Natural Sciences and/in Moral Theology: The Case of Free Will

• Authors: Mateusz Jarmużewski

Title variants

Nauki przyrodnicze wobec/w teologii moralnej: kwestia wolnej woli

Abstracts

PL

Pojęcie wolnej woli, wspierające odpowiedzialność moralną w różnych ujęciach ka- tolickiej teologii moralnej, w szczególny sposób sytuuje się na skrzyżowaniu dyscyplin teologicznych i pozateologicznych. Wczesne badania nad wolą w neuronauce poznawczej, zainspirowane eksperymentem Libeta (1983), sugerują, że wolna wola jest iluzją, ponie- waż nasze świadome intencje nie powodują odpowiadających im działań: działanie te są inicjowane wcześniej przez nieświadome procesy mózgowe. Choć wydaje się to sprzeczne z podstawowymi założeniami antropologicznymi i etycznymi, bliższe przyjrzenie się tej tezie ukazuje, że jest ona niedojrzała. Jednocześnie nowe osiągnięcia multidyscyplinarnej nauki o woli zwracają uwagę na kilka aspektów wolności i sprawczości, które mogą mieć kluczowe znaczenie dla sposobu, w jaki ludzie podejmują działania i kontrolują swoje życie. Implikacje wynikające z tych badań mogą sprowokować pewne przeformułowania po stronie etyki teologicznej. Mogą też wskazać na niektóre szkoły i tradycje, takie jak chrześcijańska etyka cnót, jako teologicznie preferowane.

EN

The issue of free will, supporting moral responsibility in various accounts of Catholic moral theology, is in a particular way situated at the crossroads of theological and non-theological disciplines. Because of its connection to philosophy, as well as to natural and empirical sciences, the topic enjoys growing interdisciplinary attention. Early studies in cognitive neuroscience of volition, inspired by the experiment of Libet (1983), suggest that free will is an illusion because our conscious intentions do not cause corresponding actions: these are initiated earlier by the unconscious brain processes. While this seems to conflict with fundamental anthropological and ethical assumptions, a closer look renders such a worry immature. The more traditional, pre-modern notion of what willing, intending and choosing actually means – and how does it relate to us having free will or not – proves largely intact by the Libet-style argumentation. At the same time, new developments within a multidisciplinary science of volition highlight several aspects of freedom and agency that could be central to the way humans produce actions and control their lives. Implications from these studies might provoke some reformulations on the side of theological ethics. They might also set forth some particular schools and traditions, such as Christian virtue ethics, as theologically preferable. All this on the condition that a kind of knowledge coming from natural sciences – which often already contains a measure of (theological) interpretation– can be seen as both relevant and integrable in theological methodology and insight. Anthropological and ethical realms strike as particularly suitable for such integration: the essential embodiment of personal agency definitely deserves more attention, also for clarifying its free and indeed moral predicate.

Keywords

PL

wolna wola; naui przyrodnicze; neuronauki; kognitywistyka; teologia moralna; etyka cnoty; metodologia teologiczna

EN

free will; natural sciences; cognitive neuroscience; moral theology; virtue ethics; theological methodology

• Publisher: Komitet Nauk Teologicznych PAN
• Journal: Studia Nauk Teologicznych PAN
• Year: 2022
• Issue: 17
• Pages: 93-111

Dates

published

2022

Contributors

author

Mateusz Jarmużewski

• Windesheim University of Applied Sciences

• https://orcid.org/0000000283981398

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Identifiers

DOI

10.31743/snt.13799

Biblioteka Nauki

2158270