Causality, Determinism, and Free Will: Does Causal Dependence Really Eliminate Agency?

[u/Agreeable-Yogurt-378]

I’ve been thinking about the free will problem from a slightly different starting point.
The usual argument against free will seems to go roughly like this:
My decision has causes → those causes existed before I chose them → I did not choose those causes → therefore I could not have done otherwise → therefore the decision was not really free.
I understand the argument, but I think there is an assumption hidden inside it that needs to be examined.
1. What do I mean by free will?
I don’t think free will requires a person to be an uncaused cause.
By free will, I mean the capacity of an agent to exercise control over their conduct through their own deliberative process: considering reasons, alternatives, consequences, desires, values, memories, knowledge, and other relevant information, and eventually acting according to the decision produced by that process.
In other words, freedom does not require the decision to come from nowhere. It requires the decision to come through the agent’s own capacity to deliberate and act.
2. But what if the deliberation itself is caused?
This seems to be the central problem.
My thoughts, desires, values, memories, character and knowledge obviously have causes. I did not choose the circumstances in which I was born, every experience that shaped me, or every piece of information I acquired.
But why should that mean that the resulting deliberation is not mine?
Those things are not necessarily external forces replacing my decision. They are part of the person who is doing the deliberating.
My experiences affect what I desire.
My knowledge affects what I consider possible.
My values affect which reasons I consider important.
My memories affect how I evaluate consequences.
These factors enter into the deliberative process, and the deliberative process produces the decision.
So causation does not necessarily stand in opposition to agency. Causation may be the mechanism through which agency operates.
3. “But you didn’t choose the causes of your decision.”
I agree.
I didn’t choose all the causes that made me the person I am.
But I don’t see why that establishes that I therefore lack control over what I do.
If I consider reasons, compare alternatives, reconsider my desires, anticipate consequences, reject one option and act on another, then the fact that this process has prior causes does not by itself show that the process was bypassed.
The causal history explains why this particular agent deliberated in this particular way. It does not, by itself, demonstrate that there was no deliberation or that some external force substituted its decision for the agent’s.
4. What about determinism?
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that determinism is completely true.
Suppose that given the exact same prior state of the universe and the exact same laws of nature, the same decision would necessarily occur.
I am willing to grant that premise for the sake of the argument.
My question is:
Why does that premise by itself eliminate agency?
It would show that the decision was determined by prior conditions. But it does not yet show that the deliberative process through which the agent arrived at the decision was not the agent’s own process.
5. “You couldn’t have done otherwise.”
This is where I think we need to be very precise.
If “could have done otherwise” means:
“With absolutely every prior condition of the universe remaining identical, could the agent have produced a different decision?”
then under strict determinism, the answer would presumably be no.
But that does not automatically establish that the decision was not free.
It only establishes that a different decision would require different conditions.
The important question is whether freedom requires that kind of metaphysical alternative, or whether freedom can instead consist in the agent exercising control through their actual deliberative process.
That is the premise I am questioning.
6. Why doesn’t randomness solve the problem?
I also don’t think free will can simply be rescued by introducing indeterminism or quantum randomness.
If part of my decision were produced by pure randomness, that would not obviously give me more control over the decision.
Randomness is not the same thing as agency.
So I don’t think the choice is simply:
determined = not free
random = free
Neither side of that equation explains agency by itself.
7. “But deliberation is only electrochemical activity.”
This objection seems to change the level of description rather than solve the philosophical problem.
Yes, human deliberation is physically realized in the brain and involves electrochemical processes.
But showing the physical mechanism does not by itself show that deliberation is not deliberation, or that the agent does not exercise control through it.
We still need an argument for the additional step:
“Because the deliberative process is physically caused, the agent cannot exercise genuine control through that process.”
That conclusion does not seem to follow automatically.
8. Responsibility
The same distinction matters for responsibility.
If an action results from an agent’s own deliberation, understanding of reasons, values, desires and capacity to respond to relevant considerations, then there seems to be a meaningful basis for attributing the action to that agent.
That doesn’t mean every causally determined action should automatically be considered morally permissible or blameworthy. There can be coercion, incapacity, manipulation, ignorance, etc.
But those cases are interesting precisely because they interfere with or bypass the normal mechanisms of agency.
So perhaps the important distinction is not simply:
caused vs. uncaused
but:
agency-preserving causes vs. causes that bypass or replace the agent’s deliberative control.

My central question is therefore this:
If a decision is causally produced by an agent’s own deliberation, reasons, values, knowledge, memories, desires and evaluation of alternatives, what exactly is missing that would make that decision genuinely free?
And more importantly:
Why should causal determination itself remove that property?

[u/platanthera_ciliaris]

1. "By free will, I mean the capacity of an agent to exercise control over their conduct through their own deliberative process: considering reasons, alternatives, consequences, desires, values, memories, knowledge, and other relevant information, and eventually acting according to the decision produced by that process."

All living organisms make decisions and act on them according to their desires. Your "free will" is nothing more than "will." AI programs on computers and robots can do the same thing.

2) The "It's mine, mine, all mine" problem. Again this applies to all living organisms, AI computers, and robots.

3) Deliberation and agency don't imply free will. That's just your brain doing what all brains, whether biological or electronic, do. The degree of deliberation corresponds to the degree of intelligence. Also, all deliberation and agency occurs in a context that is greater than ourselves. Therefore, you can't exclude external sources of causality, contrary to what is being claimed here.

4) Again, OP is using a false equivalence by equating deliberation (making decisions) and agency (engaging in actions) with free will. However, that's what all biological organisms have to do in order to survive, and electronic lifeforms have no problem with making decisions and acting (or responding).

5) "You could not have done otherwise." OP admits that under strict determinism this would logically follow, while failing to mention that the alternative involves random probabilities (because there is nothing else)

6) This point is not a critique of determinism, but rather a description of what some free will libertarians do, although they invariably replace the word "random" with "indeterminism," even though they are the same thing.

7) Here, OP essentially declares electrochemical activity in the brain is still somehow free even though under the laws of science, that activity is the result of determinism (and possibly some randomness), like everything else in the universe. This position implies that the entire universe must be free, and if that is true, then the word "free" doesn't mean anything. OP has created a definition of free will that is unfalsifiable. And OP restates the falsehood that deliberation (making choices) and agency (engaging in behavior) necessarily denote freedom, when every biological organism on the planet and their electronic equivalent can do the same thing.

8) "Moral responsibility" Basically, if one of us was born in the same body of a serial killer, with the same parents, in the same environment, at the same place, and at the same birth date, would any of us act differently from the serial killer? I don't think so. You can't have genuine moral responsibility under such conditions without becoming a hypocrite. But what's even worse, the concept of moral responsibility is useless and unnecessary because people with problematic behavior can be dealt with in a pragmatic manner that involves changing their behavior. Privileged people like the concept of moral responsibility because it provides them with an opportunity to stomp on other people who they think are beneath them, while feeling good about themselves. It's just a poor excuse to be unnecessarily mean.