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20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / c. Agent causation

[agency as a distinctive type of natural causation]

8 ideas
An action is voluntary if the limb movements originate in the agent [Aristotle]
Deliberation ends when the starting-point of an action is traced back to the dominant part of the self [Aristotle]
Reid said that agent causation is a unique type of causation [Reid, by Stout,R]
There has to be a brain event which is not caused by another event, but by the agent [Chisholm]
Freedom of action needs the agent to identify with their reason for acting [Frankfurt, by Wilson/Schpall]
Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis]
If you don't mention an agent, you aren't talking about action [Stout,R]
Most philosophers see causation as by an event or state in the agent, rather than the whole agent [Stout,R]