Marek Orko Vácha: Freedom, Ethics and Responsibility
- Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
- When: June 3, 2015, 19:00 – 21:00
The moment in the evolution of our kind when personal freedom emerged was perhaps the moment we can begin to speak about man. Freedom enables the emergence of ethics. It is the moment when, from a point of given instinctive behaviour, a never-ending ocean of possibilities opens up, the moment when we become aware it is possible to act differently.
Along with freedom arises its less popular flip-side: responsibility. Not only is it possible to act differently – above all the anxiety that it is possible to act badly arises. Freedom is not just a multi-coloured palette of possibility but rather a dizzying abyss of choice. Therefore the history of human freedom is, surprisingly, also the history of our efforts to transfer our freedom onto something or somebody else. In modern history ethics lies between two extremes: behaviourism on one hand, and genetic determinism on the other.