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5 - Genetic Influences on Moral Capacity: What Genetic Mutants Can Teach Us

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 July 2009

By
Giovanni Boniolo  and
Paolo Vezzoni
Edited by
Giovanni Boniolo  and
Gabriele De Anna
Giovanni Boniolo
Affiliation:
Firc Institute for Molecular Oncology (IFOM), Milan
Paolo Vezzoni
Affiliation:
Institute of Biomedical Technologies of the Italian National Research Council, Segrate
Giovanni Boniolo
Affiliation:
Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy
Gabriele De Anna
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland
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Summary

Lo maggior don che Dio per la sua larghezza

fesse creando, ed a la sua bontate

più conformato, e quel ch'è più apprezza,

fu de la volontà la libertate;

di che le creature intelligenti,

e tutte e sole, furono e sono dotate.

Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, V, 19–24

Discussions about the relations between genes and free will, in particular in relation to morality, are nothing but a new chapter of an old story, the beginning of which can be traced back before the birth of Western philosophy. Is man really free in choosing moral values and moral actions? Are there biological, physical, metaphysical, or divine constraints?

We know that throughout the history of philosophy, the debates on moral freedom have reached an extremely high degree of sophistication. Certainly this is not the place to deal with this vast topic. More modestly we will limit ourselves to consider some data coming from genetics, in order to understand, from a biological point of view, to what extent we can say we have free moral will, and how far our freedom can reach.

A long-standing tradition, well expressed in Dante Alighieri's verses, holds the view that free will is a specific characteristic of humans. But some scholars thought that all human choices are determined. In particular there were those supporting the idea that man's choices are determined by his genome: we would be our genes.

Type
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Evolutionary Ethics and Contemporary Biology , pp. 77 - 96
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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