Thank you very much for your reply and for your time.

1. I think the distinction between the feeling of choice and the feeling of decision is artificial. I do not feel anything essentially different when I decide that right now I feel like reading a book (and not 5 minutes ago or 5 minutes from now) as opposed to when I choose between tea and coffee. I would even go so far as to say that when I make a moral decision as well (say, whether or not to cheat on an exam that is very important for me to succeed in), I feel a difference in the intensity of the deliberation, but not in essence. As you wrote in your book, “I think, therefore I am” or “I think, therefore I choose” (forgive the inaccuracy of the phrasing), as an existential-essential-primary feeling that accompanies us—it exists in every choice or decision we make, and it seems strange to me to say that when we decide it is an illusion, but when we choose (especially a moral choice) it is a real feeling.

2. If the problem with the experiments really is the method of the experiment (decision rather than choice / trivial choice rather than moral choice), then it is not hard to imagine an experiment that could use the proper method and give us a clear answer to our question. I have a feeling that even in such an experiment, the researchers would discover some electrical potential in the brain that precedes the person’s report of his choice. In any case, this is certainly testable.

3. I think there is no room for comparison to the sense of sight (or any other sense). With sight, we know from external evidence that in the overwhelming majority of cases our eyes do not mislead us. If I see an apple, my friend also sees an apple. I can touch the apple, smell it, and taste it, etc. I have much supporting evidence that what I see really exists and is not an illusion. A visual illusion exists, but it is the exception.
As for the feeling of freedom of the will, I have no external evidence supporting that this is a real feeling and not an illusion. All I have is my inner feeling. If in all the significant experiments conducted so far, the external evidence has indicated that perhaps my feeling is an illusion, it is hard to say that this is merely the exception, as with a visual illusion. If my confidence in my inner feeling is shaken, then the foundation of the tower on which we built our belief in freedom of the will is shaken.

4. Despite all the above, I hold a libertarian position. I think it is possible that the flaw in the experiments lies elsewhere, which as best I remember you mention in your book but dismiss. I think it is possible that freedom of the will operates at a deeper level and not one that is immediately conscious. But from this it does not follow that one should dismiss human moral responsibility. Just as some time passes between the moment I bite into an apple and the moment I enjoy its taste—if someone were to connect electrodes to my brain, he would probably see a time gap between a certain potential arising and my report of the feeling of enjoyment from the apple. So too here: the choice operated (in the soul?), a potential arose, and only afterward did I become aware of it. But I chose, just as I bit into the apple; there is simply a certain time gap between the choice (of the soul?) and my awareness of it. It is as though there are two different parts of me, but I am responsible for both and they affect one another. If that is indeed so, then of course no experiment I can think of right now could show or refute it. Exactly as if the act of eating the apple were hidden, they would show in an experiment that a brain potential precedes the report of a feeling of enjoyment, and they would think that this is what started the process. You spoke about this in your book, but it seems to me that you dismissed that possibility because it does not allow moral responsibility to be attributed to the person. About that I am not sure.

5. It’s really great that there is someone like you with whom one can have discussions like this. I appreciate it very much, and thank you very much.

Hello Tzvika.

1. First, I do not think so. Here there is deliberation, and here there is none. But beyond that, my claim is that there is choice even at the moment of decision, as in Libet, except that there we will always choose what the potential dictates because there is no reason to decide otherwise. So it is no wonder that it feels the same. We really do choose in both cases.

2. I formulated such an experiment in the relevant chapter in the book. By the way, there I showed why it would be almost impossible to conduct a conclusive experiment. See there. But when they do it, we’ll talk. For now we are dealing with intuitions, and it is hard for me to argue with intuitions.

3. You have no supporting evidence that sight reflects reality, only that the sense of taste or touch also brings you to a similar conclusion. But when you ask about the entire sensory system, you will see that it is the same problem. You have no supporting sensations for the reliability of the sensory system, because everything you perceive is through it. And once again we have returned to the case of choice.
By the way, the intuition that there are binding moral values also supports the existence of freedom of the will. Here too there is cross-confirmation, as with the senses. There are several intuitions that support one another, as I wrote in my book.

4. I did indeed reject that. And the reason is that even if there is choice deep within us, that says nothing about moral responsibility. The reason is that responsibility leads to judgment and punishment, and those are relevant only to conscious decisions. There is no point in judging or punishing for instinctive decisions. Moreover, punishment would not help either, because punishment would lead me to choose differently next time. But if I do not choose consciously and it just happens on its own, what good would punishment do?
And beyond all that, why does your difficulty not arise with respect to the view you are proposing? If regarding conscious choice we have an immediate feeling that this is indeed so, then regarding unconscious choice we do not even have that. So why assume it exists at all? What you are proposing is under a far more serious attack than my view. There is no reason in the world to assume it.

Thank you very much.
I’ll go back and reread the chapter.
Have a kosher and joyful Passover, to you and your family.
Zvi