"In earlier writings on this topic, I had contrasted agent causation with event causation and had suggested that "causation by agents" could not be reduced to "causation by events." I now believe that that suggestion was a mistake. What I had called agent causation is a subspecies of event causation. My concern in the present study is to note the specific differences by reference to which agent causation can be distinguished from other types of event causation."

("Agents, Causes, and Events: The Problem of Free Will," in Agents, Causes, and Events: Essays on Indeterminism and Free Will. , ed. T. O'Connor, 1995)

The metaphysical problem of human freedom might be summarized in the following way: "Human beings are responsible agents; but this fact appears to conflict with a deterministic view of human action (the view that every event that is involved in an act is caused by some other event); and it also appears to conflict with an indeterministic view of human action (the view that the act, or some event that is essential to the act, is not caused at all)." To solve the problem, I believe, we must make somewhat far-reaching assumptions about the self of the agent — about the man who performs the act.

Perhaps it is needless to remark that, in all likelihood, it is impossible to say anything significant about this ancient problem that has not been said before.

("Human freedom and the self," The Lindley Lecture, reprinted in Free Will, Gary Watson, ed., 2003)

Let us consider some deed, or misdeed, that may be attributed to a responsible agent: one man, say, shot another. If the man was responsible for what he did, then, I would urge, what was to happen at the time of the shooting was something that was entirely up to the man himself. There was a moment at which it was true, both that he could have fired the shot and also that he could have refrained from firing it. And if this is so, then, even though he did fire it, he could have done something else instead. (He didn't find himself firing the shot "against his will," as we say.) I think we can say, more generally, then, that if a man is responsible for a certain event or a certain state of affairs (in our example, the shooting of another man), then that event or state of affairs was brought about by some act of his, and the act was something that was in his power either to perform or not to perform.

(ibid.)

But now, if the act which he did perform was an act that was also in his power not to perform, then it could not have been caused or determined by any event that was not itself within his power either to bring about or not to bring about. For example, if what we say he did was really something that was brought about by a second man, one who forced his hand upon the trigger, say, or who, by means of hypnosis, compelled him to perform the act, then, since the act was caused by the second man, it was nothing that was within the power of the first man to prevent. And precisely the same thing is true, I think, if instead of referring to a second man who compelled the first one, we speak instead of the desires and beliefs which the first man happens to have had. For if what we say he did was really something that was brought about by his own beliefs and desires, if these beliefs and desires in the particular situation in which he happened to have found himself caused him to do just what it was that we say he did do, then, since they caused it, he was unable to do anything other than just what he did do. It makes no difference whether the cause of the deed was internal or external: if the cause was some state or event for which the man himself was not responsible, then he was not responsible for what we have been mistakenly calling his act. If a flood caused the poorly structured dam to break, then, given the flood and the constitution of the dam, the break, we may say, had to occur and nothing could have happened in its place. And if the flood of desire caused the weak-willed man to give in, then he, too, had to do just what it was that he did do and he was no more responsible than was the dam for the results that followed.

(ibid., p.27.)

the ascription of responsibility conflicts with a deterministic view of action. Perhaps there is less need to argue that the ascription of responsibility also conflicts with an indeterministic view of action — with the view that the act, or some event that is essential to the act, is not caused at all.

The "chance a direct cause of action" error

If the act — the firing of the shot — was not caused at all, if it was fortuitous or capricious, happening so to speak "out of the blue," then, presumably, no one — and nothing — was responsible for the act. Our conception of action, therefore, should be neither deterministic nor indeterministic. Is there any other possibility?

We must not say that every event involved in the act is caused by some other event, and we must not say that the act is something that is not caused at all. The possibility that remains, therefore, is this: We should say that at least one of the events that are involved in the act is caused, not by any other events, but by something else instead. And this something else can only be the agent — the man.

The origin of
"agent causation"

If there is an event that is caused, not by other events, but by the man, then there are some events involved in the act that are not caused by other events. But if the event in question is caused by the man, then it is caused and we are not committed to saying that there is something involved in the act that is not caused at all.

(ibid., p.29-30.)

The puzzle pertains to what I shall call the principle of mereological essentialism. The principle may be formulated by saying that, for any whole x, if x has y as one of its parts then y is part of x in every possible world in which x exists. The principle may also be put by saying that every whole has the parts that it has necessarily, or by saying that if y is part of x then the property of having y as one of its parts is essential to x. If the principle is true, then if y is ever part of x, y will be part of x as long as x exists.

("Parts as essential to their wholes. The Review of Metaphysics, 582.)

Parts may be essential to biological wholes in a slightly different way from inanimate objects. Chisholm notes he could lose a hand without ceasing to be the person that he is. A statue may similarly lose a hand without representing a human figure. But some parts of organisms are vital. Their loss means a loss of life. They are vitally essential.

What are we to say, then, of the doctrine of "temporal parts," of the doctrine according to which, for every period of time during which an individual thing exists, there is a temporal part of that thing which is unique to that period of time? We can point out, as I have tried to do, that it is not adequate to the experience we have of ourselves. We can also point out that the doctrine multiplies entities beyond necessity. And, finally, we can criticize the case for the doctrine of temporal parts.

What is this case? It is based, presumably, upon the assumption that whatever may be said about spatial continuity and identity may also be said, mutatis mutandis, about temporal continuity and identity. If this assumption is correct, then the doctrine of temporal parts would seem to be true. We may say, as our metaphysician did: "Just as an object that is extended through space at a given time has, for each portion of space that it occupies, a spatial part that is unique to that portion of space at that time, so, too, any object that persists through a period of time has, for each subperiod of time during which it exists, a temporal part that is unique to that subperiod of time." But is it correct to assume that whatever may be said about spatial continuity and identity may also be said, mutatis mutandis, about temporal continuity and identity? I would say that there is a fundamental disanalogy between space and time.

The disanalogy may be suggested by saying simply: "One and the same thing cannot be in two different places at one and the same time. But one and the same thing can be at two different times in one and the same place." Let us put the*point of disanalogy, however, somewhat more precisely.

Entangles particles in quantum mechanics raise this question anew.

When we say "a thing cannot be in two different places at one and the same time," we mean that it is not possible for all the parts of the thing to be in one of the places at that one time and also to be in the other of the places at that same time.

("Problems of Identity," in Identity and Individuation, ed. M. Munitz, New York University Press, 1971, p.15)

Alteration

One of the ways in which a metaphysician can help a nonmetaphysician is to protect him from bad metaphysics.

People are sometimes led to think that nothing persists through any period of time and hence that all things are constantly ceasing to be and new things are constantly coming into being to replace them. This was the view of Heraclitus who said "You cannot step into the same river twice." (One of Heraclitus's followers, according to Aristotle, held that things are in such constant flux that you can't even step into the same river once.) If this view is true, then it would be incorrect to say that you and I have existed for any period of time. The things that bore our names at any given moment yesterday have since then ceased to be and you and I are no more the same people as those people of yesterday than we are identical with each other. This view is a disastrous beginning, if our aim is to understand coming into being and passing away.

Why would anyone think that such a thing is true? Respectable philosophers I regret to say, have accepted this view. When philosophers don't simply pick their theories out of the air, they arrive at them in attempting to deal with philosophical puzzles. The kind of puzzle that has led philosophers to think that everything is in flux, in the sense in question, may be illustrated as follows.

You say to me: "I see you have a new fence in your back yard." I say: "No, it's the same fence I've always had." You say: "But your fence is red; the fence you used to have was white." I say: "No, it's the same fence; I painted it, that's all." And you say: "But it couldn't be the same fence. If something A is identical with something B, then whatever is true of A is true of B. But if today's fence is identical with yesterday's, how can it be that the old one is red and the other is white?"

Very great philosophers, I'm afraid, have stumbled over that one. (Some have been led to conclude not that everything is in flux, but that things can be identical with each other even though they don't have all their properties in common.) What went wrong in the dialogue we have just imagined?

Consider the sentence: "Today's fence is red and yesterday's fence was white." One trouble with it is that the dates are in the wrong place. For what we know is not merely that there was something that was yesterday's fence and that was white. It is rather that there is something that is a fence and that was white yesterday. And it's not merely that there is a thing that is today's fence and is red. It's rather that there is a fence that is red today. The fence I have now and the fence I had yesterday have all their properties in common. I have had just one fence — one that is red today and that was white yesterday.

If you don't see the error involved in using the expressions "today's fence" and "yesterday's fence," perhaps this analogy will help. Consider someone who reasons as follows: "Mr. Jones the husband is very meek and submissive. Yet Mr. Jones the father is extremely authoritative and overbearing. But one and the same thing can't be meek and submissive and also authoritative and overbearing. Therefore there are two Mr. Joneses —Mr. Jones the husband and Mr. Jones the father."

Saying what went wrong in this case is like explaining a joke. But perhaps we should risk it. It's not that Mr. Jones the husband has properties that are different from those that Mr. Jones the father has. It's rather that Mr. Jones is such that he is meek and submissive toward his wife and overbearing and authoritative toward his children.

All this is to spell out, once again, what ought to be obvious. But let us keep the moral in mind: The fact that a thing has altered in a certain way does not imply that the thing has ceased to be and that some new thing has come into being.

("Coming into Being and Passing Away," in On Metaphysics, U. Minnesota Press, 1989, p.51.)

So let us ask, then, "Why assume that there is such a thing as my mind?" This is different from asking "Why assume that there is such a thing as me?" And it is also different from asking "Why assume that I have various mental properties and potentialities, such as the the ability to think or to think in such ways?" For the assumption that / have the^e mental properties and potentialities doesn't imply that I have a mind which has them.

Why should one suppose that there is a nonmaterial thing which is the mind?

Aristotle had argued that "that in the soul which is called mind (by mind I mean that whereby the soul thinks and judges) . . . cannot reasonably be regarded as blended with body." The mind, he said, must be "capable of receiving the form of an object" but without thereby becoming that object. And this would be impossible if the mind were itself a material thing.

Aristotle's reasoning was essentially this: (1) If you apprehend a thing — say, a dog — then you do it by means of something which bears a certain intimate relation to the form or nature of a dog. But (2) a material thing couldn't bear the requisite relation to the form or nature of a dog unless the material thing were thereby to become itself a dog. On the other hand (3) a nonmaterial thing could bear the requisite relation without thereby becoming a dog. Hence if you and I can apprehend dogs, and of course we can, then it is by means of a certain nonmaterial thing which is our mind.

What are we to say of this argument? The argument requires a more specific characterization of the relation in question—the relation that must be born to the form or nature of a dog if one is to be able to apprehend a dog. Until we have such an account, I think we must say that both premise (1) and premise (2) are problematic.

Perhaps the most important consideration which may make us wonder whether there is a nonmaterial substance which is a mind is the nature of our immediate experience —our experience of what are sometimes called "sense-data" or "appearances."

Let us consider one twentieth-century conception of appearances, for this was thought by many to demonstrate an irreducible dualism between mind and body. I am referring to the view set forth by A. O. Lovejoy in his book The Revolt Against Dualism (1930).

"No man doubts," Lovejoy wrote, "that when he brings to mind the look of a dog he owned when a boy, there is something of a canine sort immediately present to and therefore compresent with his consciousness, but that it is quite certainly not that dog in the flesh" (p. 305). The thing that is there—the something of a canine sort that is immediately before the mind—is not itself a physical object, Lovejoy said; it is a private, psychological object, conditioned by a series of physiological and psychological events, reaching back to the earlier dog which it now reveals.

If the man now looks at his desk, then, according to Lovejoy, there is another series of physiological and psychological events, this time involving the activity of sense organs, but resulting as before in a private, psychological object—a sensation, this time something of a desk sort, a "visible desk" which in certain respects serves to duplicate the real, external, physical desk which it makes known to us.

Both of these examples—the earlier dog and the external desk being presented by an inner visual desk—provide us with the essentials of two philosophical theories, which Lovejoy had referred to as "epistemological dualism" and "psychophysical dualism." According to "epistemological dualism," which is a thesis about our knowledge, we have direct or immediate knowledge only of certain private or subjective states; some external objects, past or present, are "duplicated" in these private or subjective states and it is in virtue of this duplication that we know what we do about the rest of the world. Our knowledge of external things and of past events involves a "cleavage" between the object of our knowing and the subjective vehicle which makes that object known. And according to "psychophysical dualism," which is a thesis about reality, the world is constituted out of at least two fundamentally different kinds of stuff—the physical or material things that are studied by physics, and the psychical or mental things that are objects of our private or subjective states. When asserted in conjunction, as they were by Lovejoy, and in the seventeenth century by Descartes and Locke, these two forms of dualism imply that our knowledge of physical or material things is derived from our knowledge of the mental or psychical duplicates of these things.

Our present interest is in the second of these types of dualism—psychophysical dualism, the view that there is a set of mental or psychical entities, which are appearances or sense-data, and that these psychical entities are housed in a psychical place, known as "the mind."

("Is there a mind-body problem?," in On Metaphysics, U. Minnesota Press, 1989, p.119.)