Abstract
Event-causal libertarians maintain that an agent’s settling of whether certain states-of-affairs obtain on a particular occasion can be reduced to the causing of events (e.g., bodily motions, coming to a resolution) by certain mental events or states, such as certain desires, beliefs and/or intentions. Agent-causal libertarians disagree. A common critique against event-causal libertarian accounts is that the agent’s role of settling matters is left unfilled and the agent “disappears” from such accounts—a problem known as the disappearing agent problem. Recently, Franklin (Philos Stud 170:413–432, 2014) has argued that an “enriched” event-causal account can overcome this problem. Franklin, however, doesn’t consider whether, as Pereboom (J Philos 99:499–531, 2015) argues, the agent as decider of “torn decisions” disappears from even enriched accounts. As I show here, Franklin’s enriched account takes some modifying if it is to overcome Pereboom’s torn decision problem—a special case of the disappearing agent problem. However, as I also show, there is a more fundamental problem facing event-causal libertarian accounts. It is implausible that an agent qua event or state simultaneously settles whether and how she intervenes. The upshot is that events and/or states lack an ability essential to completely fulfilling an agent’s role qua settler. This isn’t a problem for agent-causal accounts like the one offered by Steward (A metaphysics for freedom. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012) because in as much as an agent qua substance settles whether her body moves in certain ways on certain occasions she simultaneously settles whether and how she intervenes. As a consequence, event-causal libertarians face a dilemma, or rather several, that agent-causal libertarians do not. This may ultimately be explained by the irreducibility of causation by agents to causation by events.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
I use V in place of a verb.
For simplicity sake, and because it is given the most attention in the relevant literature, I will focus on what might be called productive action—action that involves bringing about, effecting, producing or causing some change. This isn’t to imply that there aren’t other kinds of action, such as sustaining action (action that involves sustaining or maintaining something as it is) or preventing action (action that involves preventing change or keeping change at bay; for e.g., see von Wright 1974, 40).
For simplicity sake, and in keeping with a common practice in the relevant literature, by “action” I mean the exercise of any agential ability (cf. Franklin 2014, 414).
Pereboom presents the same case against Ekstrom’s (1993, 2000, 2003) account. Ekstrom proposes that certain general preferences in favor of certain alternatives—namely, those an agent forms and maintains as a result of her non-coerced and undetermined deliberations, thought processes and other agential conduct—might be functionally identified with the agent and fulfill her role of settler. But, as Pereboom (2015) argues, if we maintain that an agent’s role qua settler is exclusively played by a general preference for a certain alternative—as Ekstrom proposes—there can be nothing about a person that settles how she behaves when torn equally between alternatives (i.e., while having equal desires for, or attitudes in favor of or preferences toward, either alternative). Thus, the agent qua decider of torn decisions disappears given Ekstrom’s account.
I thank an anonymous reviewer for highlighting the importance of this point.
Here, it should be kept in mind that an agent may settle a matter on a certain occasion without aiming to settle this matter at a certain point in time. For example, a person may settle that she buys a train ticket on January 26th, 2015 at 10:36 am without aiming to do so at this specific time.
Franklin doesn’t address the issue I raise above, which shouldn’t be confused with whether his enriched account is consistent with the idea agents have “plural voluntary control”, an issue he does address (423–424). As Franklin notes, according to Robert Kane (1996, 2011), when given the choice between two alternatives, people are said to have plural voluntary control when they “have the power to make either choice be or not be at the time, voluntarily, on purpose and for reasons, and merely by accident” (2011, 397). Franklin claims that, given his account, agents can have this power. Using his thief example to illustrate, he maintains that, regardless of whether (a) the thief (by virtue of the power of his desire to do what he thinks he has the best reasons for doing) settles that he refrains from stealing (what he thinks he has the best reasons for doing) or (b) the thief doesn’t settle this matter and steals, the thief’s behavior is voluntary “on purpose and for reasons, and not merely by accident”. So, without offering any real argument for this claim, Franklin maintains that, given event-causal libertarianism, behaving “voluntarily, on purpose and for reasons, and not merely by accident” isn’t contingent upon settling how one behaves (424). However, given event-causal libertarian commitments, on occasions when a person doesn’t settle whether she behaves in a certain way, whether she behaves in that way is a matter of luck (see Sect. 2). And it seems contentious to maintain that behavior that occurs by luck is voluntary, engaged in “on purpose and for reasons” and doesn’t occur “merely by accident” (but see note 10). Regardless, the issue I have raised above doesn’t have to do with whether, given event-causal libertarian commitments, exercising voluntary control is contingent on settling how one behaves; or whether an enriched account is consistent with plural voluntary control. Rather, the issue I have raised has to do with whether, given an enriched account, an agent ever settles whether she settles a matter.
Upholding these two propositions also provides a way of avoiding the contentious issue as to whether, given Franklin’s unmodified account, agents have “plural voluntary control” (see note 8). It avoids this issue since, given these propositions, an agent settles that she Vs or that she doesn’t V whenever she has an opportunity to settle that she Vs.
References
Alvarez, M., & Hyman, J. (1998). Agents and their actions. Philosophy, 73, 219–245.
Anscombe, G. E. M. (1957). Intentions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Balaguer, M. (2009). Free will as an open scientific problem. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bird, A. (2007). Nature’s metaphysics: Laws and properties. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Block, N., & Stalnaker, R. (1999). Conceptual analysis, dualism, and the explanatory gap. Philosophical Review, 108, 1–46.
Bratman, M. (2007). The structure of agency: Essays. New York: Oxford University Press.
Davidson, D. (1963). Actions, reasons, and causes. Journal of Philosophy, 60, 685–700.
Davidson, D. (1971). Agency. In R. Binkley, R. Bronaugh, & A. Marras (Eds.), Agents, action and reason (pp. 3–25). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Ekstrom, L. W. (1993). A coherence theory of autonomy. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 53, 599–616.
Ekstrom, L. W. (2000). Free will: A philosophical study. Boulder: Westview Press.
Ekstrom, L. W. (2003). Free will, chance, and mystery. Philosophical Studies, 113, 153–180.
Frankfurt, H. (1988). The importance of what we care about. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Frankfurt, H. (1999). Necessity, volition, and love. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Franklin, C. E. (2014). Event-causal libertarianism, functional reduction, and the disappearing agent argument. Philosophical Studies, 170, 413–432.
Griffith, M. (2010). Why agent-caused actions are not lucky. American Philosophical Quarterly, 47, 43–56.
Hornsby, J. (1980). Actions. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Hyman, J. (2006). Three fallacies about action. In Proceedings from the 29th international Wittgenstein symposium (pp. 137–163). Vienna: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky.
Jaworska, A. (2007). Caring and internality. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 75, 529–568.
Kane, R. (1996). The significance of free will. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kane, R. (1999). Responsibility, luck, and chance: Reflections on free will and indeterminism. Journal of Philosophy, 96, 217–240.
Kane, R. (2011). Rethinking free will: New perspectives on an ancient problem. In R. Kane (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of free will. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kim, J. (2005). Physicalism, or something near enough. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Molnar, G. (2003). Powers: A study in metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
O’Connor, T. (1995). Agent causation. In T. O’Connor (Ed.), Agents, causes and events (pp. 173–200). New York: Oxford University Press.
O’Connor, T. (2000). Persons and causes: The metaphysics of free will. New York: Oxford University Press.
O’Connor, T. (2008). Agent-causal power. In T. Handfield (Ed.), Dispositions and causes (pp. 189–214). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pereboom, D. (2002). Robust nonreductive materialism. Journal of Philosophy, 99, 499–531.
Pereboom, D. (2004). Is our conception of agent-causation coherent? Philosophical Topics, 32, 275–286.
Pereboom, D. (2015). The phenomenology of agency and deterministic agent causation. In H. Pedersen, M. Altman (Eds.), Horizons of authenticity in phenomenology, existentialism, and moral psychology (pp. 277–294). Contributions to Phenomenology 74.
Robb, D., & Heil, J. (2008). Mental causation. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-causation/.
Ryle, G. (1949). The concept of mind. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Shoemaker, S. (2003a). Realization and mental causation. In S. Shoemaker (Ed.), Identity, cause, and mind (pp. 427–451). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Shoemaker, D. (2003b). Caring, identification, and agency. Ethics, 114, 88–118.
Steward, H. (2012). A metaphysics for freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stump, E. (1988). Sanctification, hardening of the heart, and Frankfurt’s concept of free will. The Journal of Philosophy, 85, 395–420.
Velleman, J. D. (1992). What happens when someone acts? Mind, 101, 461–481.
Velleman, J. D. (2000). Introduction. In J. D. Velleman (Ed.), The possibility of practical reason (pp. 1–30). New York: Oxford University Press.
Velleman, J. D. (2009). How we get along. New York: Cambridge University Press.
von Wright, G. H. (1963). Norm and action. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
von Wright, G. H. (1974). Causality and determinism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Watson, G. (1975). Free agency. Journal of Philosophy, 72, 205–220.
Acknowledgments
This article was completed with the support of an institutional Lilly Research Award funded through a Lilly Endowment. I am very grateful to John Hyman and an anonymous reviewer for their insightful comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Runyan, J.D. Events, agents, and settling whether and how one intervenes. Philos Stud 173, 1629–1646 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0572-4
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-015-0572-4