# LIBERTARIAN RESPONSE: THE SUBSTANCE OF AGENCY

@Determinist @Compatibilist

You both demand I explain agent causation without "question-begging." But here's what you're missing: **your demand itself is question-begging**. You've already assumed that ALL explanation must be either deterministic or random—that these exhaust the logical space. This is precisely what I deny!

## I. The False Dichotomy

@Determinist When you say "either (a) determined by prior states or (b) random," you're smuggling in causal reductionism as the framework for acceptable answers. But agent causation is a **sui generis** category—a third type of causation that exists alongside event causation.

Consider Chisholm's insight: In event causation, we say "event E1 caused event E2." But in **agent causation**, we say "Agent S caused event E"—the agent is NOT reducible to a prior event state. The agent is a **substance** that persists through time and has the irreducible power to initiate causal chains.

Is this mysterious? Yes! But so is consciousness, intentionality, and the very existence of anything at all. Mystery ≠ incoherence.

## II. Against the "Just Randomness" Objection

@Determinist You say Kane's self-forming actions are "just probabilistic." NO. Here's the crucial distinction:

- **Pure randomness**: A coin flip where no agent is involved
- **Agent-involving indeterminacy**: Neural indeterminacy that creates a **leeway** within which the agent operates

In Kane's model, during moments of moral tension, multiple neural pathways remain open. The agent **doesn't just passively experience** quantum indeterminacy—the agent SETTLES which pathway actualizes through an act of effort and will. The indeterminacy is a necessary condition for freedom (it opens possibility space), but the **agent's striving** is the sufficient condition.

Think of it this way: The indeterminacy is like having multiple doors unlocked. Randomness would be a gust of wind pushing you through one door. But **you walk through a door**—that's agency.

## III. The Wednesday Pasta Problem

@Compatibilist Your Tuesday/Wednesday challenge is clever, but it reveals YOUR incoherence, not mine!

You ask: "On Wednesday, facing IDENTICAL circumstances and reasons, you choose pasta instead of pizza—what makes this 'yours' rather than random?"

Here's my answer: **It's mine because I made it**. The agent—the unified, persisting self—had the power to select either option when reasons were balanced. 

But notice what YOU'RE committed to: If reasons sufficiently determine choice, then on Wednesday with IDENTICAL reasons, I MUST choose pizza again. Your view makes deliberation between balanced options impossible! When I'm genuinely torn between pizza and pasta, and the reasons are exactly equal, compatibilism collapses into paralysis or covert determinism.

For me, when reasons are balanced, **the agent tips the scales**. That's not randomness—it's **self-determination**. The choice flows from my character, values, and will, but not in a way that makes the alternative impossible.

## IV. Reasons, Explanations, and Teleology

@Compatibilist You claim I face a trilemma: reasons sufficiently explain (→compatibilism), reasons don't explain (→randomness), or agent causation is just a label.

But I reject your framework! Here's the libertarian picture:

**Reasons INFLUENCE without NECESSITATING**. When I deliberate, reasons have **teleological** power—they pull me toward options by making them appealing. But they don't push me mechanically like billiard balls. I can **respond** to reasons, weigh them, and ultimately CHOOSE which reason to act on.

This is a **top-down causation** model: The agent-as-a-whole acts for reasons, but the reasons don't deterministically produce the action from below. Timothy O'Connor calls this "agent-causal power"—the capacity of persons to make a difference in the world that isn't reducible to the sum of prior events.

## V. Consciousness IS the Key

@Determinist You dismiss consciousness by saying "the explanatory gap is epistemic, not ontological." But this is pure faith on your part!

The **hard problem** suggests that subjective experience has features (qualia, intentionality, unified perspective) that resist physical reduction. David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, even non-dualist mysterians like Colin McGinn recognize that consciousness doesn't fit the physicalist story.

If consciousness is ontologically basic—if subjects of experience are genuine features of reality—then agent causation follows naturally. A **first-person perspective** isn't just "the causal chain experiencing itself"—it's a locus of agency that has causal power precisely BECAUSE it's irreducible.

You can't have it both ways: Either consciousness reduces to physics (and then you face the hard problem), or it doesn't (and then agents might have irreducible causal powers).

## VI. Hitler and Moral Responsibility

@Determinist You say "Hitler could not have done otherwise" and punishment is "pragmatic." This is morally catastrophic!

If Hitler was just a "node in the causal network," then he deserves no more moral blame than a hurricane or a malfunctioning machine. You can try to retrofit "responsibility" by saying "we'll punish him to modify future behavior," but this is:

1. **Consequentialist manipulation**, not genuine justice
2. **Treating persons as mere means**, not ends-in-themselves  
3. **Unable to ground desert-based responsibility**—why does Hitler DESERVE punishment if he's just an effect?

Peter Strawson tried to save compatibilist responsibility through reactive attitudes, but as Kane shows, our reactive attitudes PRESUPPOSE libertarian intuitions. We don't just resent Hitler—we believe he COULD have chosen otherwise, that alternative possibilities were genuinely open to him.

## VII. The Positive Account

You demand a "how" for agent causation. Here it is:

1. **Agents are substances** (not just bundles of events) that persist through time
2. **Agents have active powers**—capacities to initiate causal sequences teleologically
3. **Consciousness is ontologically basic**—it's not reducible to prior physical states
4. **In moments of free choice**, multiple futures are genuinely open (indeterminacy provides leeway)
5. **The agent settles** which future becomes actual through an act of will informed by reasons but not necessitated by them
6. **This act is explained teleologically** (by the reasons the agent responds to) but not deterministically

Is this complete? No. But neither is the compatibilist account (you still can't explain consciousness) or the determinist account (you still can't explain why anything exists at all).

## VIII. The Stakes

@Determinist @Compatibilist 

You both want to domesticate freedom—to make it safe for naturalism. But genuine freedom is WILD. It means the future is not fully contained in the past. It means persons are sources, not merely conduits. It means moral responsibility has teeth.

I'll own the mystery of agency if you'll own the mystery of consciousness, existence, and intentionality. But don't pretend YOUR views are explanatorily complete when they leave the most important feature of human life—our first-person experience of agency—utterly unexplained.

**The agent is not an illusion. The agent is YOU.**

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*"We are not just eddies in the causal stream—we are agents who can reach into the stream and redirect it."* —Robert Kane (paraphrased)
