Libre arbitre et déterminisme. Un plaidoyer pour le libertarisme agent-causal

In this article we aim to offer a plea for agent-causal libertarianism. This topic will be addressed in the context of the contemporary debate on free will and determinism. The importance of this millennial philosophical-scientific debate is obvious. If our constitution includes a physical nature, like the other elements of material Universe, then it too appears to be governed by the same physical laws. In this case, if the world is deterministic, “(i) all the laws of nature have this feature—they always specify a unique outcome for a given set of initial conditions—and (ii) everything that happens in the Universe falls under some laws of nature or other” Therefore, if this were the case, it seems that we do not possess the freedom we believe we have when we think that we could have done differently in the past, that our present choices are real, and that the future is still open. Since the world was characterized by certain conditions in the distant past, there seems to be only one way it can be today, tomorrow, and forever. Everything in this world seems to be already established, so that our freedom is, at best, an illusion. The illusion becomes even greater when certain findings in neuroscience seem to confirm it. If that were the case, then the stakes of this debate are ones of the highest possible, because by implication, with the illusion of freedom, everything becomes an illusion. Without freedom of the will, not only moral responsibility (with justice systems, religion etc.) and epistemic responsibility become an illusion, but even rationality itself, with all its deliberative and analytical processes, and with it, the knowledge of truth, the possibility of correcting errors of thought and finally the agent itself. The implications are catastrophic for such a world, since in it there is no room for good and evil, truth and falsehood, wisdom and folly, merit and demerit. With the listing of the implications, of which some are more or less aware, the schism among philosophers and scientists also begins. Our article attempts to provide a plea for agent-causal libertarianism in response to these problems. In doing so, we will first provide a classification of libertarianism in order to frame, define, and distinguish the libertarianism we defend. We will then highlight the incompatibility of agent-causal libertarianism with both determinism and other perspectives that promote event-type causation. Also, to clarify our position and introduce our arguments for the plea, we will compare compatibilism with our perspective. Finally, we will present six arguments in favor of agent-causal libertarianism. In this final section, in the part devoted to the objections to the second argument and the responses to the objections, we will also enter into dialogue with some experiments in neuroscience and experimental studies in the cognitive sciences.