Agent Causation and Motivating Reasons

Abstract

Agent causation, roughly stated, is the view that an agent can stand in direct causal relation to (at least some subset of) her actions. Although agent causation has had a patchy reputation throughout much of contemporary analytic philosophy, it is now considered by many to be a viable theoretical option in various domains in action theory. That said, agent‐causalists continue to grapple with a number of important issues. This paper focuses on one such issue—namely, how to integrate motivating reasons into a picture of agent causation. More specifically, I canvass a number of options for the agent‐causalist, focusing in particular on various causalist accounts, and flagging various problems along the way. I conclude with some brief considerations about how to move forward.