O laboratório de Schopenhauer? Benjamin Libet e seu experimento seminal

Abstract

Studying Schopenhauer's philoso-phy with an interested eye and keeping atten-tion to our scientific landscape is bound to re-veal interesting connections. One could easily find many insights that would later be proven relevant in different fields such as physics, bio-logy, psychology and literature. It is neurosci-ence, however, that has produced some of the most intriguing confirmations of Schopenha-uer’s philosophy. His considerations on the topic of free will have found considerable pro-of in modern day knowledge of the brain. The neurophysiologist Benjamin Libet, for exam-ple, has found compelling scientific evidence that “will” precedes conscious volition, as sus-tained almost two hundred years ago by the German thinker. Undermining the idea of free will, however, brings about serious problems for traditional ethical and legal theories. The emerging fields of Neuroethics and Neurolaw, we sustain, could profit greatly from the kind of deterministic solution (figured in the idea of a prospectivist imputability, that is, focused on the future) proposed by Schopenhauer.