Indeterminacy of Causation in the Philosophy of Action

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Author: Anna C. ZielinskaAnna C. Zielinska
Affiliation: Université Pierre Mendès
Source: Causation 1500-2000, 2008
Keywords: causation, action, freedom  [edit]

@inbook{zielinska2008i,
    author = "Zielinska, Anna C.",
    title = {Indeterminacy of Causation in the Philosophy of Action},
    booktitle = "Causation 1500-2000",
    year = "2008"}

Synopsis

Causation in the philosophy of action is one of the most debated questions. The agent is either seen as causing events or causing actions, or as acting as a result of a cause; there is a general interest in the question of what is to be identified as a cause, and what is rather a reason for action. Those questions are extremely lively, particuarly since the mid-century, but it is clear that we cannot properly understand their challenges unless we look back to the last four centuries of philosophy.

With Georg von Wright I would like to argue that the understanding of the role of causation in the philosophy of action depends upon our understanding of the concept of action itself, and, even more than that, of the concept of cause. Those two notions acquired their essential role in history of philosophy thanks to Aristotle; nevertheless, Aristotelian multiplicity of causes was rejected, and an idealised version of causation was famously discussed by Hume. However, it might seem that some Aristotelian intuitions should be preserved, and both action and cause should receive a much less schematic treatment. In the framework of pure rationalism aiming at universally valid conclusions imposed by Descartes, some ancient philosophical concepts were taken out of context assigning them a clear and useful place. They were subsequently investigated as such, and their explanatory role was lost, since they begged for explanation too. This concept had thus a career similar to several other notions coming from the Antiquity, like virtue or duty. The extreme version of causation conceived as something purely logical is to be found in Spinoza’s EthicsEthics, where he uses this notion to demonstrate basic unity of the world as caused by the only entity that has no cause itself; God is recognized mainly by his place in the chain of causes.

Contemporary philosophy of action faced with this tradition must ask itself whether the notion of cause can be used in the same abstract way as it was in the case of post-Cartesian metaphysics. The answer I would like to propose is negative, and I want to show it using examples from both 16th and 20th century philosophy. I shall also use this opportunity to show how successive modifications of philosophical conceptions of freedom were forming a resourceful background for discussions of what causation might mean.