The two formulations which I've been trying to choose between are "same cause, same effect" and "an entity acts in accordance with its nature". I'm pretty sure I've come down on the side of the latter, for a number of reasons:
- "Same cause, same effect" seems to center around actions, while "an entity acts in accordance with its nature" centers around entities. In the case of the former, this leads to the billiard-ball notion of causality, i.e. the cause of one billiard ball's movement is the prior movement of another billiard ball. This leads to absurd questions such as "what caused the universe?" or "why is there something instead of nothing?", since everything must be caused by actions. The latter, on the other hand, focuses on the metaphysical primary that is the entity itself.
- "Same cause, same effect" has some odd basis in counterfactuals: in order to discuss causality, we must imagine two scenarios that are exactly like one another in terms of causal powers (I call these "counterfactuals" because the only way for two scenarios to be exactly like one another is for them to be one and the same). If some event happened under causal circumstances that could never be replicated (or even approximated), would the law of causality be in effect (pardon the accidental pun)? The second formulation, however, doesn't give rise to these sorts of issues: entities have identities, by virtue of which they act in certain ways, even if the scenarios in which they act are completely unique.
- Finally, "same cause, same effect" implies a particular type of causality: deterministic causality. Implied in the formulation is the idea that if things were arranged in a certain way, the outcome would be the same, i.e. determined. "Entities acting in accordance with their natures" doesn't suffer from this issue: all it says is that whatever actions an entity does take, those actions must be by virtue of its nature.
Under the same cause, same effect formulation, there is some cause (or set of causes) which result in me choosing to ignore the text, and if those causes were to be in effect again, I would make the same choice. Where is there room for free will in this case? If I trace the causes of those causes back and back, eventually I would get to causes which happened before I was born and therefore over which I had no control. The only way to fit free will in is to say that volition is outside of the law of causality. I think this is the root of the formulation of volition as "the ability to have done otherwise under the same circumstances", which, while true in a sense, is not fundamental and again depends on the strange counterfactuals I discussed above.
Under the "entities acting in accordance with their natures" formulation, such issues don't arise. That formulation merely states that my ignoring the phone happened by virtue of my identity. It says nothing about what that identity is or what the exact connection between my identity and the action is: it could be that, by virtue of my form of consciousness, I can choose between alternatives, or it could be that, by virtue of my form of consciousness, I am fully influenced by outside factors. The law of causality doesn't specify which it is. I think this is the root of the formulation of volition as "the ability to be a self-caused agent", which again puts the emphasis on the entity.
