Achievements in Natural Science, the Possibility of the Free Will and Autonomous Morality: With Consideration of Moral Psychology and its Educational Implementation

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The free will of humans is an important issue in philosophy and psychology. Many scholars who have studied human morality argue that free will is an essential factor in moral decision making. However, these days, with rapid development in the natural sciences, a powerful argument can be made that the human thinking process is determined by past factors. This is the argument of determinism. In particular, neuroscience, sociobiology and other fields in biology that directly deal with human cognition have sought to determine the scientific mechanisms of the human thinking process. Hence, many people argue that free will and human autonomous morality are threatened by the results of natural science. However, this study argues that free will and human morality can be compatible from a deterministic standpoint. In this process, firstly, a theoretical background in the natural sciences of physics, cosmology, and cognitive science is reviewed. Subsequently, through philosophical explanations of the relationship between scientific studies, the existence of free will, and human morality, this study investigates how scientific explanations can be compatible with free will and autonomous morality. Finally, the study discusses the relationships among the results of the investigation, moral psychology and its educational implementation, and how scientific achievements can contribute to moral psychology and education.

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