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Full Idea
A Humean theory of causation (as observed regularities) makes it very difficult for anyone even to suggest a plausible theory of human agency.
Gist of Idea
Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency
Source
Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7)
Book Ref
Ellis,Brian: 'The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism' [Acumen 2002], p.141
A Reaction
I'm not quite sure what a 'theory' of human agency would look like. Hume himself said we only get to understand our mental powers from repeated experience (Idea 2220). How do we learn about the essence of our own will?
Related Idea
Idea 2220 Only experience teaches us about our wills [Hume]
| 5211 | An action is voluntary if the limb movements originate in the agent [Aristotle] |
| 5221 | Deliberation ends when the starting-point of an action is traced back to the dominant part of the self [Aristotle] |
| 20051 | Reid said that agent causation is a unique type of causation [Reid, by Stout,R] |
| 20054 | There has to be a brain event which is not caused by another event, but by the agent [Chisholm] |
| 20015 | Freedom of action needs the agent to identify with their reason for acting [Frankfurt, by Wilson/Schpall] |
| 5488 | Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis] |
| 20052 | If you don't mention an agent, you aren't talking about action [Stout,R] |
| 20050 | Most philosophers see causation as by an event or state in the agent, rather than the whole agent [Stout,R] |