The Agent Causality Theory Of Free Will

In this paper I will present an argument against free will and then I will defend a response to that argument. Free will is defined as having the ability to make our own choices. Some will argue that all of our decisions have already been dictated by our desires therefore we never actually truly make our own choices. The purpose of this paper is to defend the argument that we have free will by attacking the premise that states we have no control over what we desire. I will defeat this premise by showing how one does have control over his/her desires through the idea of self-control. I will then defend my argument against likely rebuttals that state that there is still no way to control our desires proving that we do have free will.

     One objection I have is in regards to Chisholm’s immanent causation. I do not agree that an agent is able to perform an action without anything motivating or causing him to do so. In the example above an agent causes brain activity which ultimately leads to his hand moving a wand. There has to be some underlying cause that led the man to grip and move

Free will in this essay will be treated with respect to Nomological Determinism, (referred to as causal determinism/determinism); the past and the present dictate the future entirely and necessarily by rigid, all-encompassing natural laws’. The ‘Origination Argument’ for

In “Human Freedom and the Self,” Roderick M. Chisholm takes the libertarian stance, arguing that freedom is incompatible with determinism, that determinism is in fact false, and that humans do posses the kind of freedom required for moral responsibility. Chisholm argues that a deterministic universe, where all events, including human actions, proceed from prior events without the possibility that they would proceed differently than they do prevent the possibility that humans are responsible for their actions. To validate his libertarian beliefs, Chisholm sets out to prove that humans are responsible for their actions and also the thoughts that lead to those actions. In order to answer this problem, Chisholm believes we must make some assumptions about the man who preforms the act.

Determinism is the doctrine, that every event, as well as human actions is determined by causes that are independent to the will. From determinism, two opposing views were identified. The incompatibilists view that determinism implies no free will, or the compatibilists view that determinism still allows for free will. The incompatibilist philosophical thinkers have taken determinism as use of a scapegoat, identifying determinism to infer that human beings are unable to have any free will, thus no moral responsibility for taken actions. Whilst the compatibilist philosophical thinkers have taken a softer view of determinism, holding the view that an agents actions are pre-determined, although the agent is still to be held morally responsible for the agent’s voluntary actions. Determinism, as argued for the compatibilists, allows for an agent to hold free will and share equal responsibility for chosen actions.

1: Determinism makes it impossible for us to “cause and control our actions in the right kind of way.”(3)

Some proponents of free will argue that by choosing to do something, one causes oneself to act. One could have caused oneself to act in another manner, and therefore the act, although caused by that person, is still a free choice. However, that notion is held under scrutiny because a person who acts freely has no evidence that they have acted of his or her own accord. For all one knows, one’s actions and choices could have been causally determined, and although one thought one was acting out of free will, one is not. There is no definite proof to show that one’s choices are made freely. As A.J. Ayer stated in his essay, Freedom and Necessity, “…but from the fact that a man is unaware of the causes of his action, it does not follow that no such causes exist” (Ayer 272). Since there is no way of knowing if one exercises free will, determinism poses a serious threat to the concept of free thinking and free acting human beings.

First of all, determinism is an event which is causally governed by the laws of nature. In his paper, Ayer outlines his dilemma of free will, there seems to be no free will, events happen out of either accident or determinism. His argument is that free will opposes to constraint, not causality, nonetheless still have free will. He tries to solve the problem considering whether an event was an accident or not. He claims that events are only free when: 1. I would have acted otherwise if I had chosen to, 2. my actions were voluntary, and 3. nobody compelled me to choose as I did. If we believe the event was not an accident, we are back to the idea of natural laws causing the events. Chisholm proposes that human beings are agents which do not

Throughout history, scientists and philosophers have pondered the question, “Do we as humans really make our own choices, or rather are our choices predetermined by some sort of natural order? Our decisions and actions may, in fact, even be the result of chemical reactions occurring in the neurons residing in our brain. We as humans are curious as to what “free will” is truly defined as. Whatever the answer, the question posed is one that will result in many different varying opinions, many of which could impact the worlds of both science and philosophy. The subject of free will vs. determinism is tackled by Scott Meyers in his novel, Off to Be the Wizard, which was released in March of 2014.

William Rowe defines gratuitous evil as an instance of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.(Rowe 335) In a world with so much evil it raises the questions If God is all powerful, all knowing and all good, how can he allow bad things to happen to good people? Can God even exist in a world with so such gratuitous evil? These are questions that has afflicted humanity for a very long time and has been the question to engross theologians for centuries. The existence of evil has been the most influential and powerful reason to disprove the existence of God. It is believed among many theist that God is the creator and caretaker

In the paper, “Human Freedom and the Self” Roderick M. Chisholm offers his theory of human freedom and defends it against a couple objections. One of the objections we will talk about which is the second objection is connected to the concept of immanent causation, where causation is by an agent, he argues how the statement “the prime mover unmoved” (page 391) has been subject to difficulty. Chisholm explains immanent causation as being an agent causing the event A to happen, but although the agent is causing A to happen the agent is not moved by anything. The argument to this objection is that “there must be some event A, which is caused not by any other event but by the agent” (page 391). Well since A was not cause by another event then the agent couldn’t have produced anything either to bring A about, so “what did the agent’s causation consist of” (page 391). Also another point that was made in the objection was the question “what is the difference between A’s just happening and the agents causing A to happen” (page 391). Chisholm responds by saying that there is a difference between man causing A and an event causing A. The two are not the same because transeunt causation is connected to determinism, which makes the train of events, happen and immanent causation as he explains it is when the agent causes the event. He then sums up his answer by saying the reason “lies in the fact that, in the first case but not the second, the event was caused by the man” (pg. 391) He

A problem with this idea is that it conflicts with both determinism and indeterminism, which are incompatible. Therefore, we should apply a new method of thinking to understand the concept of free will. This new method requires making assumptions about how we ascribe responsibility. According to Chisolm, we must allocate responsibility in terms of transeunt and immanent causation. Looking at free will in Chisolm’s perspective concludes that humans alone are the sole cause of the actions they perform and the state of the affairs they experience.

In the article, Culture and Causal Cognition, the main psychological behavior that is being investigated are the behavior of humans in different cultures and how they perceive and react to causal cognition. People from different cultures have different causal beliefs which would change the way that they view the world and perceive different objects. For example, a person in the United States would view the world by the specific objects that he or she says, on the other hand, a person from Asia would view the same scene but they would so many of the details and imagery that is around the object instead of the object entirely by itself. In this article, the causal reasoning of the United States and Asia are compared just to show how different

An example was used to illustrate the notion of actual causation, and more specifically, causal preemption. The example explains that person one and person two set out to poison person three. Person one’s action caused person three’s death, and preempts person two’s actions; this would have resulted in the poisoning of person three if person one had not made his move. Causal preemption is problematic for regularity and counterfactual theories of causation. In keeping with the example, person two’s role in the situation is adequate for person three’s death without the necessity to mention person one. However, person two is not the cause of person three’s death, and it would have happened if person one acted or not. Even so, person one is the cause of person three’s poisoning death. The verdict about actual causation goes like this: Person one’s actions caused person three to die of poisoning, whereas person two’s actions did not. The causal structure would be enough for us to predict what will happen, given the various combinations of causal antecedents. Indeed, the causal structure gives us the ability

David Hume discusses the idea that we, as human beings, do not observe causation, and that an individual’s perception of causation is built upon past experience and only creates a correlation between events. There are many examples of the correlation which Hume speaks of including the following; a ball hits a window. The window breaks. Therefore the ball broke the window. These events correlate