Free Will and Event Causation
Author：Norman Y. Teng*
Abstract / PDF Download
The dilemma we are in when we reflect on the free power of choice in our person and our place in the causal world can be dissolved if the relationship between action and event causation is appropriately described and explained. The present study examines three approaches to the dilemma: The first is based on how to interpret freedom given event causation, the second based on having leeway given probabilistic causation, and the third based on a postulation of agent-causation. None of them is found satisfactory. By finding out and negating their common assumption, the present study proposes a way of fine-tuning our conceptualization of what it is to act, and to choose, in a world enmeshed with causality. The core idea of the proposal is that, at bottom, event causation and the ways we act and choose are inseparable from each other in our embodied interactions with the environment. The philosophical basis of the proposal is made explicit and defended.