Materialism and the Mediated Causation of Behavior.

Are judgements and wishes really brain events (or brain states) which will be affirmed by a completed scientific account of how human behavior is caused? Materialists, other than eliminativists, say Yes. But brain events do not cause muscle contractions, hence bodily movements, directly. They do so, if at all, by triggering intermediate causes, viz. firings in motor nerves. So it is crucial, this paper argues, whether they are characterized as biological events – performances of naturally-selected-for operations – or instead as complex microphysical events. ``A causes B, B causes C, so A causes C'' is defensible for biological brain events, but fails for microphysical ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]