It is impossible to have informed consent over our own behavior if we do not understand the mechanics of it.
We can talk about ethics ad infinitum, but without an understanding of how and why behavior is formed, discussions about ethics are ultimately as useful as ethics based policies are in practice.
Falling back to the magical construct of “free will”, without being able to establish it actually exists outside of the belief it does, does not grant individuals with power, it serves to rationalize the power of the social groups over the individual. Which could be fairly argued as being “what nature intends”.
However, even at the group level we have no mechanic for longitudinal responsibility over our behavior because we don’t understand it, it’s a magical construct that self-rationalizes itself. The line between civilized and savage is more about inter-group dynamics than any quantifiable principles.
Understanding the mechanics of behavior, through a consistent, quantifiable mechanic that extends across ethological lines, seems the best path toward informed consent of behavior (across ethological lines), and obtaining at least a facsimile of the “free will” we build our social assumptions upon.