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Counter factual theories of Causation have had problems with cases of probabilistic causation and preemption. I put forward a counterfactual theory that seems to deal with these problematic cases and also has the virtue of providing an account of the alleged asymmetry between hasteners and delayers: the former usually being counted as causes, the latter not. I go on to consider a new type of problem case that has not received so much attention in the literature, those I dub catalysts and anti-catalysts, and show how my account needs to be adjusted to deliver the right verdicts in these cases. The net result is a particular conception of a cause that I try to spell out in the closing section of the paper. In that section, I also briefly discuss causal asymmetry and the purpose behind providing a counterfactual theory of causation.

Counterfactuals are a species of conditionals. They are propositions or sentences, expressed by or equivalent to subjunctive conditionals of the form 'if it were the case that A, then it would be the case that B', or 'if it had been the case that A, then it would have been the case that B'; A is called the antecedent, and B the consequent. Counterfactual reasoning typically involves the entertaining of hypothetical states of affairs: the antecedent is believed or presumed to be false, or contrary-to-the-fact, but its truth is imagined or supposed. Counterfactual reasoning is thus a form of modal reasoning, kindred to reasoning about necessity or possibility, and in contrast to reasoning about the way things actually are. The philosophical study of conditionals goes back at least as far as the Stoics of ancient Greece, although their systems of logic apparently did not accord the counterfactual any emphasis. The rise in interest in counterfactuals has been a rather recent phenomenon, as it started to become clear to philosophers that counterfactuals are implicated in a host of other important concepts—laws of nature, confirmation, causation, scientific explanation, knowledge, perception, dispositions, free action, etc. The significance of counterfactuals has also become increasingly appreciated in the..

In “Backward Causation and the Stalnaker–Lewis Approach to Counterfactuals,” Analysis 62:191–7, (2002), Michael Tooley argues that if a certain kind of backward causation is possible, then a Stalnaker–Lewis comparative world similarity account of the truth conditions of counterfactuals cannot be sound. In “Tooley on Backward Causation,” Analysis 63:157–62, (2003), Paul Noordhof argues that Tooley’s example can be reconciled with a Stalnaker–Lewis account of counterfactuals if the comparative world similarity relation on which the Stalnaker–Lewis account relies is allowed to be antecedent-relative. In this paper I show that taking comparative world similarity to be antecedent-relative results in a formal semantics which is a comparative world similarity semantics in name only.

Mackie, J. L. Causes and conditions.--Taylor, R. The metaphysics of causation.--Scriven, M. Defects of the necessary condition analysis of causation.--Kim, J. Causes and events: Mackie on causation.--Anscombe, G. E. M. Causality and determination.--Davidson, D. Causal relations.--Wright, G. H. von. On the logic and epistemology of the causal relation.--Ducasse, C. J. On the nature and the observability of the causal relation.--Sellars, W. S. Counterfactuals.--Chisholm, R. M. Law statements and counterfactual inference.--Rescher, N. Belief-contravening suppositions and the problem of contrary-to-fact conditionals.--Stalnaker, R. A theory of conditionals.--Lewis, D. Causation.--Kim, J. Causes and counterfactuals.

David Lewis modified his original theory of causation in response to the problem of ‘late preemption’ (see 1973b; 1986b: 193-212). However, as we will see, there is a crucial difference between genuine and preempted causes that Lewis must appeal to if his solution is to work. We argue that once this difference is recognized, an altogether better solution to the preemption problem presents itself.

It seems to be generally accepted that (a) counterfactual conditionals are to be analysed in terms of possible worlds and inter-world relations of similarity and (b) causation is conceptually prior to counterfactuals. I argue here that both (a) and (b) are false. The argument against (a) is not a general metaphysical or epistemological one but simply that, structurally speaking, possible worlds theories are wrong: this is revealed when we try to extend them to cover the case of probabilistic counterfactuals. Indeed a type of counterfactual probability exists which cannot be expressed in possible worlds terms at all. The argument against (b) emerges when we look at the form of an adequate account of both probabilistic and non-probabilistic counterfactuals. I do this by sketching and defending an approach to counterfactuals that, first, invoke a generalized notion of cause as primitive and, secondly, is algorithmic in form: counterfactuals are evaluated algorithmically in terms of other counterfactuals, without vicious circularity. Structures like possible worlds do not play a role either in general truth-conditions or in evaluation. They are simply the wrong sorts of structures.

The basic idea of counterfactual theories of causation is that the meaning of causal claims can be explained in terms of counterfactual conditionals of the form “If A had not occurred, C would not have occurred”. While counterfactual analyses have been given of type-causal concepts, most counterfactual analyses have focused on singular causal or token-causal claims of the form “event c caused event e”. Analyses of token-causation have become popular in the last thirty years, especially since the development in the 1970's of possible world semantics for counterfactuals. The best known counterfactual analysis of causation is David Lewis's (1973b) theory. However, intense discussion over thirty years has cast doubt on the adequacy of any simple analysis of singular causation in terms of counterfactuals. Recent years have seen a proliferation of different refinements of the basic idea to achieve a closer match with commonsense judgements about causation.

In "Backward causation and the Stalnaker-Lewis approach to counterfactuals," Analysis 62 (2002): 191–97, Michael Tooley argues that if a certain kind of backward causation is possible, then a Stalnaker-Lewis style comparative world similarity account of the truth conditions of counterfactuals cannot be sound. Tooley’s target is one particular type of semantics, but, as I show, the significance of Tooley’s example goes well beyond its consequences for any one semantics for the conditional.

In this paper I wish to argue that counterfactual analyses of causation are inadequate. I believe the counterfactuals that are involved in counterfactual analyses of causation are often false, and thus the theories do not provide an adequate account of causation. This is demonstrated by the presentation of a counterexample to the counterfactual analyses of causation. I then present a unified theory of causation that is based upon probability and counterfactuals. This theory accounts for both deterministic and indeterministic causation, and is not subject to many of the traditional problems facing theories of causation.

If we seek to analyse causation in terms of counterfactual conditionals then we must assume that there is a class of counterfactuals whose members (i) are all and only those we need to support our judgements of causation, (ii) have truth-conditions specifiable without any irreducible appeal to causation. I argue that (i) and (ii) are unlikely to be met by any counterfactual analysis of causation. I demonstrate this by isolating a class of counterfactuals called non-projective counterfactuals, or NP-counterfactuals, and indicate how counterfactual analyses of causation must appeal to them to account for the correct causal judgements we make. I show that the truth-conditions of NP-counterfactuals are specifiable only by irreducible appeal to causation. A dilemma then holds: if counterfactual analyses of causation eschew appeal to NP-counterfactuals they are empirically inadequate, but if they appeal to NP-counterfactuals they are circular and thus conceptually inadequate.