An Anomic Thesis and Agent-causal Libertarian Accounts of Free Will

Abstract

Randolph Clarke argues that the following thesis is false: If incompatibilism is true, then for a human agent to perform a directly free action, the agent’s exercise of causal power must not be governed by any laws of nature, not even by probabilistic ones. That is, he argues that the exercise of free will could be governed by probabilistic laws of nature. This paper argues that (i) this ‘Anomic Thesis’ is true and (ii) any agent-causal libertarian account of free will is adequate only if it is consistent with that thesis. (ii) is true because any libertarian account of free will is adequate only if it recognises that free will is exercised autonomously if at all. And if the exercise of a causal power is governed by probabilistic laws of nature, then that causal power cannot be exercised autonomously.