Agent Causation Is Not Prior to Event Causation

My aim in this paper is to argue against the claim that agent causation is more fundamental than event causation. To accomplish this aim, I shall first briefly discuss the motivation behind agent causation. Second, I shall highlight the differences between agent causation and event causation. Third, I shall begin briefly with the weaker claim held by Timothy O’Connor and Randolph Clarke that there is no good reason to believe that event causation is more fundamental than agent causation. Fourth, I shall discuss the stronger claim held by E. J. Lowe that agent causation is more fundamental than event causation, and raise objections against the various arguments Lowe advances for the stronger claim. To the extent that my objections against Lowe’s stronger claim succeed, they raise questions for O’Connor’s and Clarke’s weaker claim.

Metaphysical Foundations of Causation: Powers or Laws of Nature?

In this article, I discuss Richard Swinburne’s case for the conception of substance causation, identified with the substances-powers-liabilities (SPL) account of causation, versus the conception of event causation, identified with alternative accounts. I specify the place of Swinburne’s argument in the debates about agent causation, and uncover reasons to be sceptical about the claims that substance causation is a genuine alternative to event causation, and that it helps to comprehend the specifics of the causation involved in free agency. I also advance considerations in favour of the relations-between-universals (RBU) account of causation that can make it preferable to the SPL account.

Prichard on Causing a Change

This paper starts by considering an interesting argument of H. A. Prichard’s against the view that to act is to cause a change; the argument is that causing is not an activity. The argument is important because of the recent emergence of an ‘agent-causation’ view according to which actions are the causing of changes by agents. The author suggests a way of responding to Prichard’s argument, and then, profiting from one of his own conclusions, turns to consider the relation between neurophysiological changes and the causation of bodily movement by the agent. The paper makes a suggestion about the proper way to understand the relation between the neurophysiological changes, the bodily movements and the action.

VI—Panpsychism and Free Will: A Case Study in Liberal Naturalism

There has been a resurgence of interest in panpsychism in contemporary philosophy of mind. According to its supporters, panpsychism offers an attractive solution to the mind–body problem, avoiding the deep difficulties associated with the more conventional options of dualism and materialism. There has been little focus, however, on whether panpsychism can help with philosophical problems pertaining to free will. In this paper I will argue (a) that it is coherent and consistent with observation to postulate a kind of libertarian agent causation at the micro-level, and (b) that if one if believes in libertarian agent causation at the macro-level, there are significant advantages in also postulating its existence at the micro-level.

Is Agent-Causal Libertarianism Unintelligible?

Critics often charge that agent-causal libertarianism is unintelligible due to the uniqueness of agent-causation—the sui generis causal relationship said to be involved when agents make free choices. This paper presents five objections, which are taken to be the only good objections, to agent-causal libertarianism and argues they all fail to show agent-causal libertarianism is unintelligible. The first four objections fail outright. The fifth objection fails in a special way. Naturalistic agent-causal libertarian theories succumb to this fifth objection; theistic agent-causal libertarian theories do not. This entails that if agent-causal libertarianism is intelligible, then it is only so within theism.

Reasons in Action

The principal aim of this book is to analyse what it is to act for a reason in such a way that we intentionally do what we have a reason for doing and intentionally attain the end for which we perform this action, as specified by the reason. The analysis is mainly developed to suit physical actions, but it is considered how it needs to be modified to cover mental acts. It is also adapted to fit the notion of letting something be the case by refraining from acting. The analysis of intentional action presented is reductionist in the sense that it does not appeal to any concepts that are distinctive of the domain of action theory, such as a unique type of agent-causation, or irreducible mental acts, like acts of will, volitions, decisions, or tryings. Nor does it appeal to any unanalysed attitudes or states essentially related to intentional action, like intentions and desires to act. Instead, the intentionality of actions is construed as springing from desires conceived as physical states of agents which cause facts because of the way these agents think of them. A sense of our having responsibility that is sufficent for our acting for reasons is also sketched.