Agent causation as a solution to the problem of action

Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47 (5):656-673 (2017)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

My primary aim is to defend a nonreductive solution to the problem of action. I argue that when you are performing an overt bodily action, you are playing an irreducible causal role in bringing about, sustaining, and controlling the movements of your body, a causal role best understood as an instance of agent causation. Thus, the solution that I defend employs a notion of agent causation, though emphatically not in defence of an account of free will, as most theories of agent causation are. Rather, I argue that the notion of agent causation introduced here best explains how it is that you are making your body move during an action, thereby providing a satisfactory solution to the problem of action.

Similar books and articles

Agent-causation and agential control.Markus Ernst Schlosser - 2008 - Philosophical Explorations 11 (1):3-21.
Agent causation and the problem of luck.Randolph Clarke - 2005 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 86 (3):408-421.
Can the Agency Theory Be Salvaged?Andrei A. Buckareff - 2001 - Philosophia Christi 3 (1):217-224.
The Power of Agency.Michael Brent - 2012 - Dissertation, Columbia University
Active control, agent-causation and free action.Ishtiyaque Haji - 2004 - Philosophical Explorations 7 (2):131-148.
The folk psychology of free will: Fits and starts.Shaun Nichols - 2004 - Mind and Language 19 (5):473-502.
Personal Agency.E. J. Lowe - 2003 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 53:211-227.
Agent Causation and Acting for Reasons.Rebekah L. H. Rice - 2011 - American Philosophical Quarterly 48 (4):333-346.
Agent Causation.Dale Arthur Tuggy - 2000 - Dissertation, Brown University
The contours of control.Joshua Shepherd - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 170 (3):395-411.
Events, agents, and settling whether and how one intervenes.Jason D. Runyan - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (6):1629-1646.

Analytics

Added to PP
2017-01-19

Downloads
1,295 (#8,185)

6 months
170 (#14,494)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Michael Brent
Columbia University (PhD)

References found in this work

A Treatise of Human Nature.David Hume & A. D. Lindsay - 1969 - Harmondsworth,: Penguin Books. Edited by Ernest Campbell Mossner.
Actions, Reasons, and Causes.Donald Davidson - 1963 - Journal of Philosophy 60 (23):685.
The Significance of Free Will.Robert Kane - 1996 - New York, US: Oxford University Press USA.
Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties.Alexander Bird - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40).David Hume - 1969 - Mineola, N.Y.: Oxford University Press. Edited by Ernest Campbell Mossner.

View all 100 references / Add more references