A Quote from Donald Davidson:
"Finally I should like to say something about a certain un- easiness some
philosophers feel in speaking of causes of actions at all. Melden, for
example, says that actions are often identical with bodily movements, and
that bodily movements have causes; yet he denies that the causes are causes
of the actions. This is, I think, a contradiction. He is led to it by the
following sort of consideration: "It is futile to attempt to explain conduct
through the causal efficacy of desire-all that can explain is further hap-
penings, not actions performed by agents. The agent confronting the causal
nexus in which such happenings occur is a helpless victim of all that occurs
in and to him" (128, 129). Unless I am mistaken, this argument, if it were
valid, would show that actions cannot have causes at all. I shall not point
out the obvious diffi- culties in removing actions from the realm of
causality entirely. But perhaps it is worth trying to uncover the source of
the trouble.
Why on earth should a cause turn an action into a mere happening and a
person into a helpless victim? Is it because we tend to assume, at least in
the arena of action, that a cause demands a causer, agency an agent? So we
press the question; if my action is caused, what caused it? If I did, then
there is the absurdity of infinite regress; if I did not, I am a victim. But
of course the alternatives are not exhaustive. Some causes have no agents.
Primary among these are those states and changes of state in persons which,
because they are reasons as well as causes, make persons voluntary agents. "
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