NDLI: Events, agents, and settling whether and how one intervenes

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Runyan, Jason D.
Copyright Year	2015
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.
Starting Page	1629
Ending Page	1646
Page Count	18
File Format	PDF
ISSN	00318116
Journal	Philosophical Studies
Volume Number	173
Issue Number	6
e-ISSN	15730883
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2015-09-23
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Free will Libertarianism Incompatibilism Agent-causalism Event-causalism The disappearing agent problem Torn decisions Philosophy of action Philosophy Epistemology Philosophy of Mind Ethics Metaphysics Philosophy of Language
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Philosophy

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