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The Causal Autonomy of the Special Sciences

Peter Menzies and Christian List

in Emergence in Mind

The systems studied in the special sciences are often said to be causally autonomous, in the sense that their higher‐level properties have causal powers that are independent of those of their more ... More

The systems studied in the special sciences are often said to be causally autonomous, in the sense that their higher‐level properties have causal powers that are independent of those of their more basic physical properties. This chapter aims to clarify what is implied by the doctrine of the causal autonomy of special‐science properties and to defend the doctrine using an interventionist theory of causation. In terms of this theory, it shows that a special‐science property can make a difference to some effect while the physical property that realizes it does not. Moreover, the theory permits identification of necessary and sufficient conditions for the causal autonomy of a higher‐level property, and to show that these are satisfied when causal claims about higher‐level properties have a special feature we call realization‐insensitivity. This feature consists in the fact that the relevant claims are true regardless of the way the higher‐level properties they describe are physically realized. The findings here are consistent with those of other philosophers, for example Alan Garfinkel, who have noted the realization‐insensitivity of higher‐level causal relations as a distinctive feature of the special sciences and have suggested that this feature ensures their independence from lower‐level causal relations.Less

THE EVIL OF DEATH

Ben Bradley

in Well-Being and Death

This chapter defends a difference‐making principle about the total value of an event for a person, similar to one defended by Fred Feldman. According to this principle, the value of an event for a ... More

This chapter defends a difference‐making principle about the total value of an event for a person, similar to one defended by Fred Feldman. According to this principle, the value of an event for a person is determined by a comparison between how well the person's life actually goes and how it would have gone had the event not occurred. Thus, given Lewis‐Stalnaker semantics for counterfactuals, value is relative to a similarity relation between possible worlds. Some objections are raised and answered, including worries about overdetermination, Lucretius's “symmetry argument,” and apparently harmful events that do not make anyone worse off.Less

The Exclusion Problem, the Determination Relation, and Contrastive Causation *

Peter Menzies

in Being Reduced: New Essays on Reduction, Explanation, and Causation

This chapter critically examines the causal exclusion argument against non-reductive physicalism. It argues that a contrastive account of causation falsifies the exclusion principle when it is ... More

This chapter critically examines the causal exclusion argument against non-reductive physicalism. It argues that a contrastive account of causation falsifies the exclusion principle when it is formulated in terms of causal sufficiency, but not when it is formulated in terms of difference-making causation. Nonetheless, the causal exclusion argument poses no threat to non-reductive physicalism. For a non-reductive physicalist is still able to reject its conclusion by challenging the principle of the causal closure of the physical. The principle's formulation in terms of difference-making causation makes a much stronger and less plausible claim than its formulation in terms of sufficient causation. For example, when a mental property is the difference-maker of a behavioural property, there may be a physical property that is causally sufficient for the behavioural property, but it need not be a difference-making cause of that property.Less

Mental Causation and Neural Mechanisms *

James Woodward

in Being Reduced: New Essays on Reduction, Explanation, and Causation

This chapter argues that many of the standard arguments for the causal inertness of the mental rest on mistaken assumptions about causality and causal explanation. An interventionist account ... More

This chapter argues that many of the standard arguments for the causal inertness of the mental rest on mistaken assumptions about causality and causal explanation. An interventionist account undercuts these assumptions. Interventionism allows for explanations involving macroscopic variables as well as microscopic variables. So, depending on the details of the case, it can explain the causal efficacy and explanatory power of multiple realisable mental states. When it comes to the causal exclusion argument, the chapter rejects the exclusion principle according to which if an event has a sufficient cause, then no distinct event can be a cause of it, unless this is a genuine case of causal overdetermination. An event being causally sufficient for some effect does not exclude some distinct event from causing or being causally relevant to that effect, even in the absence of overdetermination.Less

A Philosopher Looks at Tool Use and Causal Understanding

James Woodward

in Tool Use and Causal Cognition

This chapter presents a kind of typology of different sorts of abilities that might be associated with the notion of causal understanding, the acquisition of causal beliefs, causally informed action ... More

This chapter presents a kind of typology of different sorts of abilities that might be associated with the notion of causal understanding, the acquisition of causal beliefs, causally informed action patterns, and so on. It asks how these various abilities relate to one another, whether some may play a role in the acquisition of others, and so on. Drawing on relevant philosophical literature, it shows that different philosophical accounts of causation track, at least to some degree, different and dissociable competences that go together to make up adult causal understanding. The chapter is organized as follows. It begins with a sketch of competing philosophical accounts of causation, emphasizing the difference between claims about causal relationships as these exist in the world and claims about the way in which we and other animals represent causal relationships. It then explores the contrast between two different families of approaches to (or ways of thinking about) causation, one of which is called ‘difference-making’ and the other ‘geometrical-mechanical’. The remainder of the chapter discusses elements that seem relevant to whether there is adult human-like causal cognition.Less

Population Thinking about Mechanisms: An Integrative Relationship

James Tabery

in Beyond Versus: The Struggle to Understand the Interaction of Nature and Nurture

What is the relationship between scientists who study the causal mechanisms responsible for the development of traits and scientists who study the causes of variation responsible for differences in ... More

What is the relationship between scientists who study the causal mechanisms responsible for the development of traits and scientists who study the causes of variation responsible for differences in those traits? A number of characterizations of this relationship have been proposed which treat the two scientific approaches to explanation as incommensurably distinct and isolated from one another. This chapter instead offers a formulation of the relationship that sees the two scientific approaches as integratively related—as capable of pluralistically co-informing one another. The chapter draws on scholarship from the new mechanical philosophy and research on the concept of causation to formulate the integrative relationship.Less

Counterfactuals and Difference-making

in Causation and its Basis in Fundamental Physics

This chapter initiates discussion of the middle layer of causation by recalling Nelson Goodman’s account of counterfactuals. I construct an improved version called the nomic conditional that is ... More

This chapter initiates discussion of the middle layer of causation by recalling Nelson Goodman’s account of counterfactuals. I construct an improved version called the nomic conditional that is adapted for understanding causal generalities and effective strategies. I then present the corresponding notion of difference-making or counterfactual dependence, called prob-dependence.Less

Derivative Causation

in Causation and its Basis in Fundamental Physics

This chapter introduces the notion of influence that is equated with prob-dependence, namely prob-influence. I demonstrate how this conception of influence is a good model for precisifying causal ... More

This chapter introduces the notion of influence that is equated with prob-dependence, namely prob-influence. I demonstrate how this conception of influence is a good model for precisifying causal generalities like, “Smoking causes cancer.” I then show how my model of causation bears on standard topics like aspect causation, causation by omission, contrastivity, and transitivity. Finally, I describe another conception of influence called partial influence, which is an extremely liberal construal of difference-making. This conception is useful for examining the non-local causation thought to be an essential feature of quantum mechanics as well as the causation involved when a Newcomb predictor reliably foretells an agent’s future decision.Less

The Non-Transitivity of Causation

Paul Noordhof

in A Variety of Causes

There are clear cases in which causation is not transitive and this drops out of the analysis developed in which causation involves a certain kind of chance-raising involved after subtracting ... More

There are clear cases in which causation is not transitive and this drops out of the analysis developed in which causation involves a certain kind of chance-raising involved after subtracting competitor processes. Attempts to explain away these cases to secure the transitivity of causation are a mistake. Alternative ways of capturing the non-transitivity of causation involve fixing the competitor processes in order to detect chance-raising dependencies between the target cause and effect. This alternative manoeuvre engenders problems. The non-transitivity of causation is better understood in the terms of my analysis rather than by appealing to the idea that causes are difference-makers (in a specified sense) or, in the kind of cases considered, switchers by interaction with a process.Less

Making a Difference

Rani Lill Anjum and Stephen Mumford

in Causation in Science and the Methods of Scientific Discovery

One view of what links a cause to an effect is that causes make a difference to whether or not the effect is produced. This assumption is behind comparative studies, such as the method of randomized ... More

One view of what links a cause to an effect is that causes make a difference to whether or not the effect is produced. This assumption is behind comparative studies, such as the method of randomized controlled trials, aimed at showing whether a trial intervention makes a positive difference to outcomes. Comparative studies are regarded as the gold standard in some areas of research but they are also problematic. There can be causes that make no difference and some difference-makers that are not causes. This indicates that difference-making should be taken as a symptom of causation: a feature that accompanies it in some, though not all, cases. Symptoms can be useful in the discovery of causes but they cannot be definitive of causation.Less

Hope and Despair at the Kantian Chicken Factory: Moral Arguments about Making a Difference

Andrew Chignell

in Kant and Animals

People who like animal products but believe it is wrong to consume them are often so demoralized by the apparent inefficacy of their individual, private choices that they are unable to resist. ... More

People who like animal products but believe it is wrong to consume them are often so demoralized by the apparent inefficacy of their individual, private choices that they are unable to resist. Although he was a deontologist, Kant was also aware of this ‘consequent-dependent’ side of our moral psychology. One version of his ‘moral proof’ is designed to respond to the threat of such demoralization in pursuit of the Highest Good. It provides a model for a contemporary, secular argument regarding what is permitted in order to sustain resolve in contemporary industrial contexts (like that of industrial animal agriculture). The argument’s conclusion is that one of the things we can rationally hold, as an item of defeasible moral faith, is a certain decision-theoretic principle regarding what it is to ‘make a difference’.Less

Unificationism, Explanatory Internalism, and Autonomy

James Woodward

in The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher

Jim Woodward focuses on Kitcher’s unificationist account of explanation and the relationship between unification and autonomy. He argues that Kitcher is right to focus on “internalist” relations and ... More

Jim Woodward focuses on Kitcher’s unificationist account of explanation and the relationship between unification and autonomy. He argues that Kitcher is right to focus on “internalist” relations and that unification plays an important role in at least some explanations but that explanations must also capture the “external” relation of difference-making. Woodward also distinguishes two types of unificationist projects: EU1 involves explaining a large number of phenomena in terms of a few factors and is often tied to successful reduction; EU2 involves showing that certain factors are irrelevant to some phenomena and is often tied to establishing that some “upper-level” phenomena are autonomous from “lower-level” microdetails. Moreover Woodward argues that the autonomy of the special sciences does not depend on whether special science explanations are more unifying than those at a lower level, but instead depends on whether they successfully describe stable difference-making relations for their intended explananda.Less

The Program Model, Difference-makers, and the Exclusion Problem

Philip Pettit

in Making a Difference: Essays on the Philosophy of Causation

How do the notions of programming and difference-making relate to one another? A higher-level property programs for an effect just in case, intuitively, the actual realizer of the property at any ... More

How do the notions of programming and difference-making relate to one another? A higher-level property programs for an effect just in case, intuitively, the actual realizer of the property at any lower level gives rise to a realizer of the effect and any possible realizer at that level would also have done this. A higher-level property makes a difference to the effect just in case its presence programs for the effect and, in addition, its absence programs for the absence of the effect. Christian List and Peter Menzies argue for the capacity of the difference-making model to explain away the exclusion problem raised for physicalists by Jaegwon Kim. But the program model, developed in earlier work by Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit, offers a simpler and more straightforward way of handling the challenge.Less

My Brain Made Me Do It: The Exclusion Argument Against Free Will, and What’s Wrong with It

Christian List and Peter Menzies

in Making a Difference: Essays on the Philosophy of Causation

This chapter offers a critical assessment of the ‘exclusion argument’ against free will, which may be summarized by the slogan: ‘My brain made me do it, therefore I couldn’t have been free.’ While ... More

This chapter offers a critical assessment of the ‘exclusion argument’ against free will, which may be summarized by the slogan: ‘My brain made me do it, therefore I couldn’t have been free.’ While the exclusion argument has received much attention in debates about mental causation (‘could my mental states ever cause my actions?’), it is seldom discussed in relation to free will. However, the argument informally underlies many neuroscientific discussions of free will, especially the claim that advances in neuroscience seriously challenge our belief in free will. The chapter introduces two distinct versions of the argument, discusses several unsuccessful responses to it, and then presents the authors’ preferred response. This involves showing that a key premise—the ‘exclusion principle’—is false under what the authors take to be the most natural account of causation in the context of agency: the difference-making account. The chapter finally revisits the debate about neuroscience and free will.Less

The Underlying Metaphysics: Completing the Picture

Carolina Sartorio

in Causation and Free Will

This chapter covers a discussion of other metaphysical assumptions behind the view introduced in chapter 1. The difference-making aspect of causation and the intransitivity of causation are ... More

This chapter covers a discussion of other metaphysical assumptions behind the view introduced in chapter 1. The difference-making aspect of causation and the intransitivity of causation are discussed. The role of luck, in a specific sense, in the view is also discussed and luck is defined in this sense. There is also an attempt to shed light on some interesting asymmetries concerning responsibility for actions and responsibility for omissions. Several of the scenarios introduced in chapter 2 are examined again, to look further into the question of alternative possibilities and responsibility. The chapter concludes with an assertion that a solid foundation is now in place, on which basis to continue the enquiry in chapter 4.Less

Fairness, Participation, and the Real Problem of Collective Harm

Julia Nefsky

in Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Volume 5

In many cases people collectively cause a morally significant outcome but no individual act seems to make a difference, and so no reason can called upon to act. This chapter explores the possibility ... More

In many cases people collectively cause a morally significant outcome but no individual act seems to make a difference, and so no reason can called upon to act. This chapter explores the possibility of solving this problem by appealing to reasons for action that are not concerned with the difference one makes in outcome. It focuses on three such proposals: ‘Weak Participation’, ‘Strong Participation’, and ‘the Fairness Approach’, arguing that they face a shared problem: while they do identify considerations other than the difference one makes, these considerations do not seem to work as reasons for action as long as one’s act won’t make a difference. The problem, then, extends beyond these three proposals, and is a challenge for non-consequentialists, as well as consequentialists. The upshot is a sharper understanding of what the core challenge in these cases really is, and thus what needs to be done to address it.Less

Causal Strength

Jan Sprenger and Stephan Hartmann

in Bayesian Philosophy of Science

The question “When is C a cause of E?” is well-studied in philosophy—much more than the equally important issue of quantifying the causal strength between C and E. In this chapter, we transfer ... More

The question “When is C a cause of E?” is well-studied in philosophy—much more than the equally important issue of quantifying the causal strength between C and E. In this chapter, we transfer methods from Bayesian Confirmation Theory to the problem of explicating causal strength. We develop axiomatic foundations for a probabilistic theory of causal strength as difference-making and proceed in three steps: First, we motivate causal Bayesian networks as an adequate framework for defining and comparing measures of causal strength. Second, we demonstrate how specific causal strength measures can be derived from a set of plausible adequacy conditions (method of representation theorems). Third, we use these results to argue for a specific measure of causal strength: the difference that interventions on the cause make for the probability of the effect. An application to outcome measures in medicine and discussion of possible objections concludes the chapter.Less