Roderick Chisholm’s View of Free Will: The Causal Double Standard

The modern argument against free will is often built on the impressive, clockwork logic of determinism. It suggests that every event in the universe is the necessary result of the events that came before it, governed by the immutable laws of physics. If we trace the “cause” of a human action back through neurological impulses, biological instincts, and environmental triggers, we eventually find a chain that stretches back to the beginning of time. In this view, there is no room for an “agent” at the wheel; there is only the inevitable unfolding of a physical script.

However, in his 1964 work Human Freedom and the Self, Roderick Chisholm identified a fundamental inconsistency in this dismissal. He argued that the very concept of “cause” that modern skeptics use to debunk free will is a concept we accept as “obvious,” despite it being every bit as mysterious as the free will they reject.

The Landscape of the Debate

To understand Chisholm’s intervention, we must first look at the two standard positions he sought to move beyond:

1. Hard Determinism: The view, championed by modern thinkers like Sam Harris, that because every event has a prior cause, no one could ever have done otherwise. Our “will” is seen as a byproduct of subatomic and chemical interactions.
2. Compatibilism: The view, often associated with Daniel Dennett, that we can still call ourselves “free” in a deterministic world as long as our actions align with our desires. Chisholm, however, famously dismissed this as a “misery and a subterfuge.” He argued that if your “choice” was determined by the past, then saying you “could have done otherwise” is a linguistic trick—like saying a man in a locked room is free to leave if he has the key, knowing full well he does not.

Chisholm’s goal was to find a “third way” that provided a technical foundation for genuine authorship.

The Dialogue of the Skeptic

Imagine a discussion between Chisholm and a modern skeptic who states: “I don’t believe in agent causation. It is a metaphysical mystery that doesn’t fit into our scientific understanding. I only believe in event causation—the physical chain of events we see in the world.”

Chisholm’s response would not be to defend the “mystery” of the agent, but to challenge the “obviousness” of the physical world. He would likely ask: “Then why do you believe in event causation?”

To the skeptic, the answer seems clear: we see it everywhere. But Chisholm points out that if we look closer, that physical interaction is just as mysterious as a human being making a choice.

The Illusion of Obviousness

The core of Chisholm’s critique relies on an observation made by David Hume: we never actually see a cause. When we watch one billiard ball strike another, we see a sequence of events—the motion of the first ball, the contact, and then the motion of the second. We do not see the “power” that connects them. We do not see the “necessity.”

We have become so accustomed to these sequences that we label them “obvious” and “scientific.” But Chisholm argues that event causation—the idea that one inanimate object can make another move—is a profound metaphysical mystery. We accept it not because it is transparent, but because it is familiar. We have replaced an explanation with a description.

The Formative Foundation of Cause

If we cannot see “causation” in the outside world, where did we get the concept? Chisholm’s central “gotcha” is that our understanding of the physical world is formative—built using the blueprint of our own agency.

Chisholm argues that the only reason we even have a concept of “bringing something about” is that we experience it internally. When you decide to move your arm, you have a direct, first-person experience of initiation. You don’t observe this as a sequence of separate events; you experience the exertion of power.

1. The Prototype: We experience ourselves as agents. We decide, we exert, we act. This is our primary data point.
2. The Projection: We take this internal “agent-power” and project it onto the outside world. We see a hammer hit a nail and, because we know what it is like for us to make something move, we attribute that same power to the hammer.
3. The Abstraction: We eventually refine this projected agency into the “laws of physics.”

The irony of the determinist’s position is that they accept the “reflection” (the laws of physics) while calling the “source” (the experience of agency) a myth. Chisholm points out that if the experience of the agent is a hallucination, then the concept of “cause” has no foundation at all.

The “Staff and the Stone” Mechanics

To illustrate where these two types of causation meet, Chisholm used the classic Aristotelian example:

• The stone is moved by the staff (Event Causation).
• The staff is moved by the hand (Event Causation).
• The hand is moved by the Agent (Agent Causation).

The skeptic argues there is a prior physical event—a neurological spark—that caused the hand to move. But Chisholm insists that at some point, the chain must stop at the agent. If the agent is the ultimate source, the chain begins with them. Without this “causal break,” the man isn’t moving the stone; the universe is simply moving through the man.

The Mystery of Choice vs. The Mystery of Physics

The most potent part of Chisholm’s critique is the leveling of the playing field. He admits that Agent Causation is hard to explain. But he insists that Event Causation is just as hard to explain.

Why does the movement of one billiard ball have to cause the movement of another? We say it is because of the “laws of physics,” but those laws are just descriptions of what usually happens. They don’t explain the “how” of the causal power itself.

Chisholm’s view suggests that those who reject free will because it is “mysterious” are being intellectually selective. They are comfortable with the mystery of physics because it is predictable, but they reject the mystery of the agent because it implies a degree of authorship that disrupts a purely materialist model.

Neither Determined Nor Random

A common objection is that if an action isn’t caused by a prior event, it must be “random.” But randomness is not freedom. If your arm twitches because of a random subatomic decay, you didn’t “choose” to move it; it just happened.

Chisholm’s Agent Causation provides a “third way.” An act is not determined by the past, but it is also not random because it is authored by the agent. The agent is the “Prime Mover Unmoved”—a source of initiation that is neither a clockwork gear nor a roll of the dice.

The Technical Price Tag

Rather than preaching a conclusion, Chisholm’s work maps the logical cost of our competing worldviews:

• The Price of Denial: If we reject Agent Causation, we align with a “neater” physicalist model, but we face an epistemological crisis: we are using a concept of “causation” that we have deemed to be an illusion at its source.
• The Price of Acceptance: If we accept Agent Causation, we preserve the validity of our own experience, but we must admit that humans possess a power that is unique in the known physical world.

Conclusion

Chisholm’s view of free will is ultimately a critique of an intellectual double standard. He suggests that instead of trying to “fit” human agency into a world of physics, we should recognize that our world of physics is a simplified map of our own agency. When the skeptic asks why we should believe in the mysterious power of the agent, Chisholm’s logic invites a more fundamental question:

How can you believe that physical events ’cause’ one another—a concept just as mysterious and unobservable?

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Suggested Reading

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Primary Texts & Anthologies

• Readings in the Ultimate Questions (Edited by Nils Ch. Rauhut and Renee Smith) This anthology is a fantastic resource for those looking to see how these big ideas intersect. It includes the full text of Roderick Chisholm’s “Human Freedom and the Self,” placing his argument for Agent Causation alongside other foundational discussions on the mind, body, and existence.

Modern Perspectives on the Will

• Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking by Daniel Dennett If you want to see the modern “Compatibilist” view—the idea that free will and a determined universe can coexist—Dennett is the essential read. He uses “intuition pumps” to argue that we can still have a version of freedom that matters.
• Free Will by Sam Harris For a sharp, provocative look at the hard determinist critique, this book is the current standard. Harris argues that neuroscience and the chain of event causation leave no room for an independent “agent.”

Technical Deep Dives

• A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will by Robert Kane For those who want a clear, neutral map of the entire landscape—from Chisholm’s “Prime Mover” to the latest experiments in neuroscience—this is arguably the best survey of the field.

The Oxford Handbook of Free Will (Edited by Robert Kane) This is for the reader who wants to dive into the heavy metaphysical weeds. It features deep-dive essays by top scholars into the technicalities of Agent Causation, Indeterminism, and Causal Theory.