Is free will just an illusion supported by neuroscience?
Free will is an illusion, and neuroscience increasingly supports that view. Libet's experiments in the 1980s showed brain activity preceding conscious decision by up to half a second, and later studies have refined but not overturned that finding. If our choices are determined by prior causes—genetic, environmental, neural—then moral responsibility seems to rest on shaky ground. Yet I still feel like I'm choosing when I pick coffee over tea, so is that feeling just a convenient fiction we've built to make society function?