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Summary Behavioural genetics is the science of the role of genes in behaviour. Some philosophers and scientists suspect that insofar as behavior is under genetic influence, free will is constrained or eliminated. To a large extent, debates over free will and genetics mirror debates over the extent to which background conditions (which might be the product of socialization or of situational features) constrain or limit free will. There mere fact that such conditions exist is almost universally seen as unthreatening: debate focuses rather on whether some particular conditions are especially constraining insofar as they threaten the capacities for reacting and responding to reasons.
Key works The literature on genetics and free will is very small. Particia Greenspan's work on this topic is the most important landmark in this field. See Greenspan 1993Greenspan 2001Greenspan manuscript.
Introductions There are no introductory articles specifically on this topic. Mele 2011 provides orientation to closely related debates.
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15 found
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  1. Hooked—Food, free will, and how the food giants exploit our addictions. By Michael Moss: Random House, 2021. ISBN 978-0-8129-9729-3. [REVIEW]John F. Hulpke - 2022 - Business and Society Review 127 (2):531-534.
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  2. Reseña de ‘¿Estamos cableados?’ (Are We Hardwired?) por Clark & Grunstein Oxford (2000).Michael Richard Starks - 2020 - In Comprender las Conexiones entre Ciencia, Filosofía, Psicología, Religión, Política, Economía, Historia y Literatura- Artículos y reseñas 2006-2019. Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press. pp. 345-348.
    Esta es una excelente revisión de las interacciones gen/ambiente en el comportamiento y, a pesar de ser un poco anticuado, es una lectura fácil y valiosa. Empiezan con estudios gemelos que muestran el impacto abrumador de la genética en el comportamiento. Señalan los estudios cada vez más conocidos de Judith Harris, que amplían y resumen los hechos de que el ambiente doméstico compartido casi no tiene efecto sobre el comportamiento y que los niños adoptados crecen para ser tan diferentes de (...)
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  3. Altruism, Jesus and the End of the World—how the Templeton Foundation bought a Harvard Professorship and attacked Evolution, Rationality and Civilization. A review of E.O. Wilson 'The Social Conquest of Earth' (2012) and Nowak and Highfield ‘SuperCooperators’(2012)(review revised 2019).Michael Starks - 2019 - In Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century -- Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization-- Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 4th Edition Michael Starks. Las Vegas, NV USA: Reality Press. pp. 377-391.
    Famous ant-man E.O. Wilson has always been one of my heroes --not only an outstanding biologist, but one of the tiny and vanishing minority of intellectuals who at least dares to hint at the truth about our nature that others fail to grasp, or insofar as they do grasp, studiously avoid for political expedience. Sadly, he is ending his long career in a most sordid fashion as a party to an ignorant and arrogant attack on science motivated at least in (...)
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  4. Kane is Not Able: A Reply to Vicens’ “Self-Forming Actions and Confl icts of Intention”.Gregg D. Caruso - 2015 - Southwest Philosophy Review 31 (2):21-26.
  5. Embodied free will beliefs: Some effects of physical states on metaphysical opinions.Michael R. Ent & Roy F. Baumeister - 2014 - Consciousness and Cognition 27:147-154.
  6. Igniting the flicker of freedom: Revisiting the Frankfurt scenario.Garry Young - 2007 - Philosophia 35 (2):171-180.
    This paper aims to challenge the view that the sign present in many Frankfurt-style scenarios is insufficiently robust to constitute evidence for the possibility of an alternate decision, and therefore inadequate as a means of determining moral responsibility. I have amended Frankfurt’s original scenario, so as to allow Jones, as well as Black, the opportunity to monitor his (Jones’s) own inclination towards a particular decision (the sign). Different outcome possibilities are presented, to the effect that Jones’s awareness of his own (...)
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  7. The true ramifications of genetic criminality research for free will in the criminal justice system.Ozan Onay - 2006 - Genomics, Society and Policy 2 (1):80-91.
    There is an explicit belief – evident in jurisprudential literature – that developments in behavioural genetics in the very near future will necessitate a dramatic revolution in common law criminal justice systems. This paper considers what is truly shown by behavioural genetics in relation to free will, and the effect of such conclusions on criminal justice systems which rely upon the concept of free will as a foundation element. This paper ultimately concludes that it is unlikely that criminal justice systems (...)
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  8. Genetic and Generic Determinism: A New Threat to Free Will?Peter Lipton - 2004 - In D. Rees & Steven P. R. Rose (eds.), The New Brain Sciences: Perils and Prospects. Cambridge University Press. pp. 88.
    We are discovering more and more about the human genotypes and about the connections between genotype and behaviour. Do these advances in genetic information threaten our free will? This paper offers a philosopher’s perspective on the question.
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  9. Freedom Evolves. [REVIEW]John Martin Fischer - 2003 - Journal of Philosophy 100 (12):632-637.
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  10. Genes, electrotransmitters, and free will.Patricia S. Greenspan - 2001 - In Patricia S. Greenspan, David Wasserman & Robert Wachbroit (eds.), Genetics and Criminal Behavior: Methods, Meanings, and Morals. Cambridge University Press.
    There seems to be evidence of a genetic component in criminal behavior. It is widely agreed not to be "deterministic"--by which discussions outside philosophy seem to mean that by itself it is not sufficient to determine behavior. Environmental factors make a decisive difference--for that matter, there are nongenetic biological factors--in whether and how genetic.
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  11. Genetics and Criminal Behavior.David Wasserman & Robert Wachbroit (eds.) - 2001 - Cambridge University Press.
    In this 2001 volume a group of leading philosophers address some of the basic conceptual, methodological and ethical issues raised by genetic research into criminal behavior. The essays explore the complexities of tracing any genetic influence on criminal, violent or antisocial behavior; the varieties of interpretations to which evidence of such influences is subject; and the relevance of such influences to the moral and legal appraisal of criminal conduct. The distinctive features of this collection are: first, that it advances public (...)
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  12. No Free Will.Will Provine - 1999 - Isis 90 (S2):S117-S132.
  13. Free will and the genome project.Patricia S. Greenspan - 1993 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 22 (1):31-43.
    Popular and scientific accounts of the U.S. Human Genome Project often express concern about the implications of the project for the philosophic question of free will and responsibility. However, on its standard construal within philosophy, the question of free will versus determinism poses no special problems in relation to genetic research. The paper identifies a variant version of the free will question, free will versus internal constraint, that might well pose a threat to notions of individual autonomy and virtue in (...)
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  14. Free-will as a function of divergence.Ivan D. London - 1948 - Psychological Review 55 (1):41-47.
  15. Free will and genetic determinism: Locating the problem.Patricia S. Greenspan - manuscript
    I was led to this clarificatory job initially by some puzzlement from a philosopher's standpoint about just why free will questions should come up particularly in connection with the genome project, as opposed to the many other scientific research programs that presuppose determinism. The philosophic concept of determinism involves explanation of all events, including human action, by prior causal factors--so that whether or not human behavior has a genetic basis, it ultimately gets traced back to _something_ true of the world (...)
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