Introduction
Introduction
Causation is sometimes described in terms of determinism and indeterminism, which are seen as being incompatible opposites. Determinism is taken to be the view that events are caused by an unbroken sequence of prior events. Indeterminism is taken to be the view that events happen by random chance.
In that scenario, free will, if it is acknowledged at all, relates to moral responsibility rather than causation. E.g. "Soft determinism" is the view that free will allows moral responsibility for one's actions, but is not the cause of the events.
Alternatively, free will can be taken to be a form of causation in its own right, albeit that it still has moral connotations. It is this scenario that is explored here. However, the difference in usage of the term "free will" can lead to some confusion. So, for clarity, the terminology and premises used here are listed under precepts.
An analysis is made of and/or combinations of three forms of causation: event-event, random and agent, and the philosophic views of causation are mapped to them. E.g. Determinism allows only event-event causation, whereas event-event and random causation together represent a "non-freewillist". Similarly a "freewillist" need not reject event-event or random causation, but may agree that all three forms of causation are real, and, indeed, can be present in a single event.
The analysis also distinguishes between a form of agent causation that is compatible with the view that the universe is determinate (each choice has only one realizable option), and a libertarian form (which requires that more than one option must be genuinely realizable).
The evidence for and against each of the forms of causation is then considered, with particular reference to their relevance to free will.
