Abstract

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.

Keywords: neuroethics, neuroscience, free will, moral responsibility.