Is Neuroscience the Death of Free Will?
The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless. Is free will an illusion? Some leading scientists think so. For instance, in 2002 the psychologist Daniel Wegner wrote, “It seems we are agents. It seems we cause what we do… It is sobering and ultimately accurate to call all this an illusion.” Many neuroscientists are employing a flawed notion of free will. Such proclamations make the news; after all, if free will is dead, then moral and legal responsibility may be close behind. Indeed, free will matters in part because it is a precondition for deserving blame for bad acts and deserving credit for achievements. Here, I’ll explain why neuroscience is not the death of free will and does not “wreak havoc on our sense of moral and legal responsibility,” extending a discussion begun in Gary Gutting’s recent Stone column. Leif Parsons We should be wary of defining things out of existence. So, does neuroscience mean the death of free will?
Science/Nature | Altruism 'in-built' in humans
Infants as young as 18 months show altruistic behaviour, suggesting humans have a natural tendency to be helpful, German researchers have discovered. In experiments reported in the journal Science, toddlers helped strangers complete tasks such as stacking books. Young chimps did the same, providing the first direct evidence of altruism in non-human primates. Altruism may have evolved six million years ago in the common ancestor of chimps and humans, the study suggests. Just rewards Scientists have long debated what leads people to "act out of the goodness of their hearts" by helping non-relatives regardless of any benefits for themselves. Human society depends on people being able to collaborate with others - donating to charity, paying taxes and so on - and many scientists have argued that altruism is a uniquely human function, hard-wired into our brains. "It's been claimed chimpanzees act mainly for their own ends; but in our experiment, there was no reward and they still helped." Lost spoon
Biological Altruism
1. Altruism and the Levels of Selection The problem of altruism is intimately connected with questions about the level at which natural selection acts. If selection acts exclusively at the individual level, favouring some individual organisms over others, then it seems that altruism cannot evolve, for behaving altruistically is disadvantageous for the individual organism itself, by definition. However, it is possible that altruism may be advantageous at the group level. A group containing lots of altruists, each ready to subordinate their own selfish interests for the greater good of the group, may well have a survival advantage over a group composed mainly or exclusively of selfish organisms. The idea that group selection might explain the evolution of altruism was first broached by Darwin himself. The concept of group selection has a chequered and controversial history in evolutionary biology. 2. The basic idea of kin selection is simple. Similarly, the fitness of the A type is: 3. 4.
Coriolanus (2011
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