I briefly describe the traditionalist account as understood by Clarke, then explain Clarke’s argument for the alternative account and the major successes of said argument. I then motivate the relevance of this argument for the free will debate before discussing two possible responses to, one response being contingent on the account presented by Kane, and the other being contingent on what Clarke’s view may imply for the agent-like substance his account involves. I then evaluate the extent to which the arguments presented by Kane detract from Clarke’s account when trying attribute sufficiency or necessity to agent and event causes. Last, I relate to moral principles in light of what we will encounter throughout this discussion: chanciness, luck, and coincidences. In particular, how Clarke’s view of agent-causation may recover when considering long-term moral projects, and how we judge those close to us based on who they are as agents interacting in a complex world.

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Randolph Clarke’s “Causal Agent-Causal” View: A Discussion About
What This Could Mean for the Free Will Debate
Andrew Aukerman
November 2018

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In this paper, I focus on the argument made by Randolph Clarke in “Agent Causation and
Event Causation in the Production of Free Action”, where Clarke offers an alternative libertarian
account of free will. I briefly describe the traditionalist account as understood by Clarke, then
explain Clarke’s argument for the alternative account and the major successes of said argument. I
then motivate the relevance of this argument for the free will debate before discussing two possible
responses to, one response being contingent on the account presented by Kane, and the other being
contingent on what Clarke’s view may imply for the agent-like substance his account involves. I then
evaluate the extent to which the arguments presented by Kane detract from Clarke’s account when
trying attribute sufficiency or necessity to agent and event causes. Last, I relate to moral principles
in light of what we will encounter throughout this discussion: chanciness, luck, and coincidences. In
particular, how Clarke’s view of agent-causation may recover when considering long-term moral
projects, and how we judge those close to us based on who they are as agents interacting in a
complex world.
1 What is the Causal Agent-Causal View?
Clarke makes an argument in support for an alternative account of free-will as compared to
the traditionalist account of agent-causation. In all accounts of this kind, causation by an agent is
proposed. An important criterion of agent-causation in the traditionalist view is that when an agent
acts with free will, the event caused by the agent necessarily has no event-cause (p. 20). This criterion
is underpinned by the concern that if event-causes are present, it cannot be guaranteed that the act
taken by an agent is fully free, “Only if there is such an absence of event causation, can there be two
or more courses of action that are genuinely open to the agent” (p. 20). Additionally, agent causation
requires a non-reductive type of cause, meaning that the postulates one would use to describe agent-
causation “use the terms that are being defined” (p. 22). In other words, there is no way to formulate
agent causation as a translation or configuration of event causation; when an agent (substance)

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causes some event, one must evoke special postulates to describe that relation. Clarke will maintain
that this “causation by a substance” exists; however, he will find it unnecessary to maintain that an
agent acts with free will only when the event has no event causes.
Clarke considers a suitable type of causation in the vicinity: one that mixes event causation
and agent causation. In this case the agent “exercises a power to causally influence which of the
alternative actions left open by prior events will actually be performed” (p. 27). This is similar to the
traditionalist account, except that the agent is not the sole determinant, but a determinant among many, of
what a resultant event is. Clarke argues that this is still satisfactory for free will, stating that, “it is one
thing to be one determinant among others and another thing to be no determinant at all” (p. 29). In
being a determinant (opposed to a sole determinate) the agent still exercises a real influence over
which event will actually occur. With this account in hand, Clarke then explores reasons to find this
account more appealing.
2 Why is this an Appealing Account (According to Randolph Clarke)?
First, Clarke considers the issue action: he claims his account provides a plausible distinction
between free and unfree action (p. 31). In any case, an action is an exercise of control – to act would
mean to influence a certain coming-about of an event. Clarke identifies behavior being sensitive to
cognitive states as a distinctive feature of an action in general (p. 31). In the causal agent-causal view,
free-action can be further demarcated from general action – “to count as free actions, there must
exist as well a causal relation between the agent and the action” (p. 32). Clarke claims that his
account offers a way to understand a difference between free actions and unfree actions above the
more ad-hoc ways the traditionalist account may require (p. 33).
Second, Clarke attempts to show that past and current influences integrate well into the
causal agent-causal account of free will. These influences can be events, agents (substances) or
complex events involving both agents and events (Clarke p. 35). Clarke identifies a type of prior

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causes that are neither sufficient nor necessary conditions of certain actions, but those which change
the probability that an action occurs. Current event causes, which may include an agent’s reasons
(but whether those are agent-causes is unclear) may “incline with necessitating”. A support appeal
of the agent-causal account is that event-influences are accounted for in how they can cause actions
in this non-necessitating way.
Third, the causal agent-causal account of free will also allows for reasons to be a cause of
action, but in a way that is still non-necessitating. Clark asserts that if reasons could not be causes of
actions, such as is maintained by non-casual theories of actions, then behavior can only be made to
look reasonable (the intelligibility account) (Clarke p.37). On the other hand, if a reason necessitates
the action, then such an action would not be free, since it was psychologically determined. Clarke’s
account instead allows for reasons to be a cause for actions, while again, not necessitating them,
“agent causation does not interrupt or divert the ordinary causal route from reason to actions” (p.
39).
Last, Clarke engages with the following objection, partially constructed from works by C. D.
Broad (1952) and Ginet: “…that if an event is caused, then some part of that event’s total cause
must be an occurrence at a particular time” (p. 40). This objection (I’ll call it the Broad-Ginet
objection) concerns agent-causation in general. If an agent is acting at a particular time, some change
had to occur at that particular time too. This objection seems to call on the notion of actuation at a
particular time, as substances don’t necessarily share the physical properties that event causes have,
crucially as existing at a particular point in time and space.
This objection presents the most difficulty to the traditionalist view since a total cause for
free-actions have no event causes. Clarke finds that the alternative account provides a simple way to
soften this objection (p. 40). The alternative count allows for free-actions to have event-causes, and
thus they have some event-cause which has the property of being at a particular time. This renders

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the only possible objection to then require that any part of a total cause must have a particular time-
occurrence, however, as Clarke states, this is just a general objection to agent-causation.
3. A Deeper Sense of Free Will?
Clarke espouses a variant of the libertarian view. For Clarke, it is not enough for an agent to
be an originator of her action, she must have a type of control which renders it within her power to
bring about a certain event over another. He formulates the former as “bare actional control” and
“rational control”, which are encountered in compatibilist literature, e.g. “reasons responsiveness”.
Clarke recognizes that in these cases, while an agent’s reasons or rationality play a role in some
event’s coming about and the agent herself is a necessary condition of such an event, it “does not
suffice for free will”. Furthermore, simply considering that the specific event is indeterministic (p.
27) does not offer the further type of control that this deeper sense of free-will attempts to convey.
Agent-causality offers a type of control that goes beyond that offered by deterministic or
compatibilist arguments. Agent-causation allows for a type of variety-control in which we, as agents,
can exercise a real influence on whether we will cause certain events to occur. This type of causation
speaks more to the question of whether we are the ultimate source of our actions, and can respond
in a non-necessitated way to our environment. Perhaps it is somewhat satisfactory that we can act in
accordance with our reasons, and that we still have an important causal role in the bringing about of
events. To have an influence over exactly what event will come about, in that moment, and to
exercise that special kind of causal property – that is the valuable upshot of Clarke’s agent-causal
view.
This account has further relevance to the free will debate in its making more credible the
concept of agent-causation. There exist difficulties, and strong objections, to the near-dualist
premise of causal entities, events and agents. Of (seeming) particular difficulty is explaining
substance-causation. In a sense, Clarke’s account, to me, tries to work on the special relationship

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that exists between events outside our control, and events that may, in fact, be within our control.
Compatibilist accounts fail to fully capture a the strong-sense of this control, while the traditional
incompatibilities account encounters difficulty with explaining causation in general. There seems to
be a tension between our capacity to be source causes and to actually bring about action, and I am
under the impression that Clarke makes some headway in developing and resolving that tension.
4. Luck, Wild Coincidences, Chanciness and Accidents
So far, Clarke’s account has attempted to capture an idea of deeper freedom. To Clarke, we are
agents interacting in a world with some form of causal influence on events. By virtue of being
agents, we don’t only act in accordance with reason, don’t only make up a necessary component of
certain events coming about, but exercise a power to choose what event will actually come about.
Nonetheless, arguments against this account are encountered, and I now discuss some that fall into a
certain family: those involving notions of luck, chance, and coincidence. I explain three main
responses in this family; Kane recounts the luck-principle and provides an agent-free account of free
will, Ayer motivates soft-determinism in light of accidents, and Pereboom motives hard-determinism
in light of wild coincidences. When we revisit whether agent-causes for events are sufficient, it will
be more clear how these responses threaten Clarke’s account.
The Luck Principle (LP) confronts any account that assumes undetermined actions. The luck
principle suggests that instead of indeterminism giving us a deeper sense of freedom, i.e. the ability
to truly choose what will happen, the undetermined nature of our actions actually reduces our
freedom and responsibility for our actions (p. 217). The argument follows a common form: if some
event was not determined, then a fortiori, the event was not determined by someone’s intentions,
desires, or a (free) will (p. 219).
The most serious difficulty presented by the luck principle, as claimed by Kane, rests on the
premise that free-actions are undetermined up until they occur (p. 222). It then becomes difficult to

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assign blame if there doesn’t appear to be any explanation for why a certain praise- or blame-worthy
action was taken. Kane recognizes that some libertarians have posited “extra factors” to circumvent
this idea- one of which is a species of agency or causation (p. 223). Kane instead formulates the idea
of self-forming actions, or SFAs (p. 224). These actions are a subset of all agent-actions, and do more
than affect a present situation – they mold our “freely formed will”, such that certain events can be
necessitated by our will. In general, the luck principal and Kane’s response invokes necessitation by
a person as a defense against this family of objections instead of species such as Clarke’s agent
substance.
Derk Pereboom in Determinism al Dente makes a case against Randolph Clarke’s views and
libertarians in general. He invokes a notion of “wild coincidences”, where, even in a quantum and
indeterminant universe, it is too wild to believe that free-actions follow the way of physical
predictions to such exacting degrees. Pereboom precisely states that, “…and it would be too wildly
coincidental to believe that free choices made by agent-causes should be for just those possible
actions the occurrence of whose physical components has the extremely high antecedent physical
probability” (p. 30). This analysis specifically rejects that agent-causal powers can make a difference
in a set of naturally possible events will actually occur.
The last response on which I focus is to that of indeterminism in general, formulated by A. J.
Ayer in “Freedom and Necessity”. Specifically, Ayer makes a concentrated point on the aspect of
choice, stating that “either it is an accident that I choose to act as I do or it is not” (p. 113). He
claims the only way around making a choice not seem like a matter of chance is for that choice to
have a casual explanation, thus leading back to determinism. The proposition of an agent-like
substance is designed to circumvent this objection.
5. What is Implied by Causation by a Substance?

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I now consider the ramifications of positing causation by a substance through examining
how Clarke’s picture of agent-causation relates to what agents (substances) are. Clarke makes an
important initial characterization of agent-causation, stating, “The relation that obtains between
cause and effect in an instance of agent causation is the very same relation that obtains between
cause and effect in an instance of event causation” (p. 21). In other words, that which sets agent
causation apart from event causation is that doing the causing, i.e. the first relatum. This assumes,
consequently, that the right account of event causation is a “realist or nonreductive view” (p. 21),
that is, the view that causation is a fundamental feature of the universe. It is important in Clarke’s
view that causality cannot be explained or formulated as patterns observed in nature or as non-
causal physical or law-like properties (p. 22).
With this assumption in hand and taking the approximate truth of causal realism as a given,
we have an intelligible account of agent causation. I interpret the further contents of his argument
(p.23-25) as providing a formulation of causation that “doesn’t care” about what type of particulars
make up the relatums in a causal action. If causation is a real, nonreductive, aspect of our universe,
such a thing can just as easily relate particulars that are events, substances, or combinations of
substances and events. This analysis is evidenced by Clarke’s (pretty strong) assertion: “It is no good
to claim the impossibility [that only certain types of concrete particulars can be a cause]” (p. 25).
Clarke makes no specific commitment to a formulation of what this agent-like substance is other
than how it relates to his account of causation. I wish to explore if this relation puts some
constraints on what this agent-like substance can be.
We can first try asserting that agents are exactly a “sum of events”. Our mental states, e.g.
our thoughts, feelings, desires, our will, are reducible to some conjunction of physical events. One
can maintain that the idea of an agent still exists in this picture; it is valid to define an agent as a
conjunction of specific events throughout space and time. However, such an account of an agent

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fails to provide any case in which Clarke’s agent-causal laws would apply. It is important, in Clarke’s
view, that agent-causal laws are set apart from event-causal laws; at a minimum, this is accomplished
by involving an agent as a relatum. If the reduction of an agent to events is possible, I argue, the
laws governing agent-causation would equally be a sum of laws governing event-causation. In a
more general sense, we lose the sense of an agent-like causation in this fully reductive picture, and
the existence of agent-causal powers, being important to provide an avenue to free-action, seems to
be eclipsed.
The dualistic picture, with which Clarke’s account most easily fits, posits that agents are a
truly a distinct substance, not dependent on the physical structures of brains or on the laws of the
physical world. Instead, our universe is occupied by two fundamental substances, those which are
physical (relating to events), and those which are mental (relating to agents). This easily satisfies the
presence of agents as a substance, though it is very costly to rely on dualism to make this account
work. I argue great motivation would be needed to explain what these two substances are, and
provide an account for how these substances relate, not just casually, but practically, in the universe.
A middle ground maybe be present. I admit, unfortunately, it is a precarious position. To do
so, I posit a question: “What are the causal powers that our human (agent) brains have?” My attempt
at a physicalist solution revealed that, if an agent is only a “sum of events”, the causal powers of that
agent would be the “sum of event-causal powers”.
I present a rough sketch of emergent mental phenomena: if a particular sum of these events
gives rise to a novel, new type of particular, the agent itself, we uncover an irreducible, but still
physical, particular. In this scenario, the likewise emergence of agent-causal powers seems natural;
however, this is at odds with agent-causation being a real or fundamental part of the universe. It
would be more economical to assert that the causal powers wielded by an agent are directly related
to that agent’s emergence, that is, agent-causation is a pattern of how an agent relates to other

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events. Otherwise, it seems miraculous that these fundamental, irreducible agent-casual laws are
exactly tuned (or designed?) to have only a certain emergent particulars (agents) as its first relatum.
6. Agent and Event Causes as Sufficient Conditions
The family of responses to libertarianism indeterminism in part 4 becomes important when
attempting to see how Clarke’s account of free will successfully offers a coherent picture of an
agent-causing of an event. I evaluate the impact these views in Clarke’s account by constructing four
cases that constitute what agent-causation as a being “a determinant” (opposed to a sole-
determinate) could look like.
Case No. 1: Neither the agent nor any event cause is a sufficient condition for a certain
event. This most clearly escapes the issue of over determination, where there exists more than one
sufficient cause of an event. Instead, in this case, the conjunction of certain causes, which will
include an agent cause, is itself a sufficient, or at least necessary, condition for the event. This is
coherent with Clarke’s formulation, as he finds causation by an agent (in his view) to not be
redundant (p. 28) with causation by events. However, the pragmatic issues raised by way of the luck
principle start to threaten the integrity of this case. This is best highlighted through analysis of the
following counterfactual: “If the agent had exerted some other causal influence, then some other
event would have come about”. In this case, an agent is not casually necessitating some event, and
the luck principle’s objections hold. Now, let us consider the case when one of the properties is
sufficient, i.e. “one property nomologically necessitates another” (Clarke p. 24), which would escape
the objections raised by the luck principle.
Case No. 2: The agent cause is sufficient. This case would restore the further sense of
variety control that is important in Clarke’s account. It is simply enough for an agent to be a cause
for a certain event to come about (i.e. the agent necessitates the event). We can then accept the
counterfactual in full: “If the agent had exerted some other causal influence, then some other event

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would have come about”. An agent’s exercise of causal influence (e.g. desiring of some event) is
sufficient for that event’s coming about through some agent-causal law.
This is inconsistent with Clarke’s account in two ways; the first being that it diminishes the
role that event-causes play, which then undoes the work the agent-causal view did in softening
Broad-Ginet objection. If an agent-cause is sufficient, can Clarke maintain that event-causes are still
necessary? Perhaps only a event-cause is necessary, and a event cause is always present. However, it
seemed that the crux of escaping the Broad-Ginet objection was making it so that event cause, in a
way, help actuate an action. Then, it seems, the right event cause needs to miraculously be present,
such that an agent can necessitate some action.
Case No. 3: The event cause is sufficient. This restores the value in having event-causes as a
part of the sum of total causes, at the expense of devaluing the role the agent cause plays. If event
causes alone necessitate some other event where agent causes are involved, we then find this
counterfactual true: “If the agent had exerted some other causal influence, the same event would
have come about”. We can accept this counterfactual because the event causes alone are sufficient
for the resultant event; thus always necessitating its coming about, regardless of an agent’s causal
influence. Our agent must either relinquish the sense of ‘further variety control’ over the event, else
we find the “Wild Coincidences” (p. 30) concept come into play; it would simply be too weird a
coincidence that agent causes are always coherent with event-causes.
Case No. 4: Both the event and agent cause are sufficient. We can immediately write off the
true counterfactual, “If either the world had been different or the agent had exerted some other
causal influence, then the same event would have come about.”. This is a clear case of over
determination, and additionally involves the same issues as case three.
Analysis of these four cases, I find, further collaborate Kane’s recount of the luck principle.
It seems difficult to formulate the “total-causes” of an event in a way which leaves the desired

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counterfactual true: “If I, as an agent, had chosen to do otherwise, in that moment, then I would
have done otherwise”. Instead, we seem again stuck with these ideas of chanciness, incoherence, or
coincidence, that thinkers like Kane, Pereboom, Ayer present. Clarke’s view does real work in giving
an account that makes choosing or enacting agency in the deepest sense possible; however, I find
that it is difficult to escape this being a chancy-laden account of freewill.
The counterfactuals presented above have a certain limitation: they focus on singular events.
I propose that consideration of how we attribute moral judgements in the long-term may present
some saving grace to Clarke’s view (and agent-causal views in general). In particular, mere causal
influence seems to factor into our judgements about a person’s integrity, and their being a certain
type of person.
7. Integrity as a Long-Term Project
I presented a response on what is means for an agent to be a substance and an attempt to
offer some characterizations of that substance. Additionally, I explored ways in which characterizing
how agent and event particulars relate to resultant actions exasperates the issues underlying agent-
causation in general. The first case I present in section 5, where neither agent-causes nor event-
causes necessitate events, may have some use in a certain context of moral judgement.
I argue that sometimes, and especially in reference to those close to us, we do not only
attribute praise or blame to singular actions, but we have a sense of a person’s integrity in regards to
that action. If my friend finds a $5 bill, and immediately asks the person in front of her if it’s theirs, I
recognize such an action as a praiseworthy action. In addition, I feel reaffirmed that my friend is,
indeed, a good person, and this singular act fits into a larger picture of who she is, and what she is like.
In short, she is honest and aware of her own action, it fits into the picture of who she thinks she is.
This sense of a “what she is like” is important for our interpersonal relationships. If I want
to imagine attributing the quality of good integrity, kindness, or creativity, I more readily imagine

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those I know in my own life and interact with. These character judgements, most importantly one’s
integrity, are important for navigating our interpersonal relationships, and tend to decide who we
gravitate towards.
I present integrity as a kind of long-term project. We are faced with circumstances, events,
forces, and motivations outside our control. Integrity tells us not about what we will do with
certainty in these situations, but is a softer commentary on our honesty and, I argue, our agency. It
diverges from a notion of discipline in this way; integrity carries with it a sense of openness and
room for failure, to do bad things even as a good person. To posit the existence of an agent that
exercises a special type of causal influence pays tribute to this idea. Having an account of free will
that allows for a shaping of one’s self, to influence one’s own circumstances over time, would help
capture this idea of integrity.
Even though I cannot exercise a sufficient causal power to decide what I might do in this
instant, does my influence provide some control over who I become regardless of what I do? I think
yes, and having insufficient but present casual influence accomplishes this task. I am aware of what
I want to do, and aware of what I did do. We do not only strive to do good now, but to be the type
of person who does good things. If our futures are undetermined, then right now we are tipping the
scales for the circumstances we will find ourselves in. And while we don’t do so with the strong,
necessitated, and driven certainty of what the outcome will be, I argue that the deep sense of variety
control, the freedom that Clarke was after, is somewhat recovered when considering in this long-
term picture.
If we want to concern ourselves with the freedom to become the type of people we become,
the deeper-sense of variety control as proposed by Clarke starts to recover from the pragmatic issues
raised thus far. While we don’t necessitate certain actions, we influence them, and this shapes the
events that will influence us in the future. If we accept Clarke’s strong type of agency, then we are

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not solely a product of external circumstances. Our external circumstances become also a product of
our own agency, and we find there is something different about being a determinant among many and
no determinant at all. With this, we seem to recover some of the essence of Clarke’s view.
I recognize that elements of integrity may be very well explored in other accounts of
freedom and determinism, but Clarke’s view in particular seems to recover in light of this view.
Perhaps we need to revisit this idea, and instead focus on an agent being not distinct from the
physical world, but a part of it, albeit a very special, and strange, part.
References
Clarke, R. (1996). Agent Causation and Event Causation in the Production of Free
Action. Philosophical Topics, 24(2), 19-48. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43154235
Kane, Robert. Luck, and Chance: Reflections on Free Will and Indeterminism. The Journal of
Philosophy, Vol. 96, No. 5 (May, 1999), pp. 217-240.
Ayer, A. J. "Freedom and Necessity." Philosophical Essays, 1972, 271-84. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-
00132-3_12.
C.D. Broad (1952). Ethics and the History of Philosphy. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, p. 215
Carl Ginet (1990). On Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.