significance of the act we studied, a spontaneously initiated quick flexion of fingers or wrist, in relation to voluntary actions in general (Breitmeyer, Bridgeman, Danto, Jung, Latto). We wanted our measurements of relative timings (for the onsets of RP and W) to be quantitative and operationally definable, without reliance on intuitive impressions or speculations. Such an objective is much more difficult, if not impossible, to achieve with any of the more common voluntary actions recommended by the commentators for study (Libet, 1985, p. 562).
Libet may seem right in that it is difficult to conduct an experiment in which ethically and pragmatically more significant act ions are observed; however, this drawback of Libet's experimental model, in my opinion, can be avoided. While it is common for psychologists and economists to study ethical and pragmatic human behavior using prisoner's dilemma (PD) scenarios, to the best of my knowledge, PD scenarios have not been used in experiments studying free will, up to the date.
PD scenarios are simple game theoretic situations involving two individuals making ethically/pragmatically significant decisions. An example payoff matrix could be as shown in the Table. In this PD scenario, two participants are trying to earn some money in an interact ive game. Each participant chooses their act ion not knowing what the other will do. If both of the participants choose to cooperate by pressing button 1, they each get $10. If (only) one of the participants betrays the other by pressing button 2, the defector receives $15, whereas the other gets nothing. Finally, if both participants choose to defect, they each get $5. As the only Nash equilibrium of this payoff matrix (mutual defection) is not pareto optimal, playing an iterative version of this game optimally (with resp ect to total payoff) requires coordination and trust between two parties. The interesting asp ect of PD can also be formulated as follows: While no matter what other player chooses, betrayal of each opponent is more profitable for themselves; mutual betrayal is not as profitable as mutual cooperation. Noting that there are Libet-style experiments that provide participants the freedom to choose between two possible act ions (Sohn, Kaelin-Lang, & Hallett, 2003;Haggard & Eimer, 1999), PD scenarios can be 9 See also Libet, 2003 andBayne, 2011. Participant 1/Participant 2 Button 1 (Cooperation) Button 2 (Defection) Button 1 (Cooperation) $10, $10 $0, $15 Button 2 (Defection) $15, $0 $5, $5 5 used in the future studies. By associating the choice between cooperation and defection (or betrayal) to two buttons, studying ethically/pragmatically more significant act ions would be as easy as studying a finger flexion. Another advantage of this experimental paradigm is that it is more likely to keep the participant' s mental/emotional involvement in the task stronger after many repetitions. If ethical/pragmatic asp ect of a PD scenario is presented to the participants, rewards and payoff matrix involved in the PD game are adjusted throughout iterative games properly, this may induce the participants to get involved more in their decisions. 10 Such an experiment would test the hypothesis that decisions with a significant ethical and/or pragmatic value is predictable by neural act ivity preceding the conscious will. These experiments would not only contribute to the neuroscience of free will, but also have the potential to answer some questions, contribute to existing debates and give rise to new questions in the field of philosophy of freedom.

Causal Relationships Implied by Libet's Experiment
Libet's or his successor's studies do not show that RP or any other unconscious neural act ivity determines conscious will, since the relationships found in these studies are not deterministic. They only suggest that there are significant correlations between unconscious neural act ivities and conscious will (Fischborn, 2016). However, considering the computational complexity of the brain, it is not surprising at all that relationships found in these studies are not deterministic or do not imply neurological determinism. After all, there are approximately 100 billion neurons in a human brain and our brain imaging methods are quite limited with resp ect to spatial and temporal resolution (Herculano-Houzel, 2009;Menon, Gati, Goodyear, Luknowsky, & Thomas, 1998;Kim, Richer, & Uğurbil, 1997). Perhaps, neuroscience will not reveal causal relationships between unconscious neural act ivities and conscious will precisely, without methodological revolutions. However, significant correlations found in such a complex system (nervous system), with limited measurement and computational tools, in my opinion, shades doubt on the idea that conscious will is at least partly independent contributor of volitional act ions.
Although there are supporting findings (Fried, Mukamel, & Kreiman, 2011), Libet's experiment does not unequivocally show that the RP is a cause of conscious intention. Mele, (2009), Robert W. Doty (Libet, 1985, p. 542), Tim Bayne (2011), Hans Radder and Gerben Meynen (2012) ar-gue that probably RP is not a cause of conscious intention. 11 Radder and Meynen give important philosophical insight why data collected in Libet-style experiments does not show that RP is a cause of free decisions and act ions; however, there are a few points to discuss in their claims: Even if we could establish a strong correlation between individual RPs and Ws, this fact alone would not be enough for drawing the relevant conclusions. After all, the singing of early birds (who start before sunrise) is strongly correlated with, but definitely does not initiate, the rising of the sun (Radder & Meynen, 2012, p. 12).
It is definitely true that singing of early birds does not initiate the rising of the sun; however, it is highly likely that two events have causal relationships, since there is a consistent and non-accidental correlation. Actually, there is a relationship between early singing behavior of birds and the amount of light they perceive from the environment (Montgomerie & Doucet, 2007, pp. 183-184). Needless to say, the very same event, namely relative movement of the Earth and the Sun causes both increases in the amount of light the birds perceive and sunrise. That is to say this relative movement is the common cause of both early singing behavior of birds and rising of the Sun.
In the same way, in my opinion, the correlation between RP and conscious intention suggests that they are causally linked in a way that has yet to be discerned. In other words, RP may not be a cause or the cause of conscious will as Alexander and colleagues (2015) defend; but it is likely that RP is causally related to conscious will in one way or another: To illustrate, RP and conscious intention might have a common cause, or RP might be a mediatory cause which only partly contributes to conscious will. Regardless of how one thinks about the link between RP and conscious intention, Libet's and his successors' findings suggest that there is a significant causal link between the two events. 12 This likelihood threatens the idea that when we consciously intend to do something, we act ively influence on the future course of our act ions. Libet (1985), Haggard (2005), Roediger et al. (2008), and Shariff et al. (2008) think that if there is a neural event (N) regularly preceding an act ion (A) and associated conscious will (W), then W cannot be the cause of A. This notion is understandable, as N determines A before W comes into existence; however, Mele, states that this reasoning is faulty: The point to be noticed here is that from the datum that some "neural events leading up to the movement" begin before 6 a conscious proximal intention emerges, one cannot legitimately infer that any of the following play no role in producing the movement: the acquisition of the proximal intention, the agent's consciousness of the intention, or the physical correlates of either of these items. After all, when lighting a fuse precedes the burning of the fuse, which in turn precedes a firecracker exploding, we do not infer that the burning of the fuse plays no causal role in producing the explosion (Mele, 2009, p. 71).
Mele is right in that the (neural act ivity underlying) conscious will 13 may be a mediatory cause of act ion that is caused by unconscious neural events; however, even if the conscious will is a mediatory cause of performed act ion, this does not help the existence of free will in a philosophically significant sense. Note that in such a scenario, (assuming that future studies would find deterministic relationships between conscious will and previous unconscious neural act ivity) conscious will, which is determined by unconscious events, determines the act ion, which implies that the unconscious action determines the act ion by transitivity. Even if a conscious will, which is determined by unconscious events, causes an act ion, the act ion determined by unconscious events cannot be chosen freely, as we have no control over the unconscious neural act ivity determining the will and as a result the act ion.
Taking conscious will as a mediatory cause which is determined by some unconscious event reminds one the thought experiments on mind control. Assume that a crazy neuroscientist, Jane, remotely controls the neural mechanism underlying her husband's (John) conscious will by using a device she installed into his brain. She cannot make John sit down or stand up involuntarily, because her device does not let her determine John's motor act ions directly. What she can do, on the other hand, is to make John want to sit down and John's brain does the rest for her. To illustrate, using her device she makes John intensely desire to buy a red rose for herself: In such a case, John does what he (and Jane) wants, if there is no physical reason preventing him from buying a rose. When she wants him to walk out of or come back to the house, she does not (and cannot) determine John's motor act ions, but modifies his conscious will accordingly. In such cases, John's conscious will (determined by Jane) is a mediatory cause of his act ions; but still, it seems unreasonable to claim that his act ions are caused by his free will, since his will is determined by something over which he has no control. This is the reason why if our conscious will is determined by some unconscious events over which we have no control, our conscious will's being the cause of our act ions does not help to save freedom. Libet's (1985; studies suggests that there is a possibility of vetoing a preplanned act ion as late as milliseconds before the act ion is performed, given that individual wants to do so. Doty's (Libet, 1985, p. 542) and Fred Vollmer's (2001) key solution to the problem of freedom lies in this possibility. According to this view, the act of conscious vetoing is a lifesaver for freedom, which could be considered to be in agreement with the libertarian principle of alternative possibilities, as, in a way, it embraces the possibility that an individual could do otherwise if s/he wants to (Kane, 1999;Kane, 1996;Kane, 1989;Ginet, 1996;Van Inwagen, 1983). On the other hand, even if there are some limitations with their study, Elisa Filevich , Simone Kühn and Patrick Haggard's (2013) findings suggest that there are actually neural precursors of decisions whether or not to veto a previously made decision. 14 Ockham's razor also implies that conscious vetoing should be expected to be dependent on physical act ivity rather than being independent of it. If the initial intention to move is dependent on physical events, then the subsequent intention to veto or confirm the initial intention should also be determined by physical events. If this is not the case, two separate theories of conscious intention are required to explain initial intention and later intention to veto. That is to say, despite the fact that possibility of vetoing the predetermined act ion independent of prior neural act ivity is logically possible, I argue that it is not likely due to its ad hoc nature. 15

The Unconscious Intention to Act
The proposed existence of unconscious intentions is another hypothesis that, if proven to be true, may protect the free will from implications of Libet's findings. Arthur C. Danto thinks that consciousness is not a necessary condition for freedom (Libet, 1985, p. 541). Mele, defending a similar position quoting Anthony Marcel: "Oddly, many psychologists seem to assume that intentions are by their nature conscious (as cited in Mele, 2009). " 16 If Danto, Mele, 13 This paper does not hold a dualistic view and assumes that every mental state including conscious will, unconscious intentions, and so on, supervene upon physical. Therefore, whenever it is stated that a mental state is a cause of an action or event, in this paper, it should be understood as the physical events underlying that mental state is the cause of that action or event. 14 The time interval during which an individual is able to veto a previous intention is as short as 100-200 ms, rendering its experimental observation difficult (Schultze-Kraft, et al., 2016;Schurger, Sitt, & Dehaene, 2012;Libet, 1999;. 15 Haggard (2008;2005) provides a detailed scientific and philosophical analysis of the thesis that conscious vetoing is a result of physical activity in the nervous system. 7 and Marcel are correct in that intentions do not need to be conscious, then it is possible that an unconscious intention precedes and causes the RP before the conscious intention to act arises. Note that Danto, Mele, and Marcel's hypothesis that there are unconscious intentions seems to be in agreement with Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus's studies on skillful coping (Radman, 2012;Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1980;2000). Danto exemplifies allegedly free act ions without conscious deliberation between alternatives: "A slow-motion film of Matisse shows the artist making countless decisions with his fingers that at normal sp eed looks like a single confident chalk stroke defining the edge of a leaf " (Libet, 1985, p. 541). Mele, one of the most well-known proponents of unconscious intentions, provides another example, which seems in agreement with those of Danto and the Dreyfuses:  (Mele, 1992, p. 231). There are certainly unconscious behaviors that serve for a purpose. We do not consciously decide how far forward we should put our foot in order to stay balanced while walking, nor does a playmaker necessarily make a conscious decision about the angle she should throw the basketball to deliver it to a teammate. On the other hand, contrary to claims of these critics of Libet, it is not clear that such habitual unconscious behaviors that serve for a purpose are legitimate examples of intentional act ion. 17 First, it can be defended that Mele' s, Danto' s and the Dreyfuses' conception of unconscious intention is self-contradictory, on the premise (which I hold) that intention requires deliberation and deliberation requires consciousness. Frederick A. Siegler (1967, p. 258) writes "(…) a person cannot be unaware of his intention" . 18 For this view in Mele' s example of allegedly unconscious intention, before he unlocked the door he might have well (consciously) decided (for the reasons he is aware of) to get into his room. If so, getting into the room is definitely intentional; but since he did not consciously decide to unlock the door, he did not unconsciously intend to unlock the door. Even if Mele does not accept the premise that all intentions require deliberation, there is another question he and proponents of unconscious intentions need to account for: What is the (introsp ective) evidence that such unconscious intentions exist at all? In other words, how does one figure out that s/he unconsciously intended to act in a certain way? One may well be aware of the outcome act ion resulting from the unconscious intention, yet, by definition, s/he cannot be aware of the unconscious intention. To put it more concretely, why would Mele think that he unconsciously intended to unlock the door, even if he does not have a memory of deliberating or deciding to unlock it? Apparently, Mele might not have been aware that he intended to open the door while he was unconsciously intending to do so. However, at some point after unlocking the door, because he was aware that he did, in fact, unlock the door, which is not a tic or reflex and which serves for a purpose of him, he decides that he must have unconsciously intended to perform it. Only evidence that supports the idea that the unconscious behavior under consideration is intentional is that it serves for a purpose; however, a behavior' s serving for a purpose does not guarantee that it is intentional. Intentional act ions and behaviors serving for a purpose are not one and the same thing. A person' s heart' s beating or a toy robot' s changing direction when it encounters an obstacle serves for a purpose; yet, these behaviors are obviously not intentional. Assuming that deliberation is a necessary condition for intentions, it can be claimed that in Mele' s case, the behavior of unlocking the door is not caused by an intention but a tendency: After gaining many experiences about locked doors and particularly his office door, perhaps, Mele' s nervous system developed an unconscious tendency to unlock his door whenever he consciously intends to get into his room. After all, unlocking the door is a necessary subtask of the task of getting into his office room.
Catherine Raeff (2017) also defends that Libet's experiment does not show that we are not free, in a similar way with Mele: [F]rom a systems perspective, non-conscious aspects of action cannot be isolated from the wider whole of which they are parts, and sometimes, the wider whole of which non-conscious aspects of action are parts is a form of free action. The non-conscious activity does not occur in isolation, but takes on meaning within the wider whole of free action. As such, it does not necessarily mean that the person is not acting freely, but rather that non-conscious activity is integrated into free action. For example, in some cases, voting involves pulling a lever or placing a ballot into a box. A person may have deliberated and decided whom to vote for, and thus he/she is engaging in free action when voting. However, pulling the lever or folding the ballot before putting it in the ballot box may occur quite 16 A similar position is advocated in Dreyfus, 2000. 17 For comprehensive discussions on unconscious intentions and skill acquisition see Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1980;Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 2000;Dreyfus H. L., Responses, 2000 andFreeman, 2001. 18 Even if they do not directly discuss coherency of unconscious intentions, see Davidson, 2001 andCarrier, 1986; which discuss the relationship between intentional actions and subjective reasons to act in a certain way. See also Bayne, 2011 andDeecke, 2012. 8 non-consciously, as the person does not explicitly decide to move his/her arm towards the lever, or explicitly decide to curl his/her fingers around the paper ballot in order to fold it. One could argue that the wider free action of voting is possible in part because a person does not have to be aware of and make conscious decisions about curling his/ her fingers (Raeff, 2017, pp. 17-18).
The fact that a person has unconsciously performed a series of motor act ions during the voting process, undoubtedly does not indicate that voting is not free; however, the behavior of "pulling the lever or folding the ballot before putting it in the ballot box" should indeed be analyzed separately from the wider act of voting. It is my position that in Raeff 's case, even if the act of voting for a particular person is intentional, the subsidiary unconscious behaviors like reaching the lever are not. Note also that in Libet's experiment, timing of the finger flexion is not a subsidiary act ion or choice, but is the decision to be consciously deliberated on.
As it is stated above, I defend that there is no evidence supporting the hypothesis that there are unconscious intentions; however, let' s for the sake of argument, assume that we have two kinds of intentions: unconscious ones and conscious ones. What charact eristics do conscious and unconscious intentions have in common? As unconscious intentions are not observable introsp ectively, the only thing we can conclude they have in common is that they both result in an observable action. Unlike conscious ones, unconscious intentions are not accompanied by a direct conscious deliberation. What is more, evolution (learning/unlearning) of unconscious intentions of a person is substantially different than that of conscious intentions. Evolution of a person' s conscious intentions typically involve a conscious evaluation of the outcomes of past decisions. After making some bad decisions on a subject, let' s say romantic relationships, we hopefully give a break and think on our behavioral pattern thoroughly. And after building some opinions about the possible reason why we fail in relationships, we make a conscious decision to change our future conscious decisions to have better relationships. Or after making bad decisions in stock market, we reanalyze our past decisions to have better judgements in our later options. Evolution of so-called unconscious intentions, on the other hand, is quite different: Neither Mele' s unconscious decision to unlock the door, nor artist' s making countless unconscious decisions(?) with his fingers (in Danto' s example) changes as a result of conscious analyses as straightforward as conscious decisions does. You need some experience on painting to build a skill/habit to paint properly and you cannot change your painting skills/habits simply by a conscious evaluation. The same is true for Mele' s habit to unlock his door. If Mele' s locking system is replaced by a key card system, regardless of his conscious will, his so called unconscious intentional act ions may fail him for a while. If he does not start directing his awareness to the task of unlocking the door, he may find himself reaching his pocket as if he needs his old regu-lar key, instead of using the key card in his wallet. In such a case, he would need some time and pract ice to develop new habits, in order to successfully unlock the new system. In adaptation period, neither Mele, nor the artist can suddenly change their habit by a conscious decision on the subject. What they need is pract ice.
Consequently, these so called unconscious intentions, whatever they might be, are quite different in kind than conscious intentions as buying a new car (after considering the possible outcomes of the act ion) and their position in the philosophical discussion of freedom needs to be reevaluated.
Furthermore, even if such unconscious purposeful behaviors are to be considered intentional for conceptual reasons, they are not free act ions, as it will be demonstrated in the following thought experiment: Let' s say that Megan' s father has had a heart attack and she is urgently driving to the hospital to see him. Naturally, she is not consciously thinking about the condition of the road, when to shift gears, or the sp eed limit; but she is successfully coping with these details unconsciously. Now, are countless unconscious behaviors performed while driving freely chosen or intentional? Or are they just preprogrammed purposeful behaviors? In order to answer the question, let' s further assume that the hospital is very close to Meghan' s office, and that because she normally drives to her office on the same road used to get to the hospital, thinking about her father' s condition, she turns onto the wrong street and drives toward her office rather than the hospital, until she recognizes that she took the wrong turn. As a result, she wastes some time in an emergency situation. Now, in this instance did she choose to drive towards her office instead of the hospital and if she did was it a free choice? In other words, did Megan choose to lose some time on the road towards her office and reach the hospital later than she could? Freedom and responsibility require being aware of the possible outcomes of performed act ions but unconscious behaviors do not satisfy this requirement. When Megan mistakenly turned towards her office instead of the hospital, she clearly was not aware of the consequences of her behaviors. At that moment, she was not even aware that she had any choices, but skillfully (in Dreyfus' s sense), though mistakenly, drove towards her office under the direction of her unconscious neural act ivities. By not consciously attending to the road, her "choices" were relinquished to her unconscious nervous system, which safely accomplishes the task of driving in the lack of contribution of conscious abilities. There was no deliberation and she was not aware of the outcomes of her possible behaviors. Taking the wrong turn was not a choice and clearly not a free choice. Unconscious behaviors and so-called unconscious intentions are not caused by free will, since the agents are not aware of consequences of their unconscious behaviors while they perform them . Despite his endeavor to reconcile free will with Libet' s experiment, Gilberto Gomes also notes that only act ions that are decided and intended consciously "should be considered as really free" (1999, p. 75).
On the other hand, Gomes (1999;2007) suggests a promising conceptual analysis of free will to reconcile Libet' s experiment with freedom. He defends that even if certain un-9 conscious neural act ivities determine conscious self to make a choice, since these neural act ivities are parts of the workings of the self (or "I"), it can be said that it is the self (I) who makes the decision. In this view, even if it is/were true that RP determines an individual' s decisions, since RP is a part of the workings of the self, it can still be said that it is the self who makes the decision. Gomes' analysis is promising to clarify certain conceptual problems about free will, however, I do not agree with his conclusion on the problem of free will, because I hold the view that unconscious brain act ivities should not be taken as parts of the self (I). In the case of Libet-style experiments, these neural precursors of conscious will are observed significantly earlier (in some experiments 7 to 10 seconds) than conscious will, which suggests that they are not parts of the conscious will. That is why, in my view, they are not likely to be parts of self either. Therefore, if the premise that self refers to brain act ivity corresponding to only conscious processes is held (as I do), the experimental findings of Libet and his successors pose a challenge to free will: if the self and its decisions are determined by neural act ivities which are not accompanied by consciousness, then the self is determined to do what it does, because of something external, namely unconscious neural precursors of it.
Please note also that there is no reason to believe that in Libet's experiment, participants' intentions to flex their finger/wrist were unconscious. As it is stated above, the act ion of flexion at a desired time was not a subsidiary act ion but the act ion to make a conscious decision about and unconscious neural act ivity did precede this particular act ion consciously chosen among from multiple alternatives. The participants reported that they consciously performed the act ion. This type of act ion is fundamentally different than Megan taking the wrong turn. Megan turning the wrong way was an unconscious automatic response to the circumstances she was in, while her attention was directed to condition of her father.
In this section, dedicated to (so called) unconscious intentions, four objections to Libet' s critics have been raised: First, it is argued that unconscious intention can be defended to be a self-contradictory concept, on the premises that intention requires deliberation and deliberation requires awareness. Second, it is claimed that whatever these unconscious intentions are, they are not observable or falsifiable. What is more, even if the existence of such unconscious intentions is accepted for conceptual reasons, they are not caused by free will and not relevant to the problem of free will and responsibility. And finally, there is no reason to believe that in Libet' s experiment, the participant' s choice of timing was unconsciously intended; actually, the participants reported that they consciously intended to flex their finger/wrist at a particular time.

Conclusion
Libet's contribution to the study of free will continues to influence the philosophical debate on free will-and rightly so. One of the most prominent philosophical objections to Libet's and follow up studies is that the act ions studied in the experiments involve little in the way of ethical and/or pragmatic value. In this paper, it is defended that all voluntary act ions involving a conscious consideration have ethical and/ or pragmatic value from the persp ective of the subject. Otherwise, the subject would have no motivation to act or at least to deliberate. In the same vain, finger/wrist flexion, as used in Libet's experimental model, has ethical and/or pragmatic value(s); therefore, there is no reason justifying that his findings cannot be applied to other voluntary act ions. In other words, the difference in degree of the ethical and/or pragmatic value between any two act ions does not constitute a qualitative difference making them different in kinds.
Nonetheless, additional research based on act ions with a greater degree of ethical and/or pragmatic value than simple finger/wrist flexion would undoubtedly contribute to the debate on free will. The experiment described in the section 3, which is based on a prisoner dilemma scenario, is an example of how to use an act ion as simple as finger/wrist flexion, but with an obviously higher degree of ethical and/or pragmatic value, to study free will in a laboratory setting.
The thesis that unconscious intentions precede both conscious will and RP is appealing to some philosophers. If they are right, unconscious intentions or neural act ivities underlying it could be the driving force for the act ions studied in the Libet's and his successors' experiments; however, it is argued in this paper that the concept of "unconscious intention" is self-contradictory and existence of such intentions is not experimentally grounded. Moreover, act ions resulting from so called unconscious intentions fail to satisfy certain criteria for freedom of the will: Since they are unconscious by definition, subjects are not aware of their consequences and do not possess any control over them. Both being aware of the consequences of choices and having control over the choices (and resulting act ion) seem to be necessary conditions of freedom.
The ability to consciously veto an act ion, which Libet concedes to exist, in consideration of its ad hoc nature, does not help free will either. After RP is produced and conscious intention has arisen, individuals can decide not to perform the act ion; however, this does not exclude the possibility that such vetoing is neurologically predetermined, as was the initial will to perform the act ion. There is an experimental study suggesting that decisions whether or not to veto an act ion also have neural precursors (Filevich, Kühn, & Haggard, 2013).
Libet' s and his followers' findings are strong evidences that support physicalism and anti-libertarianism. As there is a physical state consistently preceding conscious will, I agree with the abduction that there is a physical cause for the conscious will and neural events underlying it. Libet' s experimental findings have implications beyond the metaphysical assumption that every event, including mental events, are caused by physical. When we choose an act ion to perform, we intuitively believe that from among the alternative possible act ions, the act ion we do perform is (at least partly) determined at that very moment it is consciously chosen. Libet' s experiment and subsequent studies decrease the credibility of this very intuitive assump-tion, which is of particular importance to libertarian (metaphysically) philosophers. Time gap between the precursors of conscious will and conscious will itself makes it harder to construct a libertarian concept of freedom, which would reconcile with the Libet-style experiments.
Perhaps, the conscious will is not as important for determining what act ions we perform as is commonly thought, but is no more than a neurologically predetermined (in a broad sense), mediating cause of the act ions we think we choose to do.