Issues for Lowe’s dualist view on agents

E.J. Lowe (2008) proposes a dualist conception of agents. He grounds his dualist view on the Unity Argument, which I claim relies on unwarranted presuppositions about the agent and, therefore, cannot support his view. This is a problem for Lowe’s account of actions as well, because his account relies on his dualist view of agents. Keywords: Agents, dualism, mental states.


Introduction
Explanations of a ions can rely on several implicit sup ositions about human agency and about what has to be captured by an accurate account of a ions.Here, I wi l focus on the concept of agents endorsed by E.J. Lowe in Personal Agency: The Metaphysics of Mind and Action (2008); and I wi l ar ue that it does not resist scrutiny.Lowe's dualist view of agents is particularly relevant to his theory, for it both grounds and motivates the a leged need for his volitionist explanation of a ions in order to satisfactorily account for the agent's free a ions.Showing that there is a pro lem with the concept of agents adopted by the theory results in a pro lem for the theory.
In the second section, I wi l clarify Lowe's conception of agents and his a legation that the agent is something different from her body.In the third section, I wi l discuss Lowe's ar ument for the separation of the person and her body, and the pro lems it faces.Then, I wi l complete the criticism of Lowe's view of agents by raising some brief objections to his ar ument that a person's brain can be exchanged for another brain without producing any noticea le difference in the person in question.

The concept of agents
In this section E.J. Lowe's (2008) anti-reductionist view of a ions and its fit with how he perceives agents wi l be elucidated.This wi l make Lowe's view on agents clear, as we l as what presup ositions underlie it. 2According to Lowe (2008), agents are psychological beings who are distinct from their bodies, and which are chara erized by their causal power-a view that should be considered carefu ly.Lowe's definition of agents is the fo lowing: An 'agent', in the sense I intend here, is a persisting object-or 'individual substance'-possessing various properties, including, most importantly, certain causal powers and liabilities.A paradigm example of an agent would be Issues for Lowe's Dualist View on Agents Beatriz Sorrentino Marques 1 1 Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso.Departamento de Filosofia, ICHS.Av.Fernando Corrêa da Costa, 2367, Boa Esperança, 78060-9000, Cuiabá, MT, Brazil.E-mail: bsorrentinom@gmail.com 2 I call his view anti-reductionist because it maintains that the agent produces her action in a direct manner.In contrast, the Causal Theory of Action, for instance, defends the claim that the agent's mental states causally participate in the production of her action (Mele, 2003).The latter explanation of action can be called reductionist, in the sense that it does not maintain that the agent herself produces the action; instead, her mental states play the causal role.
The ideas involved in this definition should be considered point-by-point.(a) The notion of a persisting object refers to time; and it does not seem to be controversial that agents persist in time.(b) The notion of substance is associated with the (c) causal powers and liabilities the agent has, and these wi l need to be explained in more detail.
Regarding agents as substances, Lowe says that "I hold that I am a psychological substance coinciding with, but numerica ly distinct from, my animal body"3 (Lowe, 2008, p. 167).One may conclude from this that he espouses dualism, and that this dualism is at the core of how he sees human beings as agents, because this kind of substance allege ly has causal powers that are specific to the psychological substance and not to her body.Lowe emphasises this distinction: Central amongst our distinctive psychological powers are our powers of perception, thought, reason, and will.It is I who perceive, think, reason, and will, not my body nor any distinguished part of it, such as my brain or central nervous system (Lowe, 2008, p. 168).
According to Lowe, it is the psychological substance, and not her body that has the power of the wi l; this is a key element in his account of a ion, as wi l be seen in the following.Lowe's definition of the agent as a psychological substance, distinct from her body, together with his rejection of the principle of causal closure4 a low him to claim that physical events are not sufficient to cause the agent's movements, because the body lacks a wi l, which he thinks is fundamental for the agent to perform free a ions.This leaves room for the wi l to have causal relevance in the production of the agent's a ions.The power of the wi l is attributed to the psychological substance, not to her body, by means of which the agent causes a ion-results.
In order to understand Lowe's definition of agents more needs to be said about the agent's power.Lowe holds a ecific view of how the agent is capa le of performing intentional a ions, which is related to what causal powers she may have: [W]hat we seem to have in such a case is an instance of irreducible agent causation.Animate agents, we may feel tempted to say, are capable of spontaneous self-movement, which involves an agent's causing motion in its own limbs or other body parts directly (Lowe, 2008, p. 128).
What he means by agent causation, nevertheless, is not what is traditiona ly ca led agent causation.Lowe defends the claim that agents ir educi ly cause their a ions, but not by directly causing them, as Agent Causation5 would have it.He proposes what he considers to be a mix of agent causation and volitionism in order to explain human a ions.
The volitionist believes that it is always by willing that we cause action results, such as arm risings, to occur when we act freely and that, indeed, our willings or volitions are causes of those events, in the event-causation sense of 'cause'.Precisely because, as we have seen, willings are not causings, they may qualify as events and thus as causes and effects of other events (Lowe, 2008, p. 152).
This account a lows for a mental state, a volition, to be causa ly relevant in the production of a ion-results.Lowe ca ls a ion-results the movements produced by volitions, because the agent's wi ling is itself her a ion.The agent, nonetheless, sti l ir educi ly produces her volition: "the volitions themselves, I have said, are uncaused-and they, by my account, are not physical events, since they are exercises of a non-physical mental power" (Lowe, 2008, p. 178).
This elucidates the kind of causal power the agent is said to have on this theory.By a ing in an uncaused manner-i.e., by wi ling-the agent causes a ion-results in the world.Nevertheless, the wi l is not a causal power in the way that magnetism is a causal power.According to Lowe, the distinction is that the agent's wi ling is not determined "by the causal influence of other objects" (Lowe, 2008, p. 155)contrary to event-causation, which Lowe perceives as being determined, or chancy.Lowe's concern about eventcausation is that all our actions, including the supposedly free ones, are (it may be said) just events, and all events are either causally determined by prior events or else are chance occurrences (though their chances may be fixed by prior events).Either way, there is no room for the notion that we are the authors of our actions in any sense that would suit the libertarian (Lowe, 2008, p. 160).
This makes clear that Lowe's rejection of the reductionist view-which accepts that a ions are causa ly produced by events-is related to the issue of free wi l.Lowe believes that event-causation involves events being determined or chancy, which is said to be part of a framework in which the agent cannot be included, because agents are conceived as free.If the causing of events is not determined, this means that it would depend on chance, while chance itself also depends on previous events.Both these options are deemed unsatisfactory by Lowe, because neither would a low for the agent's freedom as uncaused choice does.
According to this view, desires and beliefs can cause actions, just not free rational a ion.For instance, if an agent jumps out of the way of a fa ling slate that would proba ly injure him, Lowe says: [H]is action of jumping out of the way of the slate will only qualify as a free and so rational action if he chooses to jump out of the way in the light of his desire.If the desire merely causes him to jump out of the way the power of choice is not exercised by the agent on this occasion, his behavior is undoubtedly reasonable, in that it furthers his interests, but it is not an instance of rational action (Lowe, 2008, p. 186).
The agent's choice is what makes the difference between rational and free a ion and just reasona le a ion.It is possi le to conclude that this is the case because the latter lacks what Lowe ca ls the executive element of the production of a ion; i.e., the ir educi le role of the agent.
The above said paints a revealing picture of what Lowe means by the agent's being "capa le of performing intentional a ions" (2008, p. 122) and her causal powers.The account of how agents perform a ions assures the kind of free wi l that Lowe considers relevant: "on this view, persons are agents inasmuch as they are substance-causes of certain events" (Lowe, 2008, p. 147).
The proposed dualism and the defence of the wi l are therefore necessary to account for free a ions, because Lowe believes that free a ions cannot be caused; they must be uncaused.The uncaused wi l is attributed to the human agent portrayed as a psychological substance distinct from her body, because the body is associated with the event-causation of movements.In this sense, the psychological substance, which is the agent, can be conceived as being free in the sense considered relevant in this theory, and this is what motivates Lowe's volitionist account of a ions.
Lowe's picture of agency therefore associates the agent with the psychological substance, not with her body, making this conception of agents and his view of agency dependent on the claim that that the psychological substance has the said power of the wi l, and that she is in fact something different from her body.If the agent was identified with her body, one may conclude that Lowe would consider her a ions unfree.In this case, the agent would not fit the volitionist theory.In the next section I wi l consider the ar uments offered by Lowe to sup ort his dualist view, which grounds his view of agents as psychological substances.

The agent as a different substance
In this section, Lowe's ar ument that the person is a different substance to the body wi l be discussed and criticised.It wi l be ar ued that Lowe's position does not withstand scrutiny.In short, the Non-Cartesian Substance Dualism proposed by Lowe is an ontological distinction based on the identity conditions of persons-subjects of experience6 -and their bodies; a lege ly, the person cannot be identified with her body and vice-versa.According to his view, a substance is a bearer of properties and chara eristic causal powers; thus, the psychological substance bears psychological properties and has a causal power that sup lements those of her body.
Lowe ar ues that the person, or self,7 is not identical to her body because the body is not the subject of one's experience.Only the person is the subject of her experiences, and the person cannot be identical to her body or her brain.Lowe posits the Unity Ar ument as the strongest ar ument in support of the claim that the person is not identical to her body: (1) I am the subject of a l and only my own mental states, which is a self-evident truth.The second premise is this: (2) Neither my body as whole [ hic e will conside here 'my brain as a hole']8 nor any part of it could be the subject of a l and only my own mental states.And its conclusion, which undoubte ly fo lows from the two premises, is this: (3) I am not identical to my body nor with any part of it (Lowe, 2008, p. 96).
This conclusion is unwar anted, though.It may be hard for the monist to find a reason to accept (1), that I am the subject of only my mental states.She may believe that the person's physical properties are attributa le to the person as we l.Here, nevertheless, I wi l concentrate on the second premise.Premise (2) is Lowe's identity criterion; therefore, it is exactly what Lowe is trying to ar ue.He already assumes that the body is not the bearer of experience; thus, it is a different substance, which makes it necessary to postulate that the person is a substance that is the subject of her mental states, considering that substances are understood as bearers of properties.But this is what he is trying to prove in the first place, meaning that the ar ument is simply question be ging.Lowe, of course, is not unaware that he needs to ar ue for (2); he gives it the fo lowing sup ort: All that I am claiming is that there is no part of my brain which is such that, were any part of it-such as one particular neuron-to be destroyed, all of my mental states would thereby cease to be.That is to say, neither my brain as a whole, nor any distinguished part of it as a whole, is something with which I can be identified-any more than I can be identified with my body as a wholebecause no such entity is such that all and only my mental states can be taken to depend on it, in the way that they clearly do depend on me (Lowe, 2008, p. 98).
In order to understand Lowe's claims it wi l help to structure them: (i) the person needs a brain to have mental states, but she does not need the brain as a whole in order to have a l of her mental states.This is equated to saying that (ii) a l and only one's mental states cannot depend either on the brain as a whole nor on any part of it as a whole, i.e., neither the brain nor a neuron can be the subject of a l of one's mental states; only the subject of one's mental states can.So, Lowe concludes that (iii) the person is not identical with her brain or any part of it.
Observed closely, (i) sti l needs sup ort, for there is no reason why a monist should accept it.Lowe sup orts it by pointing out that one could not have one's mental states if one's brain was destroyed; however, a l of one's mental states are unaffected if a neuron ceases to exist.This means that my brain does not have to be whole in its integrity in order for me to have a l of my mental states; and therefore it is not the subject of my experiences, because a l of one's mental states continue to exist even if the brain loses a neuron (see Lowe, 2008, p. 98-99).
The ar ument, and premise (i), depend on Lowe's claims about all of one's mental states.This claim wi l be discussed below, since (ii) also depends on Lowe's presup ositions about all of one's mental states.It is no coincidence that Lowe treats claim (ii) as a clarification of premise (i): according to Lowe's theory, they are saying similar things.I now turn to unveiling the presup ositions in this view.
One must keep in mind that Lowe is aiming at supporting premise (2), from the Unity Ar ument, but his second ar ument brings out something interesting.In (ii) Lowe says that a l of one's mental states do not depend on one's body or a body part, so he already assumes that one's mental states form a unity; according to his theory, this unity is born by the self, to which they can be identified.This may come as no surprise since it is sup orting something ca led the Unity Ar ument, but it is hard to see why Lowe would believe that it is uncontroversial that a person's mental states are a unity.
There is evidence showing that if a certain part of the brain is lesioned, the person ceases to have certain mental states.This makes it hard to accept that a l of one's mental states depend on either the brain as a whole or on a part of it as a whole-e.g. a neuron.It is possi le that different mental states are related to different brain a ivities, and that a lesion to some neuronal networks wi l not lead to the person losing a l of her mental states, but perhaps to her losing a few introective and cognitive states (to use Lowe's terms).So why would Lowe claim that in order to depend on one's brain a l of one's mental states would have to be subject to the brain as a hole, or to a part of it as a hole?
The best explanation is that Lowe is not ta king about mental states; he is ta king about a l of one's mental sates as a unity, which chara erises the self.Lowe is already presupposing that a l of the person's mental states form a unity that, as such, have in common a bearer of these mental states that unifies them: the self.
It could be ar ued that mental states have something in common that a lows classifying them a l as mental states; however, this does not imply that they form an ontologica ly distinct unit.The same can be said of whatever a lows classifying my phone's ap s as ap s.I believe that few people, if any, would accept that this implies that they form an ontologica ly distinct unity of a l of my phone's ap s.If what makes mental states a unity is that they are a l subject to the same thing, then they are subject to the self, and the psychological substance is their bearer, according to this view.Therefore, a l of one's mental states cannot be subject to a neuron or to the brain by definition.
But why would the monist accept these presup ositions?My objection is that Lowe grounds his defence of his dualist conception of persons on implicit sup ositions about mental states and their relation to the person as he conceives her, i.e., as a psychological substance that is the bearer of a l of her mental states and distinct from her body.Lowe is assuming what he is trying to ar ue: that a l of one's mental states form a unit subject to the self, and his defence of this view assumes that mental states are a unity that would have to togethe depend on either the brain as a whole or on a part of the brain, a neuron, if it did depend on the body.When Lowe states that neither the brain nor any part of it is "something with which I can be identified" (Lowe, 2008, p. 98), he assumes that one's mental states are a kind of unity, an I, or a self, as he puts it.
There is no reason to set out from the idea of all mental states as subject to one ir educi le bearer of them a l.Certainly a person needs her brain in order to have mental states, but contrary to what Lowe defends it does not seem that the relation between brain a ivity and mental states9 can be understood as the relation of a l of one's mental states and the brain.It seems that the a ivity of certain neuronal networks can be related to certain mental states.
One piece of evidence for this relation is that if the brain is lesioned and a certain network of neurons is damaged this usua ly results in a loss of cognitive capacities and states, such as lan uage comprehension, perception, attention, memories, planning complex a ions, etc. (Gazzaniga, 2009).It is even the case that a person may recuperate from some of these losses, thanks to the human brain's plasticity, if the relevant neurons reorganize their connections and a ivity in an appropriate way (Gazzaniga, 2009;Lüdemann-Podubecká and Nowak, 2016).
It is open to the monist, therefore, to claim that Lowe has not shown that there is a set or substance that might be all of one's mental states.The monist may even think that the burden of the proof is on Lowe, since he is the one defending the existence of an extra substance.It is easy enough to accept the existence of bodies, but there is no reason why one should accept the existence of a l of one's mental states, conceived as ontologica ly different substance and born by the self.
I have presented an analysis of Lowe's ar ument for dualism.His version of substance dualism grounds his conception of agents, which in turn is relevant for his volitionist account of human a ions.I have ar ued that Lowe implicitly presup oses his dualist conception of agents; therefore it fails to provide sup ort for his view of dualism and for his conception of agents.Given that according to his theory the agent's wi l depends on the psychological substance, this is also an issue for Lowe's account of a ions.

Brain replacement and neuroscience
In this section I wi l briefly discuss an i lustration of the independence that Lowe proposes one's mental states have from the brain.The ar ument is that the scenario presented by Lowe, which draws on his conception of an agent as a psychological substance distinct from her body, does not conform to what neuroscience has been a le to clarify about brain a ivities and their relation to mental states, e ecially brain plasticity.Lowe's view on the agent's relation to her brain is at the centre of this discussion.
It is clear that brain a ivity is crucial for mental states.Neurons connect to each other like a network, and when these networks are damaged, depending on the amount of damage, this affects the person's cognitions, and even personality.Lowe, however, does not believe that there is a strong connection between a person, as he conceives of persons, and her brain: Anyway, quite apart from anything else, it seems clear that, even granted that I need a brain in order to be able to think, I don't need to have the particular brain that I have.I find nothing inconceivable in the thought that I might wake up one morning to be told (truly) that, overnight, I had undergone an operation in which my old organic brain was somehow replaced by a new inorganic one (Lowe, 2008, p. 21).On Lowe's view, a person is a different substance from her body, as we saw above.So the person does not need the ecific brain she has in order to think the thoughts she thinks; another brain would be sufficient for thinking.This is an o d claim.One evidence of its questionability is the brain's plasticity. 10The brain changes throughout a human being's life, because genetics, experience, stimulation, and learning contribute to the development of the connections between neurons that are associated with the representation of memories, abilities, and even with personality traits (Freund et al., 2013;Ma uire et al., 2000).
There is evidence that each person's brain is different because of a l the cited factors, and perhaps other factors as we l (Mi ler, 2012).In fact, these factors have been associated with the development of individuality, and they are taken to account for differences in individuals' behaviour and personality (Freund et al., 2013).By this I do not mean to claim that the brain is the cause of mental states or properties; I am only claiming that there is evidence that they are related.Contrary to what Lowe seems to believe, each brain is relevant to each person's behaviour and psychological properties.If this is the case, it is highly unlikely that a person's brain could be exchanged for another without any noticea le difference to her.The person does not seem to be something different from her body in the way that Lowe believes she is.
Even if one accepts a sci-fi scenario in which an inorganic brain could be produced, in order to replace one's brain it would have to somehow (however its engineering a lows) represent what the brain a ivity in the original organic brain represents.It must be noted that the relevant brain a ivity is compati le with the ecific connections in the individual's neuronal network, which is ecific to her; therefore, these ecificities would have to be reproduced in the inorganic brain if the replacement aims at avoiding any noticea le difference.This is enough to show that there are very particular a ects of each brain that are relevant to the person, and for each person it is not enough to have just any brain in order to think the thoughts one thinks.

Conclusion
I have ar ued that the conception of the agent as a psychological substance, as we l as the concern with a ecific conception of free wi l motivate and sup ort Lowe' s volitionist theory of a ion.However, his ar ument for his dualist view of the agent does not withstand scrutiny, and I claim that this has serious consequences for his theory.If the proposed dualism is rejected, Lowe' s theory lacks its ground sup ort.