Abstract
A physicalist holds, in part, that what properties are instantiated depends on what physical properties are instantiated; a physicalist thinks that mental properties, for example, are instantiated in virtue of the instantiation of physical “realizer” properties. One issue that arises in this context concerns the relationship between the “causal powers” of instances of physical properties and instances of dependent properties, properties that are instantiated in virtue of the instantiation of physical properties. After explaining the significance of this issue, I evaluate two core lines of thought that have been advanced in favor of Subset Inheritance, the view that instances of dependent properties typically have some, but not all, of the powers of physical realizers, and do not have any powers that are not also powers of physical realizers. The first argument that I address turns on our intuitive reactions to certain cases; the second appeals to the phenomenon of multiple realization. I argue that neither line of thought succeeds, and thus that insofar as we grant that an instance of a dependent property inherits some of the powers of its physical realizer, defenders of subset inheritance have not provided a compelling reason to think that it will not inherit all of the powers of its physical realizer.
Notes
“Realization” is here used in a generic sense to express an especially intimate, asymmetric dependence relation; I discuss the concept of realization at length in Morris (2010). See fn. 8 for related discussion.
The expression “causal inheritance”, and the associated locution of a property instance “inheriting” a power from another property instance, was, I believe, first introduced in Kim (1992).
See, for instance, Wilson (1999).
Kim (1998, pp. 103–105). It is in this way that Kim challenges the extent to which the phenomenon of “multiple realization” truly supports a nonreductive physicalist position.
Defenders of the Subset View have suggested that on this conception of realization, realized properties are not perspicuously understood as “second-order” properties, at least not in the same sense at work in more standard formulations according to which having a realized property amounts to having some other property that plays a certain role (see Shoemaker 2001, 2007). On one hand, this issue is nontrivial, as the “second order” conception of realized properties may provide some reason to favor Full Inheritance; according to Kim, for example, it is plausible to think that an instance of a second-order property is nothing over and above its physical realizer, and this may provide some reason to think that the powers of the realized property instance are identical with those of the physical realizer. Nonetheless, the arguments that have been advanced in favor of Subset Inheritance do not turn on the particular conception of realized properties that we endorse; similarly, as noted in the text, defenders of the Subset View of Realization have seemed to hold that our endorsement of the Subset View, and the conception of realized properties that it involves, turns our prior endorsement of Subset Inheritance. This suggests that the issue of Subset Inheritance—and, in particular, the arguments advanced in favor of Subset Inheritance—can be profitably discussed without explicitly discussing the particular conception of realized properties at work. It is in part because of this that I have tried to characterize the notion of realization (as in Sect. 1) in generic terms.
Shoemaker (2001, p. 432).
These intuitions can be taken to support a “proportionality” constraint on causation, that there is an important sense in which causes must be “proportional” to their effects (see Yablo (1992) for details; Bontly (2005) provides a critique of the proportionality view). Shoemaker (2001, p. 436, fn. 14) tells us that “proportionality requires that effects be contingent on their cases, and that causes be adequate or their effects, required by them, and enough for them.” On one hand, it is important for a defender of Subset Inheritance to have a view of causation that can systematize the Pigeon Intuitions. On the other hand, the issues here of interest can be fruitfully discussed without explicitly framing them in the context of the proportionality view, and without delving into the details of this view.
See fn. 12.
McLaughlin (2007). McLaughlin is addressing the worry that the proportionality view (see fn.12) seems to force us to conclude that instances of dependent properties do not, in fact, overlap in their causal powers with physical realizers, in which case we will not be able to hold that such properties are “subset realized” by physical properties.
Shoemaker (2001, p. 432).
Polger and Shapiro (2008) argue that accounts that take realization to be a relationship between property instances fail to countenance multiple realization on the grounds that property instances are not repeatable, and so cannot have multiple realizers. But even if realization is first and foremost defined in terms of property instances, we can straightforwardly derive an account of property realization from such an account. In particular, we can maintain that a property P realizes, or is a realizer of, a property M just in case at least one instance of M is realized by an instance of P. And we can then maintain that a property M is multiply realized just in case instances of M are realized by instances of distinct physical properties. See Endicott (2010) and Gillett (forthcoming) for related responses to Polger and Shapiro.
See Shoemaker (1980) for a classic defense of the causal view of properties. A conditional power is a power that a property contributes to an entity, “conditional” on the entity having certain other properties (for example, the property of being knife shaped contributes the power to cut bread, conditional on the knife-shaped object being made of steel).
Clapp (2001, pp. 129–130).
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Morris, K. On two arguments for subset inheritance. Philos Stud 163, 197–211 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-011-9807-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-011-9807-1