Counterfactual Theories of Causation

This paper argues that a counterpart-theoretic treatment of events, combined with a counterfactual theory of causation, can help resolve three puzzles from the causation literature. First, CCT traces the apparent contextual shifts in our causal attributions to shifts in the counterpart relation which obtains in those contexts. Second, being sensitive to shifts in the counterpart relation can help diagnose what goes wrong in certain prominent examples where the transitivity of causation appears to fail. Third, CCT can help us resurrect the (...) much-maligned fragility response to the problems of late pre-emption by understanding fragility in counterpart-theoretic terms. Some reasons to prefer this CCT approach to rivals are discussed. (shrink)

Comme il a été façonné par les améliorations de ses outils et méthodes, et par son discours avec les critiques, je décris comment le programme de recherche astrologique a progressé à travers trois étapes de modélisation et de limitations de conception. Les tests à facteur unique (par exemple, les nombreuses expériences de signe solaire uniquement qui ont été publiées) sont généralement sousdéterministes. Les tests multifactoriels, à moins qu'ils ne soient très bien conçus, peuvent facilement devenir surdéterministes. Les tests d'appariement de (...) thèmes ont été vulnérables aux erreurs de biais de confirmation jusqu'au développement d'un protocole d'appariement de thèmes entiers basé sur une machine qui a objectivement produit des preuves avec des tailles d'effet élevées. Une méta-analyse des résultats récents montre les progrès rapides et comment améliorer encore les résultats. La valeur du programme n'est pas seulement de corroborer les contrefactuels taxonomiques des «livres de cuisine» astrologiques, mais d'étendre leur portée explicative par la comparaison des postulats et des inférences astrologiques avec les philosophies d'autres disciplines en termes de processus quantifiables et d'effets émergents. (shrink)

In this paper I present a metaphysically minimalist but theoretically strong version of fact causation, in which the causal relata constitute a full Boolean algebra, mirroring the entailment relation of the sentences that express them. I suggest a generalization of the notion of multiple realizability of causes in terms of specificity of facts, and employ this in an interpretation of what goes on in cases of apparently redundant causation.

I provide an overview and critical discussion of Causation with a Human Face, by James Woodward.

I generalize acyclic deterministic structural causal models to the nondeterministic case and argue that this offers an improved semantics for counterfactuals. The standard, deterministic, semantics developed by Halpern (and based on the initial proposal of Galles & Pearl) assumes that for each assignment of values to parent variables there is a unique assignment to their child variable, and it assumes that the actual world (an assignment of values to all variables of a model) specifies a unique counterfactual world for each (...) intervention. Both assumptions are unrealistic, and therefore I drop both of them in my proposal. I do so by allowing multi-valued functions in the structural equations. In addition, I adjust the semantics so that the solutions to the equations that obtained in the actual world are preserved in any counterfactual world. I provide a sound and complete axiomatization of the resulting logic and compare it to the standard one by Halpern and to more recent proposals that are closer to mine. Finally, I extend these models to the probabilistic case and show that they open up the way to identifying counterfactuals even in Causal Bayesian Networks. (shrink)

In (Beckers, 2025) I introduced nondeterministic causal models as a generalization of Pearl’s standard deterministic causal models. I here take advantage of the increased expressivity offered by these models to offer a novel definition of actual causation (that also applies to deterministic models). Instead of motivating the definition by way of (often subjective) intuitions about examples, I proceed by developing it based entirely on the unique function that it can fulfil in communicating and learning a causal model. First I generalize (...) the more basic notion of counterfactual dependence, second I show how this notion has a vital role to play in the logic of causal discovery, third I introduce the notion of a structural simplification of a causal model, and lastly I bring both notions together in my definition of actual causation. Although novel, the resulting definition arrives at verdicts that are almost identical to those of my previous definition (Beckers, 2021, 2022). (shrink)

Several of the most prominent theories of actual causation make use of a minimality condition to prevent irrelevant elements from being tacked onto a cause so that the conjunction or sum passes for a cause. Focusing on one theory in particular—the influential Halpern-Pearl definition of actual causation—we argue that either the minimality condition or its rationale ought to be revised. We produce proposals showing that both are live options and demonstrate their potential usefulness within the larger family of counterfactual approaches (...) to causation. (shrink)

I introduce a novel method for evaluating counterfactuals. According to the branchpoint proposal, counterfactuals are evaluated by ‘rewinding’ the universe to a time at which the antecedent had a reasonable probability of coming about and considering the probability for the consequent, given the antecedent. This method avoids surprising dynamics, allows the time of the branchpoint to be determined by the system’s dynamics (rather than by context) and uses scientific posits to specify the relevant probabilities. I then show how the branchpoint (...) proposal can be justified by considering an evidential role for counterfactuals: counterfactuals help us reason about the probabilistic relations that hold in a hypothetical scenario at which the antecedent is maximally unsettled. A result is that we should distinguish the use of counterfactuals in contexts of control from their use for reasoning evidentially. Standard Lewisian accounts run into trouble precisely by expecting a single relation to play both roles. (shrink)

It is widely thought that there is an important argument to be made that starts with premises taken from the science of physics and ends with the conclusion of physicalism. The standard view is that this argument takes the form of a causal argument for physicalism. Roughly: physics tells us that the physical realm is causally complete, and so minds (among other entities) must be physical if they are to interact with the world as we think they do. In what (...) follows, I raise problems for this view. After an initial review of the causal argument, I begin my case by showing that the totality of physical truths do not deductively entail the causal completeness of the physical realm, using a double-prevention scenario and causation by omission to show that nonphysical causes of physical effects would not need to violate physical conservation laws. I then move on to raise problems for an inductive argument for causal completeness by drawing on the neo-Russellian view that there is no causation in fundamental physics, and so causation must itself be a realized or derived entity. I conclude by suggesting that the underlying problem is that the causal argument has fallen out of touch with the sophisticated understanding that philosophers have developed of the role of causation within physics. (shrink)

In the seventh month of 210 BCE, at a travel palace called Shaqiu, the First Emperor of Qin died with only three people at his bedside: the chancellor Li Si, the palace official Zhao Gao, and his youngest son Huhai. Within days, those three had forged a letter in the dead emperor's name, sent it north to the empire's largest standing army, and used it to order two men to kill themselves — Crown Prince Fusu, the eldest son and designated (...) heir, and Meng Tian, the general who commanded that army. Both complied. Meng Tian's subordinates urged him to verify the order before obeying it; Fusu, on the primary record's own account, wept and killed himself without waiting to. Qin collapsed within four years. No dedicated academic paper, so far as this paper's search located — corroborating a search independently conducted and reported to this paper's author — exists asking directly what would have followed had Fusu paused, as Meng Tian did, to ask whether the letter was genuine. Historians of Qin's fall write about the dynasty's structural overextension. Historians of the Shaqiu incident write about a succession crisis. Writers on counterfactual method cite Fusu as a textbook branching point without building the branch. This paper builds it, and states plainly what building it can and cannot establish. -/- The paper's central methodological move is to separate two counterfactuals that existing informal discussion of this case runs together. A person-level counterfactual asks whether a different individual, with Fusu's recorded temperament and Meng Tian's recorded loyalty, would have made different choices than Huhai and Zhao Gao did. A structure-level counterfactual asks whether Qin's underlying extraction regime — the corvee labor mobilized for the Great Wall, the imperial mausoleum, and the road network, the harsh and inflexibly applied penal code, the standardization program imposed on a recently conquered and culturally heterogeneous population — would have produced comparable unrest regardless of who occupied the throne. The structural case is real, well evidenced, and independently defended in the current academic literature on Qin's collapse, and this paper states it first and states it fully, because a counterfactual argument that does not confront the strongest case against it is not an argument. -/- Against that structural case, this paper establishes three specific, checkable claims the informal "Fusu counterfactual" discussion has not, on this paper's search, assembled together. First, the conspiracy that killed Fusu was narrow and nearly did not happen: Li Si initially and sternly refused Zhao Gao's proposal, and Huhai himself initially objected to it on grounds of injustice, unfiliality, and incompetence, before Zhao Gao talked each of them into it — meaning the branching point this paper examines was not a single moment of Fusu's own choice but a sequence of at least three prior choices, any one of which failing would have prevented the forgery from ever reaching him. Second, the purge did not merely remove a temperament from the throne; it removed a specific army from the board. Meng Tian's death left his own veteran frontier force, later commanded by Wang Li, on the northern border rather than redeployed against the first rebellion, and Qin's actual emergency response to Chen Sheng and Wu Guang's 209 BCE uprising was not that veteran army but several hundred thousand convict laborers pulled from the First Emperor's own mausoleum construction and hastily armed under an improvised commander, Zhang Han, specifically because the court no longer trusted its regular troops — a distrust this paper argues is better explained by the paranoia a palace coup generates than by any structural feature of Qin's tax code. Third, and most directly: the rebellion that began Qin's collapse did not treat Fusu's death as historiographical trivia. Chen Sheng, the leader of that rebellion, explicitly invoked Fusu's murdered name as one of his two rallying causes. Contemporaries closest to the event, not modern counterfactual historians, are this paper's primary witnesses that the succession mattered. -/- The paper concludes narrowly rather than broadly, consistent with what the evidence actually supports. It does not conclude that a Fusu succession would have prevented Qin's fall; the structural pressures Section IV documents were already fully in motion before Shaqiu and this paper has no basis for claiming a different emperor unwinds them. It concludes something more specific and, this paper argues, more defensible: that the particular form Qin's collapse took — a purge-weakened court unable to trust its own army, responding to a regional uprising with convict labor instead of veterans, inside a climate of elite paranoia the coup itself manufactured — was not structurally inevitable, and that the branching point popular discussion locates correctly, at Shaqiu, is real, even though the discussion has not yet specified precisely what it was a branching point toward. (shrink)

English translation of 'Voimat ja syy-seuraussuhde' (from Metafysiikan Perusteet [The Basics of Metaphysics], eds. Hakkarainen & Slavov, 2026, Gaudeamus). An overview of the main causal realist and causal reductionist accounts of causation as well as the strength and weaknesses of each. Causal realist accounts offer suggestions about the fundamental nature of causation, i.e. whether it is (i) the transmission of conserved quantities that produce changes in so called causal processes, (ii) the activities of parts of mechanisms that produce change in (...) each other and thus in the mechanism, or (iii) the exertion of influence by powers or objects bearing powers. Powers-based accounts then differ in the characterization of interactions between powerful entities. Causal reductionist accounts of causation offer suggestions about how to understand causation in non-causal terms such as regularity, counterfactual dependence, or intervention. (shrink)

We propose the Meta-Generative Principle — the conjecture that generative systems with long-run persistence exhibit an intrinsic directional bias not toward entropy maximisation nor complexity accumulation, but toward the preservation of their own generative capacity. We argue this constitutes a distinct and previously under-formalised direction in the study of complex adaptive systems. Drawing on structural causal models, attractor theory in dynamical systems, Friston's Free Energy Principle, and autopoietic theory, we sketch a preliminary mathematical framework in which sustainability of the generative (...) process emerges as a first-order property — not a consequence — of persistent complex systems. We identify connections to existing formalisms, propose candidate mathematical structures, and outline open questions for future formalisation. This paper is a theoretical position paper intended to open the question for rigorous treatment. (shrink)

Building on Nozick’s (2001) work, I provided a novel invariantist account of scientific objectivity: the Counterfactual Independence Account (Reutlinger 2024). Despite its virtues, this account needs to be articulated in a more nuanced manner – regarding its scope, content, and consequences. My goal in this paper is to develop such a more articulated and improved version of the Counterfactual Independence Account in two steps. First, I will discuss two instructive dissonances between Nozick’s version of invariantism and the Counterfactual Independence Account (...) – dissonances concerning what concept of objectivity is addressed and how the key notion of invariance is characterized. Second, I will develop an argument for the claim that (epistemic) objectivity plays a productive role in scientific inference or, more precisely, that objective evidence is, in a sense to be specified, more evidence. (shrink)

Philosophy and statistics have studied two causal species, deterministic and probabilistic. There's a third species, however, hitherto unanalysed: underdeterministic causal phenomena, which are non-deterministic yet non-probabilistic. Here, I formulate a framework for modelling them. -/- Consider a simple case. If I go out, I may stumble into you but also may miss you. If I don’t go out, we won't meet. I go out. We meet. My going out is a cause of our encounter even if there was no determinate (...) probability of us meeting conditional on my going out. The cause is neither deterministic (it didn't necessitate the effect) nor probabilistic (the relevant conditional probabilities are undefined). Rather, it's underdeterministic: it raises the modal status of the effect from causally impossible to possible. -/- Here, I won't offer a theory of such token causes but develop the prerequisite for any such theory: the underdeterministic framework. The framework is like the deterministic structural-equations framework but with one consequential difference---an equation can return multiple values. This change allows me to define causal possibility and necessity, and corresponding notions of interventionist might- and would-counterfactuals. I also define conditional independence, which obeys the graphoid axioms, and prove that underdeterministic models satisfy the causal Markov condition. The framework can causally model situations that other frameworks cannot: decision-making under bounded uncertainty, games with multiple equilibria, infinite fair lotteries, and any other non-deterministic situation where indeterminacies are essentially non-probabilistic, or where we have a reason not to use probabilities. (shrink)

In ‘Factual Difference-Making’, Holger Andreas and Mario Günther (2025) propose a theory of model-relative actual causation which performs remarkably well on a number of known problematic cases. They take this to show that we should abandon our counterfactual way of thinking about causation in favour of their factual alternative. I cast doubt on this argument by offering two similar theories. First, I show that the theory of Factual Difference-Making is equivalent to a partly counterfactual theory. Second, I give a fully (...) counterfactual theory that makes the same judgments in the scenarios discussed by Andreas and Günther. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to argue that there is indeterminacy in causation. I present three types of cases in which it is indeterminate whether an event c caused another event e: (1) cases of absence causation recently discussed by Bernstein and by Swanson, (2) cases leading to Sorites paradoxes for causation, and (3) cases where c and e occur in certain indeterministic causal structures and it is therefore indeterminate whether there is a causal relation between them. These cases, (...) I argue, provide strong evidence that indeterminacy is an important general feature of the causal relation and that philosophical theorizing about causation should take this observation into account. (shrink)

In this paper I challenge the popular belief that Hume provided two different definitions of causation in the Enquiry—one in terms of regularity, the other in terms of counterfactuals—allegedly opening up the possibility of a counterfactual account of causation. I propose instead that Hume was merely stating what had been the received view about causation for centuries. The evidence in favour of this reading is that his two ‘wordings’ bear remarkable similarity to several definitions of causation offered by writers we (...) can assume Hume was familiar with, such as Galileo Galilei, Spinoza, and Hobbes. The view these writers express, is that causes are necessary and sufficient for the production of effects, from which it follows that effects are counterfactually dependent on their causes. If this reading is correct, contemporary counterfactual accounts are not exploring a hitherto unnoticed connection between causation and counterfactual dependence, but instead exploring the converse of what the above writers suggest; the possibility of grounding causation in counterfactual dependence instead of the other way around. (shrink)

Philosophical investigations into the nature of chance and causation have typically assumed classical spacetime backgrounds. My dissertation argues that this practice misses important lessons. By tying chance functions to a global time parameter—a structure of classical spacetimes—orthodox theories of chance cannot state important Markov-style principles and fail outright in spacetimes that lack a linear time structure, e.g. due to closed time-like curves. By contrast, the urchance approach, developed in the dissertation's first half, assumes no such parameter, works in any spacetime (...) geometry, captures the needed independence principles, and resolves the puzzle of chances on closed time-like curves. Two general morals follow: chance isn't as intimately tied to time or causation as is usually thought, and chances can vary even across intrinsically duplicate trials. On the causation side, counterfactualist reductions are unable to deal with synchronic nomic constraints—law-based, yet non-causal, links between simultaneous events. These constraints occur not only in temporal-loop geometries but also in common-or-garden theories like Maxwellian electrodynamics. To save the counterfactualist approach to causation, its defenders must separate genuinely dynamical counterfactual influences from those produced solely by synchronic constraints. (shrink)

Science likes to pretend it grew out of myth. The lab coat, p-value, and randomized controlled trials are all presented as a decisive break from the priesthoods and oracles of earlier eras. But when you look closely at how causal claims are manufactured and sold, you see something far less flattering. You see a priesthood with better notation. You see ritualized procedures for turning uncertainty into pronouncement. You see in Judea Pearl’s causal framework not just a technical achievement, but a (...) ready-made liturgy for a culture that would rather sound certain than be structurally aligned with reality. The danger is not that Pearl made causal reasoning computable. The danger is that his formalism arrived in a scientific ecosystem already addicted to certainty, and it became another instrument for performing knowledge rather than interrogating it. (shrink)

Judea Pearl’s causal formalism marked a paradigm shift in scientific reasoning by elevating causation from correlation through graphical models and symbolic intervention calculus. Yet, under the lens of Recursive Coherence, his framework reveals critical structural deficiencies. This paper deconstructs Pearl’s causal logic through the five axioms of recursive coherence reasoning (persistence, trajectory, information value, arbitration, and pruning) and identifies key blind spots: static graph assumptions, binary intervention logic, fragile counterfactuals, unfiltered signal inflation, and identifiability-based arbitration. These weaknesses lead to coherence (...) stagnation, entropy retention, and reduced option space across dynamic systems. I then reconstruct a coherence-maximizing alternative: dynamic causal topologies derived from smoothed coherence gradients, gradient-based interventions replacing binary “do” operations, μ-validated signal filtration, and Δ²C-optimized path arbitration. The resulting system retains Pearl’s explanatory power while restoring adaptive viability, maximizing structural alignment under entropy descent. This reframing challenges the sufficiency of identifiability as the core criterion for causal adequacy and proposes coherence curvature as the new metric for scientific reasoning. Pearl’s insights are thus not discarded but refactored; his revolution, now recursive. (shrink)

Causality is usually treated as discovery; a hard-won insight wrested from a stubborn world. We are told that once upon a time humanity lived amid superstition and confusion, and then, through patience and rigor, uncovered the fact that things happen because other things happen first. This story flatters us, which is one reason it has survived so well. It presents causality as revelation rather than inheritance, as though it were pried loose from reality rather than quietly absorbed from the air (...) we breathed while learning to speak. In truth, causality arrives far too early and far too smoothly to deserve that status. It is not discovered so much as assumed. It is not reasoned into existence but taken up as soon as explanation itself becomes possible. (shrink)

In recent decades, various sources of scientific evidence have been used to disprove the idea that we have free will. Conceptual confusion has tended to lurk behind such claims, however, for it often turns out that what researchers mean by “free will” is something extremely implausible. A similar problem persists in the literature on the causal role of consciousness. Various sources of psychological evidence have been used to show that consciousness is not among the causes of our behaviour. However, consciousness (...) is often assumed to be both non-physical and non-functional, and causation is often poorly understood or not defined at all. The aim of this paper is to clear up these issues by urging that (1) future research on this topic remains neutral on the metaphysics of consciousness, (2) avoids assuming that phenomenal consciousness is functionless, (3) is more precise in specifying what is doing the causal work when discussing conscious mental states, and (4) adopts the practice of being clearer on what it takes for something to count as a cause. Much unwarranted scepticism about whether consciousness is causally efficacious has resulted from this fragmented thinking, and much is to be gained by clearing it up. (shrink)

This paper introduces and defends a new principle for when a structural equation model is apt for analyzing actual causation. Any such analysis in terms of these models has two components: a recipe for reading claims of actual causation off an apt model, and an articulation of what makes a model apt. The primary focus in the literature has been on the first component. But the problem of structural isomorphs has made the second especially pressing (Hall 2007; Hitchcock 2007a). Those (...) with realist sympathies have reason to resist the standard response to this problem, which introduces a normative parameter into the metaphysics (Hall 2007; Halpern and Hitchcock 2010, 2015; Halpern 2016a; Menzies 2017; Gallow 2021). However, the only alternative solution in the literature leaves central questions unanswered (Blanchard and Schaffer 2017). I propose an independently motivated aptness requirement, Evident Mediation, that provides the missing details and resolves the structural isomorph problem without need for a normative parameter. (shrink)

A promising development in the philosophy of causation analyzes actual causation using structural equation models, i.e., “causal models”. This paper carefully considers what it means for an interpreted model to be accurate of its target situation. These considerations show, first, that our existing understanding of accuracy is inadequate. Further, and more controversially, they show that any causal model analysis is committed to a kind of relativism – a view whereby causation is a three-part relation holding between a cause, an effect, (...) and something else. In particular, insofar as a causal model analysis construes causation mind-and-language independently, it must treat causation as relative to a specification of background possibilities – i.e., a ‘modal profile.’ Or, so I argue. (shrink)

Under current standards for evaluating scientific evidence, economic models of antitrust are frequently excluded from legal consideration, but not always for reasons that make them genuinely unreliable. This paper clarifies why antitrust models face difficulties when subjected to methodological scrutiny: the employment of model-based counterfactual arguments under an epistemically defective ‘but-for’ structure of causation. A more flexible causal framework, the weak-necessity structure of causation, is suggested as a means of developing and evaluating model-based counterfactuals. The framework is demonstrated in application (...) to causal mechanisms derived from economic theories as well as those implicit to many regression models. (shrink)

Although collision-like causes are fundamental in philosophical and psychological theories of causation, humans conceptualize many events as causes that lack direct contact. Here we argue that how people think and talk about different causes is deeply connected, and investigate how children learn this mapping. If Andy hits Suzy with his bike, Suzy falls into a fence and it breaks, Andy ‘caused’ the fence to break but Suzy ‘broke’ it. If Suzy forgets sunscreen and gets sunburned, the absence of sunscreen ‘caused’ (...) Suzy’s sunburn, but the sun ‘burned’ her skin. We tested 691 children and 270 adults. Four-year-old children mapped ‘caused’ to distal causes and ‘broke’ to proximal causes (Experiment 1). Although 4-year-old children did not map ‘caused’ to absences until later (Experiment 2), they already referred to absences when asked ‘why’ an outcome occurred (Experiment 3). Our findings highlight the role of semantics and pragmatics in developing these mappings. (shrink)

I assess Zhong’s new “causal argument” for physicalism, which differs from previous such arguments in that the premises and conclusion pertain (not just to physical, but) to “physically acceptable” entities or features, which may be either physical or “grounded by” (i.e., metaphysically dependent on) the physical. Zhong argues that his new causal argument improves on previous versions in that the conclusion (unlike previous causal arguments, he maintains) supports non-reductive as well as reductive versions of physicalism, and in that the premises (...) of his argument are better motivated than those of the original arguments. I argue that neither of these motivations are in place. Along the way, I offer a new reason to reject non-contrastive counterfactual accounts of causation. (shrink)

Lewis (1979) proposed a set of weight criteria in natural language for assessing the comparative similarity between possible worlds. These criteria rely on the temporal asymmetry of overdetermination and explain why causation is generally forward. Although Lewis himself claimed that his theory does not a priori rule out backward causation, he did not explain how such compatibility is possible beyond offering a few trivial cases and vague remarks. The main tasks of this paper are threefold. First, by formally reconstructing the (...) weight criteria of comparative similarity using sphere semantics, I demonstrate on semantic grounds that Lewis’s theory is in fact incompatible with backward causation. Second, to address this limitation, I introduce the concept of “two-dimensional time” in the context of time travel and use it to revise Lewis’s original theory, specifically by applying it to the formally reconstructed criteria of comparative similarity. Third, using this two-dimensional time approach, I handle some representative counterexamples found in recent literature, such as those constructed by Wasserman (2015) and Dowe (2021), and attempt to respond to some potential objections. (shrink)

The chapter explores whether, or to what extent, recent work in experimental philosophy puts pressure on the idea that the concept of causation is ‘egalitarian’. Causal selection – where experimental subjects tend to rate the causal strength of (for example) a norm-violator more strongly than a non-norm-violator – is a well established phenomenon, and is in prima facie tension with an egalitarian conception of causation; it also, indirectly, puts prima facie pressure on the idea that causation is a worldly phenomenon (...) whose obtaining is independent of facts about norms. The chapter explores both the various psychological mechanisms and the broadly pragmatic approaches to explaining causal selection. It argues that the answer to the question whether or not the concept of causation is egalitarian is currently significantly empirically underdetermined, and suggests some avenues for further investigation. (shrink)

Recent years have seen increasing interest in interventionist analyses of metaphysical explanation. One area where interventionism traditionally shines, is in providing an account of explanatory depth; the sense in which explanation comes in degrees. However, the literature on metaphysical explanation has left the notion of depth almost entirely unexplored. In this paper I shall attempt to rectify this oversight by motivating an interventionist analysis of metaphysical explanatory depth (MED), in terms of the range of interventions under which a metaphysically explanatory (...) generalization remains invariant. After elucidating the notion through a toy-example, I demonstrate the important work which MED can perform in characterizing debate within contemporary metaphysics. Focusing upon rival approaches to explaining the identity and distinctness of concrete objects, I argue that the progress achieved in this debate can be characterized in terms of increasing explanatory depth. Having made an initial case for the utility of MED, I then turn this analysis to the metaphysics of explanation itself. By adopting an interventionist framework with respect to MED, I will show that we can assess the depth of competing theories of explanation. This application has two interesting results: first, it suggests that an interventionist analysis of explanation provides deeper explanations of the connection between explanans and explanandum than rival accounts; and second, it suggests that explanations provided by interventionism become deeper still, if one accepts that this methodology ranges over metaphysical, as well as causal, instances. (shrink)

Recently, there has been an increased interest in employing model-based definitions of actual causation in legal inquiry. The formal precision of such approaches promises to be an improvement over more traditional approaches. Yet model-based approaches are viable only if suitable models of legal cases can be provided, and providing such models is sometimes difficult. I argue that causal-model-based definitions benefit legal inquiry in an indirect way. They make explicit the causal assumptions that need to be made plausible to defend a (...) particular claim of actual causation. My argument concerns the analysis of legal cases involving a combination of double prevention and causal redundancy. I show that discussions among legal theorists about such cases sometimes suffer from ambiguous assumptions about the causal structure. My account illustrates that causal models can act as a heuristic tool for clarifying such assumptions, and that causal models provide a framework for more accurate analyses of legal cases involving complex causal structure. (shrink)

This paper explores the prospects of employing a functional approach in order to improve our concept of actual causation. Claims of actual causation play an important role for a variety of purposes. In particular, they are relevant for identifying suitable targets for intervention, and they are relevant for our practices of ascribing responsibility. I argue that this gives rise to the _challenge of purpose_. The challenge of purpose arises when different goals demand adjustments of the concept that pull in opposing (...) directions. More specifically, I argue that a common distinction between certain kinds of preempted and preempting factors is difficult to motivate from an interventionist viewpoint. This indicates that an appropriately revised concept of actual causation would not distinguish between these two kinds of factors. From the viewpoint of retributivist responsibility, however, the distinction between preempted and preempting factors sometimes is important, which indicates that the distinction should be retained. (shrink)

Causal understanding is a defining characteristic of human cognition. Like many animals, human children learn to control their bodily movements and act effectively in the environment. Like a smaller subset of animals, children intervene: they learn to change the environment in targeted ways. Unlike other animals, children grow into adults with the causal reasoning skills to develop abstract theories, invent sophisticated technologies and imagine alternate pasts, distant futures and fictional worlds. In this Review, we explore the development of human-unique causal (...) learning and reasoning from evolutionary and ontogenetic perspectives. We frame our discussion using an ‘interventionist’ approach. First, we situate causal understanding in relation to cognitive abilities shared with non-human animals. We argue that human causal understanding is distinguished by its depersonalized (objective) and decontextualized (general) representations. Using this framework, we next review empirical findings on early human causal learning and reasoning and consider the naturalistic contexts that support its development. Then we explore connections to related abilities. We conclude with suggestions for ongoing collaboration between developmental, cross-cultural, computational, neural and evolutionary approaches to causal understanding. (shrink)

A key challenge for probabilistic causal models is to distinguish non-causal probabilistic dependencies from true causal relations. To accomplish this task, causal models are usually required to satisfy several constraints. Two prominent constraints are the causal Markov condition and the faithfulness condition. However, other constraints are also needed. One of these additional constraints is the causal sufficiency condition, which states that models must not omit any direct common causes of the variables they contain. In this paper, I argue that the (...) causal sufficiency condition is problematic: (1) it is incompatible with the requirement that the variables in a model must not stand in non-causal necessary dependence relations, such as mathematical or conceptual relations, or relations described in terms of supervenience or grounding, (2) it presupposes more causal knowledge as primitive than is actually needed to create adequate causal models, and (3) if models are only required to be causally sufficient, they cannot deal with cases where variables are probabilistically related by accident, such as Sober’s example of the relationship between bread prices in England and the sea level in Venice. I show that these problems can be avoided if causal models are required to be monotonic in the following sense: the causal relations occurring in a model M would not disappear if further variables were added to M. I give a definition of this monotonicity condition and conclude that causal models should be required to be monotonic rather than causally sufficient. (shrink)

In “A Causal Argument for Physicalism”, Lei Zhong presents an argument for physicalism in general, that is, for the disjunction of reductive physicalism and non-reductive physicalism. Zhong’s argument attempts to show that mental properties are physically acceptable, that is, physical in a wide sense. The crucial assumption of the argument is that physically acceptable effects do not have both sufficient causes that are physically acceptable and simultaneous sufficient causes that are not physically acceptable. I argue that Zhong’s argument is invalid, (...) because the mental can be causally relevant to physically acceptable effects while being neither physically acceptable nor causally sufficient for these effects. I present an alternative argument in the spirit of Zhong’s argument that omits the notion of sufficient causation. I argue that non-physicalists can also resist the alternative argument if they fine-tune their metaphysics of mind. (shrink)

The paper critiques two recent suggestions, by Lei Zhong and Thomas Kroedel, about how to apply the interventionist theory of causation to cases where supervenient properties, particularly mental properties, are involved. According to both suggestions, we should hold variables corresponding to supervenient properties fixed when intervening on the subvenient properties with respect to a putative effect variable and vice versa. The paper argues that both suggestions are problematic. Zhong’s suggestion ultimately requires ad hoc exemptions from the holding-fixed requirement. Kroedel’s suggestion (...) entails severe constraints on the construction of causal models. Overall, retaining the holding-fixed requirements of interventionism for cases of supervenient properties comes at a significant price. (shrink)

A much-discussed idea in the causation literature is that it is preferable to invoke causes which are proportional to—neither too general nor too specific for—the effect. This article presents various ways of understanding this idea. In what sense are such causal claims ‘preferable’? And what is it for one event to be ‘proportional’ to another? In a companion article, ‘Proportionality in Causation, Part II: Applications and Challenges’, I discuss the principal applications of the resulting theories of proportionality, and the challenges (...) they face. (shrink)

In ‘Proportionality in Causation, Part I: Theories’, I presented various ways of understanding the idea that causes which are ‘proportional’ to their effects are in some sense preferable. In this companion article, I discuss the principal applications of the resulting theories of proportionality, and the challenges they face.

The standard objection to dualist theories of mind is that they seemingly cannot account for the obvious fact that mental phenomena cause our behaviour. On the plausible assumption that all our behaviour is physically necessitated by entirely physical phenomena, there appears to be no room for dualist mental causation. Some argue that dualists can address this problem by making minimal adjustments in their ontology. I argue that no such adjustments are required. Given recent developments in philosophy of causation, it is (...) plausible that mental phenomena cause behaviour in standard dualist ontologies. (shrink)

Traditionally, causal arguments for physicalism have been taken to favour a ‘reductive’ brand of physicalism, according to which all the mental stuff is identical to some of the physical stuff. Many flaws have been found with these traditional causal arguments. Zhong (Asian Journal of Philosophy, 2(2), 1–9, 2023) develops a new causal argument that avoids these flaws and favours a milder, non-reductive brand of physicalism instead. The conclusion is that all mental stuff is metaphysically necessitated by some of the physical (...) stuff. I argue that neither the traditional nor the new causal argument holds much sway over non-physicalism. The problem is that causation just does not run that deep. It is a fairly superficial relationship and a poor guide to the metaphysically weighty facts of our world, such as what is identical to what, and what metaphysically necessitates what. (shrink)

The counterfactual approach to explainable AI (XAI) seeks to provide understanding of AI systems through the provision of counterfactual explanations. In a recent systematic review, Chou et al. (Inform Fus 81:59–83, 2022) argue that the counterfactual approach does not clearly provide causal understanding. They diagnose the problem in terms of the underlying framework within which the counterfactual approach has been developed. To date, the counterfactual approach has not been developed in concert with the approach for specifying causes developed by Pearl (...) (Causality: Models, reasoning, and inference. Cambridge University Press, 2000) and Woodward (Making things happen: A theory of causal explanation. Oxford University Press, 2003). In this paper, I build on Chou et al.’s work by applying the Pearl-Woodward approach. I argue that the standard counterfactual approach to XAI is capable of delivering causal understanding, but that there are limitations on its capacity to do so. I suggest a way to overcome these limitations. (shrink)

We develop a new version of the causal theory of spacetime. Whereas traditional versions of the theory seek to identify spatiotemporal relations with causal relations, the version we develop takes causal relations to be the grounds for spatiotemporal relations. Causation is thus distinct from, and more basic than, spacetime. We argue that this non-identity theory, suitably developed, avoids the challenges facing the traditional identity theory.

When evaluating theories of causation, intuitions should not play a decisive role, not even intuitions in flawlessly-designed thought experiments. Indeed, no coherent theory of causation can respect the typical person’s intuitions in redundancy (pre-emption) thought experiments, without disrespecting their intuitions in threat-and-saviour (switching/short-circuit) thought experiments. I provide a deductively sound argument for these claims. Amazingly, this argument assumes absolutely nothing about the nature of causation. I also provide a second argument, whose conclusion is even stronger: the typical person’s causal intuitions (...) are thoroughly unreliable. This argument proceeds by raising the neglected question: in what respects is information about intermediate and enabling variables relevant to reliable causal judgment? (shrink)

For Humeans, many facts—even ones intuitively “about” particular, localized macroscopic parts of the world—turn out to depend on surprisingly global fundamental bases. We investigate some counterintuitive consequences of this picture. Many counterfactuals whose antecedents describe intuitively localized, non-actual states of affairs nevertheless end up involving wide-ranging implications for the global, embedding Humean mosaic. The case of self-undermining chances is a familiar example of this. We examine that example in detail and argue that popular existing strategies such as “holding the laws (...) fixed as laws” or “holding the laws fixed as true” are of no help. Interestingly, we show how a new proposal that draws on the resources of the Mentaculus can yield the right results—but only on the assumption that the Humean can make cross-world identifications. We go on to argue that the Humean cannot make such identifications. We conclude that the root of this trouble is deeper, and its reach broader, than the familiar cases suggest. We think it is very much an open question whether the Humean has sufficient resources to properly conceptualize macroscopic objects or to analyze these “local” counterfactuals. (shrink)

Causes always seem to come prior to their effects. What might explain this asymmetry? Causation's temporal asymmetry isn't straightforwardly due to a temporal asymmetry in the laws of nature—the laws are, by and large, temporally symmetric. Nor does the asymmetry appear due to an asymmetry in time itself. This Element examines recent empirical attempts to explain the temporal asymmetry of causation: statistical mechanical accounts, agency accounts and fork asymmetry accounts. None of these accounts are complete yet and a full explanation (...) of the temporal asymmetry of causation will likely require contributions from all three programs. (shrink)

This paper is on the problem of profligate omissions. The problem is that counterfactual definitions of causation identify as a cause anything that could have prevented an effect but that did not actually occur, which is a highly counterintuitive result. Many solutions of this problem appeal to normative, epistemic, pragmatic, or metaphysical considerations. These existing solutions are in some sense substantive. In contrast, this paper concentrates on the semantics of counterfactuals. I propose to replace Strong Centering with Weak Centering. This (...) allows that the actual world is not the only world that is closest to the actual world. As a result, some counterfactuals that would otherwise have been true, turn out to be false. When these counterfactuals concern causation, fewer causal claims are true. In addition to describing steps towards solving the problem of profligate omissions, the proposal captures an abstraction that is shared by many of the existing solutions: depending on how the distance ordering underlying the Weak Centering condition is constructed and interpreted, some of these existing solutions can be recovered. (shrink)

Huw Price and Ken Wharton claimed recently in their paper published in The Conversation that quantum mechanics shows that the future can influence the past. According to their paper, many scientists are convinced about it. However, there is still something mystical for philosophers. The first is about the definition of retrocausality and its philosophical relation to causality. Second, it is concerned with understanding the relationship between cause and effect, not only scientifically but also logically. In this talk, I will answer (...) the two questions by analyzing the concept of temporality and by examining the counterfactual and overdetermination. I found a tension in understanding the concept of necessity in the physical and logical sense. Finally, I will argue that the time reversal asymmetry does not imply retrocausality, and the phenomenon of retrocausality does not exist in reality but only in logic. (shrink)

The article I wrote on the astrology research program (2022) has drawn criticism from G. Dean and I. Kelly (2023) that scarcely touches on my topics of effect sizes in single-factor, multi-factor, and automated whole-chart experimentation. They ignore the meta-analysis of current research and my explanation of emergent effects. Instead they try to impugn all of astrology by arguments that date from the time of Cicero and Augustine.