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Recent scientific findings about human decision making would seem to threaten
the traditional concept of the individual conscious will. The will is threatened
from "below" by the discovery that our apparently spontaneous actions are actually
controlled and initiated from below the level of our conscious awareness, and from
"above" by the recognition that we adapt our actions according to social dynamics
of which we are seldom aware. In Distributed Cognition and the Will, leading
philosophers and behavioral scientists consider how much, if anything, of the
traditional concept of the individual conscious will survives these discoveries,
and they assess the implications for our sense of freedom and responsibility.
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