Resources that fit

Units and bundles for this topic

Sartre and Neuroscience is the unit for free will and the Libet debate. The Existentialism Bundle adds Sartre on existence, anguish and bad faith, and de Beauvoir and Camus for less than four single units, and Upper Secondary Complete covers all 24 units for whole-course planning.

The teaching problem

Where free will lessons usually go wrong

The first problem is vocabulary. Students use "free," "determined" and "predictable" as if they meant the same thing. The unit starts with a simple contrast: a friend accurately predicts your food order, and someone else forces you to order through threats. In both cases the order is known in advance, but only one of them interferes with your freedom. That case lets you separate freedom of action, acting on your own reasons without coercion, from a stronger freedom of will that may require being able to choose otherwise. It also shows that determinism and predictability differ. A deterministic system can be hard to predict, and good prediction alone does not disprove freedom.

The second problem is the Libet experiment itself. In classic Libet tasks, people make simple spontaneous movements and then report when they became aware of the intention to move. The averaged readiness potential begins before that reported time. The unit's teaching timeline uses model values, signal onset at −550 ms, reported intention at −200 ms and movement at 0 ms, and asks one question: what extra premise turns that order into "the decision was already made"? The answer needs two assumptions, that signal onset marks a completed decision and that reports of awareness are reliable. Both can be challenged, and a finger movement is not a career decision.

The third problem is jumping from neuroscience straight to a verdict on responsibility. The unit uses the 2012 accumulator model by Schurger, Sitt and Dehaene, in which spontaneous neural fluctuations drift until they cross a threshold. When many such trajectories are aligned at movement onset and averaged, they produce a rising signal that no single trial has to show. That changes how the readiness potential can be read, but it does not prove freedom either. Only then do students compare Sartre, for whom freedom means taking a stance toward possibilities and answering for one's projects, with what neuroscience actually measures, avoiding both hostility to science and premature reductionism.

A sequence that works

A teachable sequence on free will and the brain

These five steps follow the unit's four sections and its practice assessments.

1. Which freedom?Open with the predicted food order and the coerced one. Students separate knowledge, causation and coercion, then write one compatibilist and one incompatibilist question about the same case. This step makes sure everyone knows which concept of freedom a study would have to address.
2. The Libet paradigmStudents draw the teaching timeline and mark three layers: what was measured, what was reported and what was interpreted. They name the extra premises behind "the decision was already made" and judge how far a spontaneous finger movement can be generalized to a deliberate life choice.
3. The accumulator modelStudents sketch three fictional signal trajectories that fluctuate differently and end at a threshold, align them at the endpoint, and see that the average looks smoother than any of them. The guide is clear: the model changes how the signal is read but does not settle the metaphysical question.
4. Comparing with SartreThree positions: every decision has neural conditions; therefore reasons are ineffective and responsibility is meaningless; responsibility requires evaluating reasons even when this is physically realized. Students test whether the second follows from the first, and why the third fits compatibilism but should not simply be attributed to Sartre.
5. Testing a headlineThe practice assessments give students a headline claiming a brain scan ends the debate about responsibility, based on a study of spontaneous button presses that omits accuracy, sample and alternative models, and a fictional study predicting simple choices with 65 percent accuracy. Students reconstruct the missing premises in writing.

Where it goes wrong

Misconceptions to plan for

Cross-curricular

Linking philosophy with psychology and biology

This topic sits naturally between philosophy and the sciences. The unit's concept page defines determinism, compatibilism, the readiness potential and operationalization, the last of which students in psychology courses will recognize from research methods. The Libet and accumulator lessons ask the same questions a psychology class would: what exactly was measured, how was awareness reported, and what does averaging across trials do to the data. A science colleague could co-teach the second or third lesson without changing the materials. The jigsaw page, with home and expert groups, can be used to split the four sections across a mixed class and then bring the findings together.

Every timeline and trajectory in the unit is labeled as a teaching model, not original data, so students practice reading research claims without being misled about real results. The teacher guide lists the Schurger et al. papers from 2012 and 2021 and Sartre's Existentialism Is a Humanism for further reading. The unit title names a comparison of positions, not a historical debate between Sartre and later researchers, which is worth saying explicitly in class. It also prevents the common mix-up in which students treat a 2012 model as a reply written to Sartre.

Wider strand

Free will within a unit on existentialism

If you teach existentialism, this unit works best after students already know Sartre's basic claims. Sartre and the Priority of Existence covers existence before essence, using a pair of scissors and a student whose family has already picked her profession. Anguish, Abandonment and Despair covers bad faith through cases like Jonas, who picks an adviser he knows will back his plan and then says he had no choice. Those ideas make the comparison in the fourth Libet lesson much sharper. Bad faith in particular gives students a test for the headline claim that neuroscience removes responsibility: is it a description of the brain, or an excuse?

Sartre, de Beauvoir and Camus then widens the question from individual freedom to concrete freedom and the absurd. One case contrasts two people facing their first job decision, one with three training offers and one with only one because of money. Together the four units let students see that "Are we free?" is several questions at once: about the brain, about responsibility, and about the social conditions in which choices are made. Each unit stands alone, with its own concept page and practice assessments, so you can also teach the Libet unit on its own.

Questions teachers ask

Frequently asked questions