Causalism Unifying Action and Free Action

In this volume, Carolina Sartorio makes the case for big-picture causalism: a naturalistic conception of agency and free agency that unifies the two phenomena under a common thesis. This is the thesis that actions/free actions are behaviors that have the right kinds of causes or explanations. The book discusses how a causalist view of action and free action fit together--the latter as a natural extension of the former--and how they are motivated by similar considerations having to do with causal control. The result is a compelling "package deal" view of our practical agency, one that is put forth as the default view (the view that deserves to be regarded as the starting point of our theorizing). Sartorio examines both the skeleton of the causalist view as well as potential enrichments that result from exploiting the grounds of the relevant causal facts. The discussion is enriched by an account of the role played in causalism by key metaphysical notions such as causation, grounding, absences, and powers.

Carolina Sartorio, Rutgers University

Carolina Sartorio received her BA in Philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires in 1996 and her PhD in Philosophy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003. She is currently Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers, New Brunswick. Before teaching at Rutgers, she taught at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on causation, moral responsibility, agency, free will, and other issues at the intersection of metaphysics, the philosophy of action, and ethics.