NEUROETHICS, FREE WILL AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY: NEUROSCIENCE DOES NOT PROVE THAT FREE WILL IS AN ILLUSION

With the remarkable advance of neuroscience in course since the past decade and the performance of neuroscientific experiments that have shed some lights in traditional philosophical questions such as altruism, generosity and morality, it has been suggested the hypothesis that neuroscience proves th...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Nahra, Cinara
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2013
País:Brasil
Institución:Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPEL)
Repositorio:Dissertatio - Revista de Filosofia (Online)
Idioma:portugués
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.ufpel:article/8626
Acceso en línea:https://periodicos.ufpel.edu.br/index.php/dissertatio/article/view/8626
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Neuroethics
neuroscience
free will
moral responsibility.
Neuroética
neurociência
livre arbítrio
responsabilidade moral.
Descripción
Sumario:With the remarkable advance of neuroscience in course since the past decade and the performance of neuroscientific experiments that have shed some lights in traditional philosophical questions such as altruism, generosity and morality, it has been suggested the hypothesis that neuroscience proves that free will is an illusion. One of the main experiments that would corroborate this hypothesis is discussed in the article “Unconscious determinant of free decisions in the human brain” signed by a group of neuroscientists lead by C. Soon and H. Heinze and published in Nature in 2008. Our aim here is to show that a) the results of this experiment can not be used as evidence that free will does not exist and b) put forward others interpretative hypothesis for the results of this study. Eventually I discuss what recent studies on neuroscience can teach us about moral responsibility.