Naturalistic Aspects of Free Will and Moral Responsibility

Abstract

Free will and moral responsibility can be assessed on two levels. On the ultimate level of evaluation they are difficult to reconcile with contemporary science and might even be incoherent. On the compatibilist level they can be defined as evolved capacities of humans as biological beings. The determinism of the basic level does not contradict such concepts of free will and moral responsibility. It even enhances the evolution of avoiders on the design level. Moral behavior can be established as the evolutionary stable strategy with the application of the prisoner’s dilemma to the evolutionary theory, even without the strong metaphysical conceptions of free will and ultimate moral responsibility which compatibilism cannot provide. Compatibilist freedom requires the ability to understand and reflectively evaluate the reasons one wants to act upon, and to control one’s behavior in accordance with such reflectively considered reasons. Contemporary psychological and neuroscientific research indicates that rational agents face problems with both capacities. It also shows that humans are highly susceptible to cognitive dissonance, self-delusion and the like.