Causality, determination and necessitation in free human action

Author:

Carr VanessaORCID

Abstract

AbstractHuman freedom is often characterised as a unique power of self-determination. Accordingly, free human action is often thought to be determined by the agent in some distinctive manner. What is more, this determination is widely assumed to be a kind of efficient-causal determination. In reaction to this efficient-causal-deterministic conception of free human action, this paper argues that if one takes up the understanding of determination and causality that is offered by Anscombe in ‘Causality and Determination’, and moreover takes up an understanding of free human action that is constrained by Anscombe’s account of intentional action in Intention, then an account of free human action as distinctively caused or determined by the agent is untenable. However, the notion of necessitation that Anscombe presents in ‘Causality and Determination’, which implies neither causality nor determination, offers an attractive alternative account. This alternative account pushes us to reconsider the sense in which human freedom is a power of self-determination, and to acknowledge the limits of our control in free action.

Funder

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Subject

General Social Sciences,Philosophy

Reference52 articles.

1. Anscombe, G. E. M. (1981a). Causality and determination. In G. E. M. Anscombe (Ed.), Metaphysics and the philosophy of mind: Collected philosophical papers (Vol. II). University of Minnesota Press.

2. Anscombe, G. E. M. (1981b). Times, beginnings and causes. In G. E. M. Anscombe (Ed.), Metaphysics and the philosophy of mind: Collected philosophical papers (Vol. II). University of Minnesota Press.

3. Anscombe, G. E. M. (2000). Intention. Harvard University Press.

4. Anscombe, G. E. M. (2005). The causation of action. In G. E. M. Anscombe (Ed.), Human life, action and ethics: Essays. Imprint Academic.

5. Aquinas, T. (1920) Summa Theologiae. Fathers of the English Dominican Provice (Trans.) https://www.newadvent.org/summa/

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