Can Agent Causation Save Freewill?

Researcher: Pouria Hadjibagheri October 2008

Man is a responsible agent, this however, seems to confront with a deterministic perspective of his actions, in which every occurrence including the human beings' perceptions, conducts, resolutions, verdicts and actions, are irregular intent on by an unscathed chain of earlier events, in other words, every occurrence that is associated in a move or an influence is somehow sourced and founded by another one, which means all the occurrences around us are related to each other. It, however, comes out confronted with a non-deterministic perspective of man as well, in which it is believed that neither the occurrences nor the conducts are sourced or rooted to anything. According to Watson, Roderick Chisholm believes that in terms of solving this complication, it is necessary to make a rather far-reaching supposition related to the one's ego or the agent, in another view, the person who executes, conducts and completes the act. If a person is responsible for a particular occurrence or a persuaded shape or situation of preserves, therefore that occurrence or situation of preserves was taken and hence executed by his act and it was his choice to make it come through or to ban its execution at all. At this point, if the act which has been executed by him and his own choice was an act the person could avoid, as result, the occurrence could not have been rooted or sourced by anything else including any occurrence that has not been done by the person and was not on him to make it occur or not to make it occur. About what is believed that the person has done was something that is done by his own choice, if these choices were made because of the situation and the time period that he was in, hence as result the individual had no choice other than doing what he did at that time in that place whereas they were the reasons why he did that particular action or reaction. But after the above-mentioned argument, it may be questioned that: Is the individual really responsible to what he has done knowing that he had no other choice other that what he did do? If the answer is yes, then it would be understood that there was a time when they were in their ability to obtain and gain or vice-versa, not to obtain and gain. In this case, if there was a good human being in its actual fact, then the individual would be responsible about what he has done as well as being responsible for what he would do, nevertheless, the person would still not be able to do anything different with what he has done and he would do, however, as the person is given to be good, thus he would take the best available or possible choice (depending on the time of the event). In this case, it has been quoted by Watson that He was good because he could not be otherwise. It is believed that not every occurrence associated with an act is rooted and sourced by other occurrences, it however, cannot be said that there is not rooted or sourced at all, in which case it is believe that at least one of them that is associated with the act is sourced, not through other occurrences, but through something that is an agent or the human. If there is a sourced occurrence not to the other events but to the human, hence some occurrences are in association with the act that neither is sourced nor is rooted to other occurrences. 'Immanent Causation' which means a shape of preserve where an agent is rooted or sourced to an occurrence which can be best described using the following statement from Watson which states: Thus, a staff moves a stone, and is moved by a hand, which is moved by a man (VII, 5, 256a, 6-8)

The staff was the reason why the stone was moved and the same about the staff and his hand, his hand moved then the stone moved, and according to medical science there are still other causes and effects rooted, related and sourced to each other which caused the stone to be moved at last. It, however, can be understood that the hand was used and controlled by the person but at the same time we also can say that the hand moved because of some physiological occurrence that happened into the person's body and similarly there were a number of associations and relations (Transeunt Causation or occurrences related, rooted or sourced to other occurrences) between the physiological occurrence and the brain, in this case, this last causation, which occurred by brain has no other causation, in this case, however, it was rooted and sourced to the agent instead of other occurrences which was an Immanent Causation. In conclusion, the matter is that whatever that is done, is done by the human being and whenever they do something two causation may happen: Transeunt Causation and Immanent Causation. The individual makes the occurrence to happen which is considered as the immanent causation this occurrence goes on based on cause and effect rules (the association between occurrences) which is transient causation. However, I personally believe that It is moved by a man and the man was moved because of some physiological occurrences in his brain. Nonetheless, If the subject is considered by a dualistic point of view, the agent would be known as a different phenomenon, which is soul, whereas in materialistic related perspectives that agent would be the brain, which causes everything that is done within the body of a man by its physical or chemical phenomena.

References
Watson, Gary (ed.). Sixth publication - 1990: Free Will (Oxford Readings in Philosophy), Oxford: Oxford University Press pp 125 - 135

Bibliography
Van Inwagen, Peter. 1983: An Essay on Free Will, Oxford: Clarendon Press.