Levi on Causal Decision Theory and the Possibility of Predicting One’s Own Actions

Isaac Levi has long criticized causal decision theory on the grounds that it requires deliberating agents to make predictions about their own actions. A rational agent cannot, he claims, see herself as free to choose an act while simultaneously making a prediction about her likelihood of performing it. Levi is wrong on both points. First, nothing in causal decision theory forces agents to make predictions about their own acts. Second, Levi’s arguments for the “deliberation crowds out prediction thesis” rely on a flawed model of the measurement of belief. Moreover, the ability of agents to adopt beliefs about their own acts during deliberation is essential to any plausible account of human agency and freedom. Though these beliefs play no part in the rationalization of actions, they are required to account for the causal genesis of behavior. To explain the causes of actions we must recognize that (a) an agent cannot see herself as entirely free in the matter of A unless she believes her decision to perform A will cause A, and (b) she cannot come to a deliberate decision about A unless she adopts beliefs about her decisions. Following Elizabeth Anscombe and David Velleman, I argue that an agent’s beliefs about her own decisions are self-fulfilling, and that this can be used to explain away the seeming paradoxical features of act probabilities. Isaac Levi has long been among the most persistent and influential critics of causal decision theory. At the heart of nearly all his objections lie two claims: first, that the causal theory requires deliberating agents to make predictions about their own actions; second, that this is incoherent because “deliberation crowds out prediction”.1 Levi is wrong on both points. As the first two sections of this essay will make clear, nothing in causal decision theory forces an agent to make predictions about her own acts. While the specific version of the theory I defend does permit this, I am, as far as I know, the only causal decision theorist doctrinally committed to rejecting the “deliberation crowds out prediction” thesis. The essay’s third section presents my reasons for opposing the thesis. We will see that none of the standard justifications for it, including Levi’s, stand Philosophical Studies 110: 69–102, 2002. © 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.