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Intention, Agency & Events in the Brain
 Grant Gillett, Professor of Biomedical Ethics at the University of Otago
May 28, 2007 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Centre for Ethics, University of Toronto
Rm. 200, Gerald Larkin Building, 15 Devonshire Place, Toronto
What is an intention to act? One popular view is that it is an event in the brain preceding a voluntary action and causing that action. As such it is subject to deterministic interpretations. Professor Gillett will critique that view and suggest that an intention to act is not an event at all but itself an interpretation of an evolving dynamic interaction between a person and the world which enlists environmental contingencies into that person's plans and projects in a certain way in accordance with the significance that a person attaches to the things around here. As such it is incompatible with a deterministic reading of human behaviour. |
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