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This is conflating causation and determination. It is true that one's choice must have a cause, and this can either be internal or external to oneself. But it i
by cjameskeller 5y ago
This is conflating causation and determination. It is true that one's choice must have a cause, and this can either be internal or external to oneself. But it is not true that the choice must be _determined_ by the cause. The Agent Causation [0] view denies the notion that only states or events can serve as causal priors, and instead asserts that substances themselves may be the terminal "cause"
[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-theories/#3 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-theories/...
- vidarh 5y agoThat just introduces infinite regress [1] into the mix. In order to justify why that would introduce free will you now need to justify why the substance itself has free will. It's not a solution. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_regress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_regress
- jasperry 5y agoWhat is a substance? Does it have a definition in any testable theory? You claim that causation and determination were conflated, but if the distinction between them depends on terms that can't be defined scientifically, then you haven't shown that they are different in what they refer to in the universe. It's conceivable that on a physical level causality is just a word for a property of a deterministic system.