Agent causation, or Agent causality, is an idea in

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

which states that a being who is not an event—namely an

agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...

—can cause events (particularly the agent's own actions). Agent causation contrasts with event causation, which occurs when an event causes another event. Whether agent causation as a concept is logically sound is itself a topic of philosophical debate. Defenders of this theory include

Thomas Reid Thomas Reid (; 7 May ( O.S. 26 April) 1710 – 7 October 1796) was a religiously trained Scottish philosopher. He was the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense and played an integral role in the Scottish Enlightenment. In 1783 he wa ...

and

Roderick Chisholm Roderick Milton Chisholm (; November 27, 1916 – January 19, 1999) was an American philosopher known for his work on epistemology, metaphysics, free will, value theory, and the philosophy of perception. The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ...

. Reid believed that agents are the only beings who have a will, and considered having a will to be a necessary condition of being considered the cause of an event.

Proponents

is credited as the founder of the theory of agent causation. In ''Essays on the Active Powers of Man'' (1788), Reid described an agent as one who has "power over the determinations of his own will." He held that agents are the only beings who have a will, and considered having a will to be a necessary condition of being considered the cause of an event. Agent causation has been adopted by both compatibilists and incompatibilists alike. Defending a compatibilist interpretation, Ned Markosian proposed a situation in which a person's actions, caused by nothing other than their own agency, have shaped their moral character over their lifetime to compel them to always do the right thing.

's incompatibilist view contends that a free action is an action that originates from within the agent alone, not as the result of a prior event. While still subject to debate, agent causation is generally considered to align with incompatibilist theory. Libertarians have offered agent causation as a defense of their incompatibilist belief that only undetermined, uncaused actions are free. One objection to this belief argues that an undetermined action is one that occurs at random, and freedom does not follow from random, "by chance" action. Agent causation counter-proposes the idea that an action need not be classified as either determined or random, but rather can occur under an agent's control.

References

Causality Free will Metaphysical theories {{Philosophy-stub

Proponents

See also

References