According to our commonsense conception of agency, our reasons and conscious intentions tend to make a real difference to how we act (D’Andrade 1987; Malle 2004, for instance). This assumption is part and parcel of the standard theory and of numerous psychological theories of intentional action and motivation (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975; Locke and Latham 1990; Heckhausen 1991; Gollwitzer 1993; Austin and Vancouver 1996, for instance). There are, however, various empirical findings from psychology and cognitive neuroscience that have been taken to show that this commonsense assumption is unwarranted, and that have raised interesting and challenging questions concerning the role of consciousness in the initiation and guidance of agency. This section provides an overview of the most relevant research.