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Trumping the causal influence account of causation

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Abstract

Here is a simple counterexample to David Lewis’s causal influence account of causation, one that is especially illuminating due to its connection to what Lewis himself writes: it is a variant of his trumping example

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Notes

  1. Lewis attributes the discovery of trumping to Schaffer (2000). The example of the soldiers is from Bas van Fraasen.

  2. There are multiple reasons why this scenario is immoral. We should not do such a thing.

  3. Note that the pre-variant example is a counter-example in its own right. After we introduce the fourth rule, all the subjects say they follow both commands in agreement cases; nothing changes in the way their brains operate in such cases. A new explanation involving standard or trumping preemption requires a neurological change, one involved in the production of their agreement-case behavior. So they still follow both commands. The causal influence account denies this. For simplicity’s sake, I will concentrate on the variant in what follows.

  4. I owe this objection to an anonymous referee from Philosophical Studies, whom I roughly paraphrase.

  5. Events like I have been bracketed, recall.

  6. All I need is that it’s unclear M’s order is not a cause of E.

  7. I owe this observation to an anonymous referee from Philosophical Studies.

References

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Acknowledgments

Thanks for helpful comments to Judith Crane, Douglas Kutach, Robert Northcott, and an anonymous referee from Philosophical Studies.

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  1. The University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, 70148, USA

    Jim Stone

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  1. Jim Stone
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Stone, J. Trumping the causal influence account of causation. Philos Stud 142, 153–160 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-007-9180-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-007-9180-2

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