_Layered Causal Realism I_ : Free Feel, Functional Desert, and the Structure of Agency

This paper argues that the persistence of the free will debate reflects a structural compression of distinct phenomena into a single problem space. Positions that appear to address the same question often operate at different explanatory levels, and conflicts arising from such mixing resist resolution within any single level. To address this, the paper introduces Layered Causal Realism (LCR) as a constraint on explanatory practice. LCR treats causal explanation as level-structured: each level is individuated by its own object types and explanatory logic, and transitions across levels require specific licensing conditions. Within the scope of this paper, three domains are distinguished—the psychological, the normative, and the external attributional—whose convergence at attributive practice preserves their structural independence. Within this framework, three central concepts are reassigned. Free Feel is treated as a genuine psychological phenomenon; Positional Openness as an epistemic feature of agents whose generative processes remain opaque from within the deliberative standpoint; Functional Desert as grounding responsibility in the causal-node structure of agency. These elements occupy distinct locations within the same structure and need no longer be treated as standing in mutual tension. The result is a reconstitution of the problem space. Once the misalignment is corrected, determinism, agency, and responsibility prove structurally compatible—each occupying a distinct explanatory dimension within a single process.