ABSTRACT
The libertarian's problem here is an instance of a general issue which has been a source of recurring trouble in the history of philosophy, call it the issue of the causal peculiarity of human actions. There have been three broad kinds of view about it, the notion of self-determinism or agent causality, the notion of activity, and the notion of purpose. The idea of self-determinism may be originated with Aristotle. The genuinely random is that which is caused neither by preceding events nor by an agent; the free is that which is caused by an agent but not caused by any events; most events in the world are caused by preceding events and not by an agent. The libertarian of course must find an idea of activity which will not be compatible with universal causal determinism. An initial problem is that language, or our system of concepts, seems to permit the universal recasting of alleged pieces of activity as passivity.
