We all seem to think that we do the acts we do because we consciously choose to do them. This commonsense view is thrown into dispute by Benjamin Libet's eyebrow-raising experiments, which seem to suggest that conscious will occurs not before but after the start of brain activity that produces physical action.

Introduction, by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Lynn Nadel 1 - Benjamin Libet, "Do We have Free Will?" 2 - Adina L. Roskies, "Why Libet's Studies Don't Pose a Threat to Free Will" 3 - Alfred R. Mele, "Libet on Free Will: Readiness Potentials, Decisions, and Awareness" 4 - Susan Pockett and Suzanne Purdy, "Are Voluntary Movements Initiated Preconsciously? The Relationships between Readiness Potentials, Urges, and Decisions" 5 - William P. Banks and Eve A. Isham, "Do We Really Know What We are Doing? Implications of Reported Time of Decision for Theories of Volition" 6 - Elisabeth Pacherie and Patrick Haggard, "What are Intentions?" 7 - Mark Hallett, "Volition: How Physiology Speaks to the Issue of Responsibility" 8 - John-Dylan Haynes, "Beyond Libet: Long-term Prediction of Free Choices from Neuroimaging Signals" 9 - F. Carota, M. Desmurget, and A. Sirigu, "Forward Modeling Mediates Motor Awareness" 10 - Tashina Graves, Brian Maniscalco, and Hakwan Lau, "Volition and the Function of Consciousness" 11 - Deborah Talmi and Chris D. Frith, "Neuroscience, Free Will, and Responsibility" 12 - Jeffrey P. Ebert and Daniel M. Wegner, "Bending Time to One's Will" 13 - Thalia Wheatley and Christine Looser, "Prospective Codes Fulfilled: A Potential Neural Mechanism of the Will" 14 - Terry Horgan, "The Phenomenology of Agency and the Libet Results" 15 - Thomas Nadelhoffer, "The Threat of Shrinking Agency and Free Will Disillusionism" 16 - Gideon Yaffe, "Libet and the Criminal Law's Voluntary Act Requirement" 17 - Larry Alexander, "Criminal and Moral Responsibility and the Libet Experiments" 18 - Michael S. Moore, "Libet's Challenge(s) to Responsible Agency" 19 - Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, "Lessons from Libet"

Selling point: Current Interest: The issues addressed in this book have attracted a great deal of attention recently because of striking novel developments in neuroscience. Selling point: Practical importance: The theses advanced here have sweeping implications for how we handle criminals and other wrongdoers, not only inside the legal sytem but also in everyday life. Selling point: Interdisciplinary: This collection brings together contributors from fields that rarely speak to each other, but here they collectively produce a vision that transcends their individual fields. Contributors include Larry Alexander, William Banks, Chris Frith, Patrick Haggard, Mark Hallett, John-Dylan Haynes, Terry Horgan, Hakwan Lau, Benjamin Libet, Al Mele, Michael Moore, Lynn Nadel, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Elisabeth Pacherie, Susan Pockett, Adina Roskies, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Angela Sirigu, Dan Wegner, Thalia Wheatley, and Gideon Yaffe. Selling point: Prominence: The contributors are experts at the top of their fields. Selling point: Accessability: The essays were edited carefully in order to facilitate understanding by non-experts.

WALTER SINNOTT-ARMSTRONG is Chauncey Stillman Professor in Practical Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and in the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University as well as Co-director of the MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Program. Widely published, his current research focuses on empirical moral psychology, free will and responsibility, and law and neuroscience. LYNN NADEL is Regent's Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona. Known for his work on the role of the hippocampus in cognitive mapping, and the multiple trace theory of memory, his current research focuses on the cognitive neuroscience of episodic memory and memory reconsolidation.

Selling point: Current Interest: The issues addressed in this book have attracted a great deal of attention recently because of striking novel developments in neuroscience. Selling point: Practical importance: The theses advanced here have sweeping implications for how we handle criminals and other wrongdoers, not only inside the legal sytem but also in everyday life. Selling point: Interdisciplinary: This collection brings together contributors from fields that rarely speak to each other, but here they collectively produce a vision that transcends their individual fields. Contributors include Larry Alexander, William Banks, Chris Frith, Patrick Haggard, Mark Hallett, John-Dylan Haynes, Terry Horgan, Hakwan Lau, Benjamin Libet, Al Mele, Michael Moore, Lynn Nadel, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Elisabeth Pacherie, Susan Pockett, Adina Roskies, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Angela Sirigu, Dan Wegner, Thalia Wheatley, and Gideon Yaffe. Selling point: Prominence: The contributors are experts at the top of their fields. Selling point: Accessability: The essays were edited carefully in order to facilitate understanding by non-experts.