Do you think that the will or faculty of volition is the efficient cause of human action?

Question

Aristotle says there are four causes. The efficient cause is that cause which brings something about. For instance, a sculptor brings about a statue or a painter brings about a painting. Does the will (as efficient cause) also bring about human actions, whether they are good or bad, noble or ignoble?

Answer 1

If I were writing a physics book I would say the human will is the cause of human action. Higher faculties like reason and choice do however determine the direction of our will.

Answer 2

Well, you say will, I say intent, but yes. John Conway and Simon Kochen of Princeton published a proof called the "Free Will Theorem" that used quantum physics and 3 common assumptions to prove that is an observer of an event has free will (Man) then every particle has some fragment of its own volition; it is unpredictable with 100% because it hasn't made up it's mind yet. I asked a friend of mine, the associate professor of linguistics at the U of Michigan, what he thought as he was a big math buff and he said "John Conway is The Man when it comes to math".