Universal Laws and Prevention in Causal Structures
(2011)
| Abstract | Structural models respond in a clear way to many of the fundamental problems related to the causal relation. A description of how such theory elegantly tackles one of the hardest troubles of the classical counterfactual analysis is given here. Nevertheless, it fails with respect to situations involving causal prevention. I argue that, inside the structural causal analysis, the simplest solutions to this disadvantage may not work if the importance of laws is not seriously considered. I finally present some general recommendations about how this should be made, suggesting a distinction between mechanical and universal laws. | |||||||||
| Keywords | causation natural law structural model overdetermination counterfactual | |||||||||
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