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It is not the case that Agent-causal accounts (Chisholm, O'Connor) provide coherent frameworks for libertarian free will grounded in substance causation.
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Reasons For
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Reason for
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1.
Substance causation remains metaphysically obscure: how agents cause events without event-level causal mechanisms is unexplained.
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2.
Agent-causal libertarianism conflicts with physicalism about mental states and struggles to integrate with neuroscientific findings about brain causation.
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3.
The theory risks making free choices random at the fundamental level, undermining the connection between an agent's character and their decisions.
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Reasons Against
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Reason against
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1.
Agents as irreducible causal powers can initiate causal chains without being fully determined by prior events or physical laws.
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2.
Substance causation avoids the regress problem facing event-causal accounts by grounding agency in the agent's fundamental nature itself.
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3.
Agent-causal frameworks preserve moral responsibility by identifying agents—not just events—as the ultimate source of action.
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