ABSTRACT
Focusing on some threads in Scott R. Sehon’s recent book, Free Will and Action Explanation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), this chapter explores some disagreements between causalists and anti-causalists about action explanation, about what it is to act in pursuit of a goal, and about deviant causal chains. Regarding goal-directed action and action explanation, it is argued that an attempted counterexample of mine (in earlier work) to a proposed noncausal sufficient condition for acting in pursuit of a goal that Sehon favors is successful, despite his arguments to the contrary. And Sehon’s critique of an earlier work of mine on deviant causal chains is rebutted.
