Technologies of the will and their Christian roots

Alois Hahn

Maren Schorch

pp. 53-76

in: Sabine Maaßen, Barbara Sutter (eds), On willing selves, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007

Abstract

The question of free will and personal responsibility has become more important in recent times, especially encouraged by the theories of neurologists like Wolf Singer and Gerhard Roth (2003, p. 33).¹ Their theses can be summarized as follows: freedom and responsibility are all hollow words, pure figments. This is not because they depend on circumstances but rather on our brain — is this the return of the brain-mythology of the nineteenth century? Singer and Roth are not only in academic debate but are also considering the practical consequences for everyday life from their empirical results. Their deterministic assumption, however, would not affect social practice, as social actions are judged and understood by their consequences rather than by their anteceding factors.² In social practice, the latter would amount to nothing less than "predestination". Interestingly enough, to believe in the predestination of our actions and the feelings of our brains would be quite comparable with the traditional belief in predestination by "God's brain", so to speak "cerebrum cerebro-rum". Of course, the question of the freedom of our will and the resulting problem of responsibility for our actions and failures is much older than brain research. It has accompanied European philosophy and theology since their beginning and was of central importance for the emerging of sociology.