The analytic philosophers have not, as a rule, a dialectical thinking and do not know organizing frameworks with theories about free will, biophysical determinism and indeterminism, clearly arranged. They mix species of a particular genus with species of different genera in a confused amalgam. An example is the table below.
In «Metaphysics, the Key Concept» , Helen Beebee, Nikk Effingham and Philip Goff wrote:
Table 1
____________________________________________________________________
Position Determinism Determinism Actual agent
Compatible with sometimes act
free will freely
_____________________________________________________________________
Compatibilism ? Y ?
Incompatibilism……………. ? N ?
Libertarianism……………… N N Y
Soft Determinism…………..Y Y Y
Hard Determinism………….Y N N
Illusionism ………………….. ? N N
Agent causalism…………….? ? ?
«Metaphysics, the Key Concept», page 83, Routledge.
In this table, there is a great confusion of genera. Compatibilism and Incompatibilism belong to genus articulation, a formal genus. Illusionism and agent causalism belong to genus cause of action: basically, the causes of an action are free will, determinism, fatalism or natural hazard. Soft Determinism is a species into compatibilism but they are hierarchized as if they were mutually extrinsec.
In the table above, a question mark is placed at the intersection of the horizontal column «Compatibilism» with vertical column «Determinism», but that is a mistake. In analytic philosophy, compatibilism includes determinism, so the letter should be Y ( yes). Another error is the question mark placed at the intersection of the horizontal column «Compatibilism» with vertical column «Actual agent sometimes act freely» because, by definition, compatibilism includes free will, free act. So, instead of a question mark there should be an Y.
And what is incompatibilism? A confuse definition of analytical philosophy. The only ones incompatibilisms are fatalism and hard determinism ( a quasi fatalism) because both exclude free will: but hard determinism is compatible with hazard and fatalism is not. Libertarianism is not an incompatibilism because it theorizes the simultaneous existence of free will and deterministic laws of nature, altough analytical thinkers sustain they are independent of each other.
What is agent causalism.? About agent causation Beebee, Effingham and Goff wrote:
«Some philosophers hold that it is only by being and “uncaused cause” of one `s action that an agent can truly be said to be ultimately responsible for their actions and hence to act freely and be morally responsible (…) Such philosophers hold that the relation between the agent and her free actions (normally thought to be her intentions or, in more old-fashioned terms, her “acts of will” or “willings” ) is that of “agent causation”.
«Most contemporary philosophers hold that the causal relata – the entities that stand in causal relations to one another – are spatiotemporally located entities, such as events (or facts or states of affairs).(…)
«Agent causation (if it exists) is a different kind of relation, because in this case, the cause is not an event (or facts or state of affairs) but the agent herself, conceived as a substance.» (Helen Beebee, Nikk Effingham and Philip Goff, «Metaphysics, the Key Concept» , page 3-4, Routledge).
This is not absolutely clear. Agent causalism is the same as free will, it is the efficient or moving cause of free will: hence, it contains, as its species, libertarianism and soft determinism - if we can distinguish libertarianism from soft determinism, which is a controversial question. And illusionism is the same as hard determinism and fatalism. This one is not mentioned in the table.
About the table above, there is another misconception. It makes no sense to put a question mark at the intersection of the horizontal column «Agent causalism» with vertical column « Actual agents sometimes act freely»: by definition, agent causalism act freely.
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