actioncausation

Action causation is the study of how an agent’s voluntary actions bring about changes in the world and how those actions are related to their outcomes. It addresses what makes an action a genuine causal antecedent and how mental states such as beliefs, desires, and intentions function within the causal order.

The dominant theoretical approaches divide into event-causal theories and agent-causal theories. Event-causal theories hold that actions are physical events that occur in time and are caused by the agent’s mental states, which themselves are realized in brain states. In this view, the action—such as pressing a switch—is a single event in the causal chain that subsequently produces its effects, like turning on a light. Critics argue that this view can seem to diminish the agent’s role or raise questions about how mental states can reliably cause physical events without falling prey to explanatory redundancy or the exclusion problem in mental causation.

Agent-causal theories propose that agents themselves are the sources of their actions, not merely the products of prior events in the brain. According to this view, an agent’s decision to act initiates the action in a way that is not reducible to a simple chain of physical causes. Objections focus on clarifying what the agent is and how agency interacts with physical processes, as well as ensuring the account remains scientifically intelligible.

Many contemporary accounts adopt hybrid or pluralist positions, acknowledging that different actions may be best explained by different causal stories. Action causation remains central to debates on free will, moral responsibility, and the nature of intentional action. See also: causation, intentional action, mental causation, free will.