Overdetermining Causes

Philosophical Studies -     

Causes of causes

When is a cause of a cause of an effect also a cause of that effect? The right answer is either ??Sometimes?? or ??Always??. In favour of ??Always??, transitivity is considered by some to be necessary for distinguishing causes from redundant non-causal events. Moreover transitivity may be motivated by an interest in an unselective notion of causation, untroubled by principles of invidious discrimination. And causal relations appear to ??add up?? like transitive relations, so that the obtaining of the overarching relation is not independent of the obtaining of the intermediaries. On the other hand, in favour of ??Sometimes??, often we seem not to treat events that are very spatiotemporally remote from an effect as its causes, even when connected to the effect in question by a chain of counterfactual or chance-raising dependence. Moreover cases of double prevention provide counterexamples to causal transitivity even over short chains. According to the argument of this paper, causation is non-transitive. Transitizing causation provides no viable account of causal redundancy. An unselective approach to causation may motivate resisting the ??distance?? counterexamples to transitivity, but it does not help with double prevention, and even makes it more intractable. The strongest point in favour of transitivity is the adding up of causal relations, and this is the point that extant non-transitizing analyses have not adequately addressed. I propose a necessary condition on causation that explains the adding up phenomenon. In doing so it also provides a unifying explanation of distance and double prevention counterexamples to transitivity.     

Reasons and Causes

Abstract: This paper argues for a causal‐psychological account of acting for reasons. This view is distinguished from a more ambitious causal theory of action, clarified as far as possible, and motivated—against non‐reductive, teleological, and behaviourist alternatives—on broadly metaphysical grounds.     

Causes and Counterparts

It follows from David Lewis's counterpart-theoretic analysis of modality and his counterfactual theory of causation that causal claims are relativized to a set of counterpart relations. Call this Shlewis's view. I show how Shlewis's view can provide attractively unified solutions to similar modal and causal puzzles. I then argue that Shlewis's view is better motivated, by his own lights, than the view Lewis actually held, and also better motivated than a similar approach which relativizes causal claims to sets of ‘contrast events’.     

Causes and mixed probabilities

In Section 1 I examine the use of probabilistic data to establish causal conclusions in non‐experimental research. In Section 2 I show that the probabilities involved in such research are inhomogeneous ‘mixed’ probabilities. Section 3 then argues that such mixed probabilities are responsible for the way common causes screen off correlations between their joint effects. Section 4 concludes that mixed probabilities are therefore crucial for the nature of the causal relation itself.     

Causes and nested counterfactuals

Book Information Singer and His Critics. Singer and His Critics Dale Jamieson Oxford Blackwell Press 1999 368 Hardback £50.00 Paperback £15.99 Edited by Dale Jamieson. Blackwell Press. Oxford. Pp. 368. Hardback:£50.00; Paperback:£15.99,     

对应偏差产生的心理机制

对应偏差 (ｃｏｒｒｅｓｐｏｎｄｅｎｔｂｉａｓ)亦称为过分归因偏差 (ｏｖｅｒａｔｔｒｉｂｕｔｉｏｎ)或基本归因错误 (ｆｕｎｄａ ｍｅｎｔａｌａｔｔｒｉｂｕｔｉｏｎｅｒｒｏｒ) ,指的是人们在解释他人的行为时 ,夸大行动者个人内在因素 ,低估外在环境因素 ,甚至在行为是由明显的外在环境因素造成的情况下 ,也是如此。对应偏差在西方研究了3 0多年 ,被认为是“社会心理学最活跃 ,被重复证明最多”的重要现象[1 ] 。本文综述的便是西方对对应偏差产生的心理机制的研究。1　Ｇｉｌｂｅｒｔ＆Ｍａｌｏｎｅ的理论　　Ｇｉｌｂｅｒｔ＆Ｍａ…     

Possible Environmental Causes of Stages in Moral Reasoning

Both children (6-, 10-, and 14-year-olds) and their mothers were interviewed. The children's responses to moral dilemmas were classified into Kohlberg's three main categories—preconventional, conventional, and postconventional. The mothers were presented with a variety of hypothetical situations—e.g., they had just found out that their child had stolen something, and were asked to tell what they would say or do to their child in each situation. The mothers' hypothetical responses to such situations were divided into either the preconventional, conventional, or postconventional category depending on the level or moral reasoning such responses would imply to their children. The results indicated that as the age of the children increased, both the level of moral reasoning used by the children and the level of moral reasoning implied by the mothers' treatment of the children increased. Even with age partialed out, there was a significant positive relationship between the mothers' implied level of moral reasoning and the children's level of moral reasoning. Thus, although causality cannot be established, the results indicate that there is at least the possibility that environmental changes—i.e., changes in the way the mother treats the child—may be responsible for the appearance of stages in the child's development of moral reasoning.     

农村殡葬现状可忧

中国古代,汉族的殡葬礼仪,十分庞杂繁琐,往往把当事人折腾得钱财两亏,身心交瘁。解放初,党和政府一再倡导“丧事从简,反对铺张浪费。”改革开放以后,加强精神文明建设,颁发了一系列文件法规,大力推行殡葬改革。普遍废除了土葬,推行火化。但是这些年来,旧的葬礼仪式又复活起来,而且又以改革为借口衍生出许多繁文缛节,使葬礼更隆重、更奢华。由于大办丧事,迷信活动死灰复燃。迷信品生产和交易日趋活跃,严重地污染了社会风气。笔者住地附近的农贸市场上有半条街经销香烛纸马,各类迷信品琳琅满目,金箔银锭熠熠生辉,冥币纸钱花花绿绿,有的面额已…     

Scientific Misconduct in India: Causes and Perpetuation

Along with economic strength, space technology and software expertise, India is also a leading nation in fraudulent scientific research. The problem is worsened by vested interests working in concert for their own benefits. These self-promoting cartels, together with biased evaluation methods and weak penal systems, combine to perpetuate scientific misconduct. Some of these issues are discussed in this commentary, with supporting examples and possible solutions.     

中医认识中的不确定性因素分析

ｌ　认识是主体对客体的反映 ,但这种反映不是直观被动 ,而是积极能动的反映。任何认识都具有确定性的一面 ,又具有不确定性的一面。认识既要受到客体的制约 ,又要受到历史条件的限制 ,因而它具有确定性。否认认识的确定性容易导致认识论中唯心论和不可知论。同时 ,由于主客体及其相互关系的复杂性 ,认识对其制约性又具有一定的超越性 ,它能够在一定程度上超越对象及历史条件 ,因而认识又具有一定的自由度、相对性和不确定性。否认认识中的不确定性容易陷入认识论中的机械论和形而上学。中医作为一种认识成果 ,是在中国传统文化背景下和长期…