On the irrelevance of freedom to the causal relevance of will

Abstract

Many compatibilists believe not only that the freedom of the will is compatible with determinism but also that the notion of free will is indispensable for agency and intentional explanation. However, assuming that “will” can be given a psychological or other functional interpretation, concerns about freedom turn out to be mostly irrelevant for the agency or causal efficacy of the will. Arguments from the causal closure of the physical against the causal relevance of the will can be countered by the standard anti-reductionist analysis of levels of explanation: Will (or some of its psychological cognates) need not be free in order to be real and causally relevant. Questions concerning freedom are either metaphysical or moral, but they are routinely confused with the separable question concerning the causal relevance of the will for intentional explanation.