Whether or not intentional actions initiated and formed by free will exist, it can be shown that lack of belief in such behavior makes people behave less ethically and less law-abidingly (they cheat more). Therefore, this phenomenon—often called a necessary illusion—is crucial to moral as well as legal social-life-forming activities. However, societal coherence based on this kind of illusion is indeed very fragile, and thus we would be better off if we could prove that the quality of free will in intentional activity is more than a convenient illusion. This article presents an interdisciplinary model within the domain of criminal law and psychology explaining human intentional actions based on a scientific notion of free will as a real-world phenomenon.
AshworthA.J. (1987). Belief, intent and criminal liability. In EekelaarJ.BellJ. (Eds.), Oxford essays in jurisprudence (pp. 1–33). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
4.
AstingtonJ.W.GopnikA. (1991). Theoretical explanations of children’s understanding of the mind. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9, 7–31.
5.
BaerJ. (2008). Free will requires determinism. In BaerJ.KaufmanJ.C.BaumeisterR.F. (Eds.), Are we free? Psychology and free will (pp. 304–310). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
6.
BaldwinD.A.BairdJ.A. (1999). Action analysis: A gateway to intentional inference. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
7.
BanduraA. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
8.
BanduraA. (2008). Reconstruction of “free will” from the agentic perspective. In BaerJ.KaufmanJ.C.BaumeisterR.F. (Eds.), Are we free? Psychology and free will (pp. 86–127). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
9.
BarresiJ.MooreC. (1996). Intentional relations and social understanding. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 19, 107–154.
10.
BartschK.WellmanH. (1989). Young children’s attribution of action to beliefs and desires. Child Development, 60, 946–964.
11.
BaumeisterR.F. (2008a). Free will, consciousness and cultural animals. In BaerJ.KaufmanJ.C.BaumeisterR.F. (Eds.), Are we free? Psychology and free will (pp. 65–85). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
12.
BaumeisterR. F. (2008b). Free will in scientific psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, 14–19.
13.
BedfordE. (1966). Intention and law. The Journal of Philosophy, 63, 654–656.
14.
BertelsenP. (1999). Free will in psychology: In search of a genuine compatibilism. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 19, 41–77.
15.
BertelsenP. (2005). Free will, consciousness and self: Anthropological perspectives on psychology. New York, NY: Berghahn.
16.
BichardM.H.CampbellD. (2000). Emergence. In AndersP.B.EmmecheC.FinnemannN.O.ChristiansenP.V. (Eds.), Downward causation: Minds, bodies and matter (pp. 322–348). Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press.
17.
BussA.R. (1978). Causes and reasons in attribution theory: A conceptual critique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1311–1321.
18.
ClowardR.A.OhlinL. (1960). Delinquency and opportunity: A theory of delinquent gangs. New York, NY: Free Press.
19.
CohenK. (1955). Delinquent boys. New York, NY: Free Press.
DennettD.C. (1984). Elbow room: The varieties of free will worth wanting. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
22.
DuffR.A. (1990). Intention, agency and criminal liability: Philosophy of action and the criminial law. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
23.
DworkinG. (1989). The concept of autonomy. In ChristmanJ. (Ed.), The inner citadel: Essays on individual autonomy (pp. 54–62). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
24.
ElliottD.S.HuizingaD.AgetonS.S. (1985). Explaining delinquency and drug use. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
25.
EmmecheC.KøppeS.StjernfeltF. (2000). Levels, emergence, and three versions of downward causation. In AndersenP.B.EmmecheC.FinnemannN.O.ChristiansenP.V. (Eds.), Downward causation: Minds, bodies and matter (pp. 13–34). Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press.
26.
EysenckS.B.G.EysenckH.J. (1977). Personality differences between prisoners and controls. Psychological Reports, 40, 1023–1028.
27.
FrankfurtH.G. (1989). Freedom of the will and the concept of a person. In ChristemanJ. (Ed.), The inner citadel: Essays on individual autonomy (pp. 63–76). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
28.
FreudS. (1941). Criminals from a sense of guilt. In StracheyJ. (Ed. & Trans.), The complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 14, pp. 332–333). London, UK: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1915)
29.
GloverE. (1960). The roots of crime. London, UK: Imago.
30.
GomesG. (2007). Free will, the self, and the brain. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 25, 221–234.
31.
GrimP. (2007). Free will in context: A contemporary philosophical perspective. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 25, 183–201.
32.
HartH.L.A. (1968). Intention and punishment. In HartH.L.A. (Ed.), Punishment and responsibility (pp. 113–135). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
33.
HirschiT. (1969). Causes of delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press.
34.
HowardG.S. (2008). Whose will? How free? In BaerJ.KaufmanJ.C.BaumeisterR.F. (Eds.), Are we free? Psychology and free will (pp. 260–274). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
35.
HudginsW.PrenticeN. (1973). Moral judgment in delinquent and nondelinquent adolescents and their mothers. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 82, 145–152.
36.
KalishC. (1998). Reasons and causes: Children’s understanding of conformity to social rules and physical laws. Child Development, 69, 706–720.
37.
KennyA. (1973). The history of intention in ethics. In KennyA. (Ed.), The anatomy of the soul: Historical essays in the philosophy of mind (pp. 129–147). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
38.
KihlstromJ.F. (2008). The automaticity juggernaut—or, are we automatons after all? In BaerJ.KaufmanJ.C.BaumeisterR.F. (Eds.), Are we free? Psychology and free will (pp. 155–180). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
39.
KimJ. (2000). Making sense of downward causation. In AndersP.B.EmmecheC.FinnemannN.O.ChristiansenP.V. (Eds.), Downward causation. Minds, bodies and matter (pp. 305–321). Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press.
40.
LibetB.FreemanA.SutherlandK. (Eds.). (1999). The volitional brain: Towards a neuroscience of free will. Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic.
41.
MalleB.F. (1999). How people explain behavior: A new theoretical framework. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3, 3–48.
42.
MalleB.F.KnobeJ. (1997). The folk concept of intentionality. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 33, 101–121.
43.
MalleB.F.MosesL.J.BaldwinD.A. (2001). Intentions and intentionality: Foundations of social cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
44.
MarshallJ. (1968). Intention in law and society. New York, NY: Funk and Wagnall.
45.
MaselliM.D.AltrocchiJ. (1969). Attribution of intent. Psychological Bulletin, 71, 445–454.
46.
MillerW.R.AtencioD.J. (2008). Free will as a proportion of variance. In BaerJ.KaufmanJ.C.BaumeisterR.F. (Eds.), Are we free? Psychology and free will (pp. 275–295). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
47.
MorenoA.UmerezJ. (2000). Downward causation at the core of living organization. In AndersP.B.EmmecheC.FinnemannN.O.ChristiansenP.V. (Eds.), Downward causation: Minds, bodies and matter (pp. 99–117). Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press.
48.
MorkelD.W. (1982). On the distinction between recklessness and conscious negligence. American Journal of Comparative Law, 30, 325–333.
49.
MorseS.J. (2007). The nonproblem of free will in forensic psychiatry and psychology. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 25, 203–220.
50.
PatteeH.H. (2000). Causation, control, and the evolution of complexity. In AndersP.B.EmmecheC.FinnemannN.O. (Eds.), Downward causation: Minds, bodies and matter (pp. 63–78). Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press.
51.
RoedigerH.L.GoodeM.K.ZarombF.M. (2008). Free will and the control of action. In BaerJ.KaufmanJ.C.BaumeisterR.F. (Eds.), Are we free? Psychology and free will (pp. 204–225). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
52.
ShariffA.F.SchoolerJ.VohsK.D. (2008). The hazards of claiming to have solved the hard problem of free will. In BaerJ.KaufmanJ.C.BaumeisterR.F. (Eds.), Are we free? Psychology and free will (pp. 181–204). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
53.
SimontonD.K. (2008). Willing creation: The yin and yang of the creative life. In BaerJ.KaufmanJ.C.BaumeisterR.F. (Eds.), Are we free? Psychology and free will (pp. 296–303). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
54.
StrawsonP.F. (1974). Freedom and resentment and other essays. London, UK: Methuen.
55.
TaylorC. (1982). Responsibility for self. In WatsonG. (Ed.), Free will (pp. 111–126). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
56.
van DuijnM.BemS. (2005). On the alleged illusion of conscious will. Philosophical Psychology, 18, 699–714.
57.
VohsK.D.SchoolerJ.W. (2008). The value of believing in free will: Encouraging a belief in determinism increases cheating. Psychological Science, 19, 49–54.
58.
WegnerD. (2002). The illusion of conscious will. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
59.
WegnerD.M. (2008). Self is magic. In BaerJ.KaufmanJ.C.BaumeisterR.F. (Eds.), Are we free? Psychology and free will (pp. 226–247). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
60.
WhiteP.A. (1991). Ambiguity in the internal/external distinction in causal attribution. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 27, 259–270.
61.
WilliamsG. (1965). The mental element in crime. Jerusalem, Israel: Magnes.
62.
WilsonJ.Q.HerrnsteinR. (1985). Crime and human nature. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
63.
WilsonT.D. (2002). Strangers to ourselves: Discovering the adaptive unconscious. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
YochelsonS.SamenowS.E. (1976). The criminal personality. New York, NY: Aronson.
66.
ZaibertL. A. (1998). Intentionality, voluntariness and criminal liability: A historical-philosophical analysis. Buffalo Criminal Law Review, 1, 340–382.
67.
ZelazoP.D.AstingtonJ.W.OlsonD.R. (Eds.). (1999). Developing theories of intention: Social understanding and self-control. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
