agent causation
{{Short description|Idea in philosophy}}
Agent causation, or Agent causality, is a category of determination in metaphysics, where a being who is not an event—namely an agent—can cause events (particularly the agent's own actions). Agent causation contrasts with event causation, which occurs when an event causes another event.{{cite web|url=http://philpapers.org/browse/agent-causation|title=Agent Causation - Bibliography|publisher=PhilPapers|accessdate=2016-11-23}}{{cite web|url=http://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/agent-causality.html|publisher=informationphilosopher.com|title=Agent-Causality|accessdate=2016-11-23}} Whether agent causation as a concept is logically sound is itself a topic of philosophical debate.
Defenders of this theory include Thomas Reid and Roderick Chisholm. 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.{{Cite journal|last=Rowe|first=William L.|date=1991|title=Responsibility, Agent-Causation, and Freedom: An Eighteenth-Century View|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2381862|journal=Ethics|volume=101|issue=2|pages=237–257|doi=10.1086/293287|jstor=2381862|s2cid=145660090|issn=0014-1704|url-access=subscription}}
Proponents
Thomas Reid is credited as the founder of the theory of agent causation.{{Citation|last1=Nichols|first1=Ryan|title=Thomas Reid|date=2021|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/reid/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Summer 2021|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2021-09-21|last2=Yaffe|first2=Gideon}} 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."{{Citation|last=Reid|first=Thomas|editor1-first=Knud|editor1-last=Haakonssen|editor2-first=James A|editor2-last=Harris|title=Essays on the Active Powers of Man|date=1788-01-01|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oseo/instance.00106526|work=The Edinburgh Edition of Thomas Reid: Essays on the Active Powers of Man|pages=1|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|doi=10.1093/oseo/instance.00106526|isbn=9780748617081|access-date=2021-09-21|url-access=subscription}} 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.{{Cite journal|last=Markosian|first=Ned|date=September 1999|title=A Compatibilist Version Of The Theory Of Agent Causation|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-0114.00083|journal=Pacific Philosophical Quarterly|volume=80|issue=3|pages=257–277|doi=10.1111/1468-0114.00083|issn=0279-0750}} Roderick Chisholm'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.{{Citation|last1=Feldman|first1=Richard|title=Roderick Chisholm|date=2021|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/chisholm/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Summer 2021|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2021-09-21|last2=Feldman|first2=Fred}} 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.{{Cite web|title=Libertarianism|url=https://www.informationphilosopher.com/freedom/libertarianism.html|access-date=2021-09-28|website=www.informationphilosopher.com}} 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.{{Cite journal|last1=Goldman|first1=Alvin I.|last2=Nozick|first2=Robert|date=January 1983|title=Philosophical Explanations.|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2184523|journal=The Philosophical Review|volume=92|issue=1|pages=81|doi=10.2307/2184523|jstor=2184523|url-access=subscription}} 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.{{Cite book|last=Pink|first=Thomas|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/77519071|title=Free will : a very short introduction|date=2004|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-151806-5|location=Oxford|oclc=77519071}}