The Dilemma And Outlet Of The Theory Of Agent Causation

Theory of Agent Causation is an important theory in the current discussion of free will.Unlike Event Causation,the central idea is that the ultimate cause of action is the person,not any event.However,the theory of Agent Causation proposed by O’Connor has encountered a second-order problem: the problem of the mysterious and comprehensible of the ‘agent as a cause’.The ultimate purpose of this paper is to borrow the concept of ‘Agent Potential’ by Yan Qingshan to find a new solution to this dilemma.The main content of this paper includes four parts(besides the introduction).The first part,after reconstructing the main arguments of O ’Connor’s Agent Causation,the author reveals three first-order problems O ’Connor encountered,and then comments on O ’Connor’s central responses.The second part,the author reconstructs the problem of the mysterious and comprehensible of the ‘agent as a cause’,review/put forward the solution of the two possible strategies: the first scheme is Randolph Clarke’s new integrated version of agent causation-it will lead to retreat into the result of the event causation;The second is a ‘priori’ argument scheme which inspired by ‘causal determinism presupposes free consciousness’(Yan Qingshan).The third part reviews several important current causality theories,which prove a radical free will conclusion,namely,causality theory is the product of our ‘free consciousness’.These theories include two semantic causal theories and two metaphysical causal theories.Finally,citing the causal intuition in mechanics,we propose the concept of ‘Acting Causation’,and compare agent to physical ‘potential’ to put forward the concept of‘agent potential’ : As an entity with the attribute of ‘action potential’,the agent itself is not the directly cause,it can be a cause only if it have a motive in the presence of a concrete object.Thus,the difficulty of comprehensibility of theory of Agent Causation is solved mechanically.