Online research in philosophy

I criticize the tendency to address the causal role of awareness in agency in terms of the awareness of agency, and argue that this distorts the causal import of experimental results in significant ways. I illustrate, using the work of Shaun Gallagher, how the tendency to focus on the awareness of agency obscures the role of extrospective awareness by considering it only in terms of what it contributes to the awareness of agency. Focus on awareness of agency separates awareness from agency itself, and then turns it inwards to introspect distinct agentive processes. If we then assume that the causal influence of awareness is directed at the same object as awareness itself, then the only avenue for conscious causal involvement in action is to somehow interfere with the separate, even neuronal, processes leading to action. I label this the Micromanagement Model of conscious agency, because it forces awareness to micromanage other, nonconscious, processes in order to be causally efficacious. Implicit adherence to the Micromanagement Model prejudices us towards the mistaken conclusion that awareness has limited to no causal role in action.

Abstract: On standard accounts, actions are caused by reasons (Davidson), and reasons are taken to be neural phenomena. Since neural phenomena are wholly understandable from a third-person perspective, standard views have no room for any ineliminable first-personal elements in an account of the causation of action. This article aims to show that first-person perspectives play essential roles in both human and nonhuman agency. Nonhuman agents have rudimentary first-person perspectives, whereas human agents—at least rational agents and moral agents—have robust first-person perspectives. The author concludes with a view of intentional causation, according to which reasons are constituted by (but not identical to) neural phenomena. The idea of constitution without identity allows for a causal account of action that automatically includes first-personal aspects of agency.

The main objective of this thesis is to defend an account of the control that agents possess over their actions from the perspective of the causal theory of action, that is, a theory that sees actions as events caused by internal states of their agents. The explanatory strategy that is employed for this purpose consists in addressing three interdependent and fundamental problems concerning the possibility of this type of control. The first problem arises from the possibility of controlling an action that is itself transitively caused by previous events. The answer given to this problem is grounded on a careful description of basic actions and on an identification of the internal states that function as the sources of control. The second problem emerges from a variety of causal deviance, namely, a conceptually possible scenario that satisfies the requirements for a bodily movement to be under the control of its agent without this movement being intuitively under the control of its agent. The answer given to this problem comes from the examination of the sources of the intuitions associated with causal deviance and from the recognition of the causal contribution of epistemic features present in the antecedents of an action. The third problem results from the possibility of producing an action that can only be partially controlled. This is problematic if one accepts that producing an action entails controlling it, as is suggested in this thesis. The reply given to this problem adapts an intention-based account of action guidance to the needs of an account of degrees of control, while remaining compatible with the proposal that producing an action is sufficient to control it.

In 1992, Law and Philosophy published an account of the paradigm case of intended action; one which gestured at, and did not pursue, an explanation of the requirement that a person be an agent in respect of her behaviour before that behaviour can constitute intended action. This paper completes that account by supplying an analysis of agency. The paper falls into three parts. It begins by casting doubt upon the possibility of specifying a causal account along the lines once envisaged by Davidson. An alternative approach is adopted: one that involves modifications to Frankfurt's depiction of action as behaviour under the agent's guidance, including a rejection of the view held by many writers that action requires intentional movement. Doubts about conventional wisdoms are also raised in the conclusion, which considers why philosophers and lawyers should be interested in the issue of agency at all.

From a moral point of view we think of ourselves as capable of responsible actions. From a scientific point of view we think of ourselves as animals whose behavior, however highly evolved, conforms to natural scientific laws. Natural Agency argues that these different perspectives can be reconciled, despite the skepticism of many philosophers who have argued that "free will" is impossible under "scientific determinism." This skepticism is best overcome according to the author, by defending a causal theory of action, that is by establishing that actions are constituted by behavioral events with the appropriate kind of mental causal history. He sets out a rich and subtle argument for such a theory and defends it against its critics. Thus the book demonstrates the importance of philosophical work in action theory for the central metaphysical task of understanding our place in nature.

The sense of agency, that is the sense that one is the agent of one’s bodily actions, is one component of our self-consciousness. Recently, Wegner and colleagues have developed a model of the causal history of this sense. Their model takes it that the sense of agency is elicited for an action when one infers that one or other of one’s mental states caused that action. In their terms, the sense of agency is elicited by the inference to apparent mental state causation. Here, I argue that this model is inconsistent with data from developmental psychology that suggests children can identify the agent behind an action without being capable of understanding the relationship between their intentions and actions. Furthermore, I argue that this model is inconsistent with the preserved sense of agency in autism. In general, the problem is that there are cases where subjects can experience themselves as the agent behind their actions despite lacking the resources to make the inference to apparent mental state causation.

According to what I call the reductive standard-causal theory of agency, the exercise of an agent's power to act can be reduced to the causal efficacy of agent-involving mental states and events. According to a non-reductive agent-causal theory, an agent's power to act is irreducible and primitive. Agent-causal theories have been dismissed on the ground that they presuppose a very contentious notion of causation, namely substance-causation. In this paper I will assume, with the proponents of the agent-causal approach, that substance-causation is possible, as I will argue against that theory on the ground that it fails as a theory of agency. I will argue that the non-reductive agent-causal theory fails to account for agency, because it fails to account for agential control: it cannot explain why the stipulated irreducible relation between the agent and an action constitutes the agent's exercise of control over the action. This objection, I will argue, applies to the agent-causal theory in particular, and to the non-reductive approach in general.

In broad outline, the standard theory of action consists of two parts: an event-causal theory of action and an event-causal theory of reason explanation. It has been argued that the only motive for endorsing the standard theory consists in the apparent lack of an alternative account of reason explanation. The chapter first outlines the basic options in the metaphysics of agency, and it then argues that the standard theory is well motivated as it offers the most attractive metaphysical account of agency. In the second part, the paper presents a response to the so-called problem of disappearing agency, which says, roughly, that agency disappears on the standard account, as it reduces activity to happenings (that is, events). This challenge has received a revival over the past two decades or so, and even proponents of the standard theory have argued that it prompts us to refine the theory, for instance by requiring that agents identify with the motives of their actions. The chapter argues that this move is too much of a concession, as ownership of mental states is a default position: we own our mental states and our agency springs from them, unless defeating conditions obtain.

Context: Mainstream philosophy of action and mind construes intentional, rational and autonomous agency in terms of causal processes that lead from some of the agent’s mental states and events to actions. Opponents of this standard-causal approach have criticised the view on various grounds; they argue that it does not account for free will and moral responsibility, that it does not account for actions that are done in the light of reasons, or, even, that it does not capture the very phenomenon of agency. My doctoral dissertation defends the standard-causal approach against challenges of that kind. My thesis, however, does not provide a full defence of the standard-causal model. My aim for future research is to address further issues and problems for the theory; in particular, I would like to address challenges that emphasise the normative nature of intentional and rational agency.

We focus on the recent non-causal theory of reasons explanationsof free action proffered by a proponent of the agency theory, Timothy O'Connor. We argue that the conditions O'Connor offersare neither necessary nor sufficient for a person to act for a reason. Finally, we note that the role O'Connor assigns toreasons in the etiology of actions results in further conceptual difficulties for agent-causalism.