scholarly journals Two Accounts of the Problem of Enhanced Control

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (62) ◽  
pp. 301-318
Author(s):  
Damir Ćićić
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Causal Theory ◽  
Theory Of Action ◽  
Causal Theory Of Action

According to event-causal libertarianism, an action is free in the sense relevant to moral responsibility when it is caused indeterministically by an agent’s beliefs, desires, intentions, or by their occurrences. This paper attempts to clarify one of the major objections to this theory: the objection that the theory cannot explain the relevance of indeterminism to this kind of freedom (known as free will). Christopher Evan Franklin (2011, 2018) has argued that the problem of explaining the relevance of indeterminism to free will (which he calls “the problem of enhanced control”) arises because it is difficult to see how indeterminism could enhance our abilities, and disappears when we realize that beside the relevant abilities free will requires opportunities. In this paper, I argue that the problem occurs not because of the focus on abilities, but because of the difficulty to explain how indeterminism could contribute to the satisfaction of the sourcehood condition of free will in the framework of event-causal theory of action.

Aspects of Agency

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred R. Mele
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Causal Theory ◽  
Theory Of Action ◽  
Direct Control ◽  
Complete Control ◽  
Causal Theory Of Action ◽  
Action Explanation ◽  
And Control ◽  
Free Actions

Libertarianism about free will is the conjunction of a negative thesis and a positive thesis. The negative thesis is that free will is incompatible with determinism. The positive thesis is that there are actions that are or involve exercises of free will—free actions, for short. While remaining neutral of the negative thesis, this book develops a detailed version of the positive thesis that represents paradigmatically free actions as indeterministically caused by their proximal causes and pays special attention to decisions caused in this way. The bulk of the book is a defense of this thesis against popular objections to theses of its kind. This defense includes solutions to problems about luck and control that are widely discussed in the literature on free will and moral responsibility. Various key concepts are clarified, including complete control, direct control, and its being up to an agent what is decided; and it is argued that free will may be accommodated without invoking agent-causation. The seven chapters on free will are preceded by an introductory chapter and three chapters on central issues in the philosophy of action that bear on standard treatments of free will—deciding to act, agents’ abilities, and commitments of a causal theory of action explanation.

scholarly journals No facts without perspectives

Synthese ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramiro Glauer ◽  
Frauke Hildebrandt
Keyword(s):  
Mental States ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Causal Theory ◽  
Theory Of Action ◽  
Basic Fact ◽  
Causal Theory Of Action ◽  
De Re ◽  
De Dicto ◽  
Conceptual Confusion

AbstractPerner and Roessler (in: Aguilar J, Buckareff A (eds) Causing human action: new perspectives on the causal theory of action, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 199–228, 2010) hold that children who do not yet have an understanding of subjective perspectives, i.e., mental states, explain actions by appealing to objective facts. In this paper, we criticize this view. We argue that in order to understand objective facts, subjects need to understand perspectives. By analysing basic fact-expressing assertions, we show that subjects cannot refer to facts if they do not understand two types of perspectivity, namely, spatial and doxastic perspectivity. To avoid conceptual confusion regarding different ways of referring to facts, we distinguish between reference to facts de re and de dicto.

scholarly journals Is Davidson's Theory of Action Consistent?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D Murray
Keyword(s):  
Human Action ◽  
Causal Theory ◽  
Donald Davidson ◽  
Theory Of Action ◽  
Causal Connection ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Causal Theory Of Action ◽  
Small Industry ◽  
Common Objection ◽  
Train Of Thought

A theory of human action should provide an account of the connection between reason and action when an agent acts for a reason, and it should provide an account of the explanatory force of explanations of actions. On the causal theory of action, the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and explanations of actions are modeled on ordinary causal explanations, where events are explained by citing other events as their causes. A once common objection to the causal theory had it that reasons cannot be causes, since explanations of actions do not fit reason and action into a nomic nexus expressed by laws or law-like generalizations. Against this train of thought, Donald Davidson defends a version of the causal theory by arguing that the view that the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and the view that explanations of actions do not fit reasons and actions into a nomic nexus are compatible. Davidson's theory generated a small industry of criticism focusing on the implications of his version of the causal theory for the nature of the causal connection between reasons and actions.

scholarly journals Is Davidson's Theory of Action Consistent?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D Murray
Keyword(s):  
Human Action ◽  
Causal Theory ◽  
Donald Davidson ◽  
Theory Of Action ◽  
Causal Connection ◽  
Causal Explanations ◽  
Causal Theory Of Action ◽  
Small Industry ◽  
Common Objection ◽  
Train Of Thought

A theory of human action should provide an account of the connection between reason and action when an agent acts for a reason, and it should provide an account of the explanatory force of explanations of actions. On the causal theory of action, the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and explanations of actions are modeled on ordinary causal explanations, where events are explained by citing other events as their causes. A once common objection to the causal theory had it that reasons cannot be causes, since explanations of actions do not fit reason and action into a nomic nexus expressed by laws or law-like generalizations. Against this train of thought, Donald Davidson defends a version of the causal theory by arguing that the view that the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and the view that explanations of actions do not fit reasons and actions into a nomic nexus are compatible. Davidson's theory generated a small industry of criticism focusing on the implications of his version of the causal theory for the nature of the causal connection between reasons and actions.

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