Putting Free Will in Cultural Context and Beyond

摘要

In the West there is a cultural assumption that human beings have free will, so that the ability to act ethically and be held morally, and even legally, responsible is thought to rest upon this capacity. The presupposition of free will has been embodied in our institutions, practices, and laws and transmitted for hundreds of years by systems of education. These practices and institutions, with their implicit notion of human free will moral agency, still govern our lives to a great extent. Yet free will is a cultural belief rather than one held universally. It is provincial to us and is also being increasingly challenged by mounting evidence from neuroscience and other biological sciences.