Research Seminar in Decision and Action Theory: İbrahim Hansu (MCMP)

Title:

Causation in Free Agency

Abstract:

Kevin Mitchell (2023, 2024) develops a scientifically informed account of libertarian free agency and mental causation, drawing empirical evidence from quantum mechanics, cell biology, and neuroscience. He further endorses a non-reductive approach to neuroscience that goes beyond mechanism search, integrating resources from philosophy such as agent causation, criterial causation, and final causes. I argue that the account rests on a series of conflations of methodological issues in science with metaphysical issues in philosophy, and the evidence is consistent with both freedom skepticism and mechanism search. I then focus on Mitchell's defense of mental causation through "difference-making causation with causal slack" as a possible instance of such conflation, and explore whether it extends to other accounts.