Svijest i slobodna volja kao uvjet moralnih odluka

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.21860/j.8.2.2

The concept of consciousness and free will is approached from a primarily neuroscientific context. The question of what consciousness is – is there free will, what processes are taking place in the brain, and what happens during moral decision making – up until recently was the sole interest of philosophical speculation. However, the situation has changed and consciousness and human action has become an integral part of the research of psychobiologists, neuroscientists, neuroethnologists, etc. One of the first issues in this paper is as follows: can mental events, among which consciousness is included, be reduced simply to sheer physical and material events, since in the framework of the natural sciences research, consciousness is treated precisely in this manner. Although consciousness is a small, very often representative part of our mental life, it enables not only a distribution of the mechanisms that establish the actor’s moral actions, but it also makes them coordinated and connected. Therefore, the paper will also offer possible ethical consequences to such a neuroscientific treatment of consciousness and free will, and the resulting (im)possibilities of transforming contemporary ethics.