Genetic Determinism and the Problem of Moral Responsibility or is Morality Possible Without Freedom?
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Author(s)
Genetic Determinism and the Problem of Moral Responsibility or is Morality Possible Without Freedom? Anastasiya ABRAMOVA
The research devoted to freedom and responsibility proceeds only “inside” philosophical knowledge, and there-fore there is a certain limitation. Only the synthesis of ideo-logical positions will allow to open the veil of secrets of hu-man actions. The article states that there are two clearly ex-pressed positions regarding the causes of human behavior: the first is based on the theory of the synthetic evolution and em-phasizes its biological (genetic) origin; the second rejects the biological conditionality ofactions, because deterministic statements make people perceive their genome as an ines-capable fate. To agree with the lack of freedom means to accept the lack of moral responsibility. Without asserting the truth of the predestination of human behavior, the authors believe that such “philosophical perseverance” can not only lead scientists to a dead end, but also slow down the development of those studies that are associated with the introduction of new tech-nologies, including medical ones based on discoveries in the field of genetics. Therefore, in order to “remove” ethical re-strictions, the authors attempted to prove the possibility of freedom even within the framework of deterministic behavior by clarifying the essence of “subordination to the principle”, with which moral responsibility is associated.
