By now it should be clear that if there is one thing we know with any certainty, it is that we cannot say with conviction that we know that our will is free. So what, then, do we know?

To begin with, we know that the libertarian faces considerable difficulties in describing a satisfactory account of free will. The concept of origination remains a mysterious one, and it appears likely that (i) we do not need physical alternatives in order to regard ourselves as morally responsible, and (ii) such alternatives may not be possible. Let us look at each of these points in a little more detail.

Origination remains the most fundamental problem facing the libertarian. How can there be an intelligible and plausible alternative to determinism that is not mere randomness? This “randomness problem” is actually two problems. One is conceptual (what exactly is the nature of the causation underlying free will?) and the other empirical (how can we explain the existence of this causation in a universe which otherwise appears to consist only of determined and random events?).

Agent causation initially appears to be an attractive solution to the conceptual problem (although it becomes less attractive as one examines the detail behind the general idea), but it remains unclear how it can possibly overcome the empirical problem as it clearly violates ontological reductionism, one of the basic tenets of modern science.