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Why does the problem of free will seem so intractable? I surmise that in large measure it does so because the free will debate, at least in its modern form, is conducted in terms of a mistaken approach to causality in general. At the heart of this approach is the assumption that all causation is fundamentally event causation. Of course, it is well-known that some philosophers of action want to invoke in addition an irreducible notion of agent causation, applicable only in the sphere of intelligent agency. But such a view is generally dismissed as incompatible with the naturalism that has now become orthodoxy amongst mainstream analytical philosophers of mind. What I want to argue is that substances, not events, are the primary relata of causal relations and that agent causation should properly be conceived of as a species of substance causation. I shall try to show that by thus reconceiving the nature of causation and of agency, the problem of free will can be made more tractable. I shall also argue for a contention that may seem even less plausible at first sight, namely, that such a view of agency is perfectly compatible with a volitionist theory of action.
1 See, for example, Taylor, Richard, Action and Purpose (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966), pp. 111–12Google Scholar.
2 See further my A Survey of Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 197Google Scholar.
3 See again my A Survey of Metaphysics, pp. 212–13.
4 This proposal is an elaboration of one set out in my A Survey of Metaphysics, p. 209.
5 For a defence of a view of the nature of events consistent with the present proposal, see my A Survey of Metaphysics, ch. 14.
6 For the notion of a ‘basic’ action, see Danto, Arthur C., Analytical Philosophy of Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), p. 28Google Scholar.
7 I defend such a theory in my Subjects of Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), ch. 5Google Scholar.
8 See further my Subjects of Experience, ch. 2.
9 Compare Ginet, Carl, On Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 This, of course, was Locke's view: for discussion, see my Locke on Human Understanding (London: Routledge, 1995), ch. 6Google Scholar.
11 The locus classicus for this contrast is, of course, Aristotle, Metaphysics, book θ.
12 See further my A Survey of Metaphysics, pp. 202–5. But even if it is allowed that agent a's causing event e does itself qualify as an event, there are reasons for denying that such an event may be supposed to be caused: see O'Connor, Timothy, Persons and Causes: The Metaphysics of Free Will (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 52–5Google Scholar.
13 See Davidson, Donald, ‘Actions, Reasons, and Causes’, in his Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980)Google Scholar.
14 See further my Subjects of Experience, pp. 150–2.
15 The notion of a ‘rational’ power is, once again, Aristotelian in origin: see Metaphysics, book θ.
16 See further my An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 252–62Google Scholar. For a similar view, see Searle, John R., Rationality in Action (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), pp. 12–17 and ch. 3Google Scholar.
17 There is no implication here that one must be able to choose to choose, or will to will, much less that the conception of choice now being defended falls foul of a vicious infinite regress. For discussion, see my Locke on Human Understanding, pp. 133–4.
18 The present paper has been an attempt to draw together, reconcile and develop further views about the philosophy of action expressed in the four books of mine cited earlier: Locke on Human Understanding, ch. 6, Subjects of Experience, ch. 5, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind, ch. 9 and A Survey of Metaphysics, ch. 11. I am grateful for comments received when the paper was delivered in the Royal Institute of Philosophy's ‘Minds and Persons’ lecture series. I am also grateful to Randolph Clarke for his comments and for alerting me to an error in an earlier version.
