Free-will theories face an infinite regress defeating moral accountability

Evidence

Libet (1999) voiced concern over the automaton view of human nature and the characterization of humans as blissful illusionists. He proposed a du-al-control system in which individuals do not control the neural forerunner of a voluntary act, but they can consciously control whether to enact it or veto it. Given this “conscience veto,” people can be held morally responsible for their conduct. Libet’s critics vetoed his conscious-control function with the regress argument that the conscience veto is itself the product of preceding unconscious neural events. Thus, individuals cannot be held accountable for what they cannot consciously control. This view strips humans of any capacity for conscious control of behavior. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 318

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 318