Omissions as possibilities

I present and develop the view that omissions are de re possibilities of actual events. Omissions do not literally fail to occur; rather, they possibly occur. An omission is a tripartite metaphysical entity composed of an actual event, a possible event, and a contextually specified counterpart relation between them. This view resolves ontological, causal, and semantic puzzles about omissions, and also accounts for important data about moral responsibility for outcomes resulting from omissions.     

Causation as Simultaneous and Continuous

We propose that all actual causes are simultaneous with their direct effects, as illustrated by both everyday examples and the laws of physics. We contrast this view with the sequential conception of causation, according to which causes must occur prior to their effects. The key difference between the two views of causation lies in differing assumptions about the mathematical structure of time.     

Causation as Property Acquisition

Persistence theories of causation – such as transference theory, conserved-quantity theory, and Douglas Ehring's theory – attempt to analyzecausation in terms of some persisting entityconnecting cause and effect. While mostpersistence accounts are intended as empiricaltheories, this article develops a persistenceanalysis of the concept of causation. The basic idea is that the central concept ofdirect causation can be analyzed in terms ofproperty acquisition. The analysis cohereswith our ordinary causal judgments andprovides a straightforward explanation of thedirection of causation. It also explains whybackwards causation is conceptually problematic.     

Collective Omissions and Responsibility

Abstract

Sometimes it seems intuitively plausible to hold loosely structured sets of individuals morally responsible for failing to act collectively. Virginia Held, Larry May, and Torbjörn Tännsjö have all drawn this conclusion from thought experiments concerning small groups, although they apply the conclusion to large-scale omissions as well. On the other hand it is commonly assumed that (collective) agency is a necessary condition for (collective) responsibility. If that is true, then how can we hold sets of people responsible for not having acted collectively? This paper argues that that loosely structured inactive groups sometimes meet this requirement if we employ a weak (but nonetheless non-reductionist) notion of collective agency. This notion can be defended on independent grounds. The resulting position on distribution of responsibility is more restrictive than Held's, May's or Tännsjö's, and this consequence seems intuitively attractive.     

Counterfactual Causation and Mental Causation

Counterfactual conditionals have been appealed to in various ways to show how the mind can be causally efficacious. However, it has often been overestimated what the truth of certain counterfactuals actually indicates about causation. The paper first identifies four approaches that seem to commit precisely this mistake. The arguments discussed involve erroneous assumptions about the connection of counterfactual dependence and genuine causation, as well as a disregard of the requisite evaluation conditions of counterfactuals. In a second step, the paper uses the insights of the foregoing analyses to formulate a set of counterfactuals-based conditions that are characterized as sufficient to establish singular causal claims. The paper concludes that there are ample reasons to believe that some mental events satisfy all these conditions with respect to certain further events and, hence, that mental events sometimes are causes.     

Omissions and other negative actions

This essay offers an action-theoretic analysis of the distinction between positively bringing something about and passively letting something happen. The analysis, based on the notion of an agent's bringing about some state of affairs, is closest to the analysis of omissions of Brand (1971), but utilizes the relatedness logic of Epstein (1979). Syntactic features bring out the idea that an action can be partially positive and partially negative, e.g., by not bringing about one thing an agent can bring about something else. An ethical implication of this analysis is that a passive course of action is sometimes less culpable than an active one, just because it is passive.     

Mental Causation and the Metaphysics of Causation

The paper argues for four claims: (1) The problem of mental causation and the argument for its solution in terms of the identity of mental with physical causes are independent of the theory of causation one favours. (2) If one considers our experience of agency as described by folk psychology to be veridical, one is committed to an anti-Humean metaphysics of causation in terms of powers that establish necessary connections. The same goes for functional properties in general. (3) A metaphysics of causation in terms of powers is compatible with physics. (4) If combined with the argument for mental causes being identical with physical causes, that metaphysics leads to a conservative reductionism.     

Sparse Causation and Mere Abundant Causation

Philosophical Studies - Setting off from a familiar distinction in the philosophy of properties, this paper introduces a tripartite distinction between sparse causation, abundant causation and mere...     

Causation as a Philosophical Relation in Hume

By giving the proper emphasis to both radical skepticism and naturalism as two independent standpoints in Hume, I wish to propose a more satisfactory account of some of the more puzzling Humean claims on causation. I place these claims alternatively in either the philosophical standpoint of the radical skeptic or in the standpoint of everyday and scientific beliefs. I characterize Hume's radical skeptical standpoint in relation to Hume's perceptual model of the traditional theory of ideas, and I argue that Hume's radical skeptical argument concerning our causal inferences is inextricably linked to his skeptical argument concerning our idea of a necessary connection between cause and effect. I discuss Hume's naturalistic account of the origin of our idea of necessity and offer a new reading of Hume's two "definitions" of cause. I argue along the way against central aspects of two opposing styles of interpretation—Norman Kemp Smith's and Annette Baier's, on the one hand, and Robert Fogelin's, on the other—that in my view do not appreciate the mutual autonomy of radical skepticism and naturalism in Hume.     

Responsibility, Control, and Omissions

Previously, I have argued that moral responsibility for actions is associated with guidance control. This sort of control does not necessarily involve the freedom to do otherwise. In this paper I extend the view to apply to omissions. That is, moral responsibility for an omission is associated with guidance control of that omission. This helps to provide a systematic, unified account of moral responsibility.     

Euthanasia and the Distinction Between Acts and Omissions

ABSTRACT It is commonly assumed that the view that passive euthanasia is morally preferable to active euthanasia is an implication of the view that killing someone is worse than merely letting her die, and that it is held by its proponents on this ground. Accordingly, attempts to discredit the former often take the form of attempted refutations of the latter. In the present paper, it is argued that such attempts are misguided, since the former view is not in fact implied by the latter.     

Moore and Schaffer on the Ontology of Omissions

In this paper, I discuss Michael Moore’s and Jonathan Schaffer’s views on the ontology of omissions in context of their stances on the problem of omissive causation. First, I consider, from a general point of view, the question of the ontology of omissions, and how it relates to the problem of omissive causation. Then I describe Moore’s and Schaffer’s particular views on omissions and how they combine with their stances on the problem of omissive causation. I charge Moore and Schaffer with inconsistencies and insufficiencies within their overall theories, and consider their replies. Finally, I propose my own view on the ontology of omissions and solution to the problem of omissive causation.     

Computation and Causation

The computer's effect on our understanding of causation has been enormous. By the mid-1980s, philosophical and social-scientific work on the topic had left us with (1) no reasonable reductive account of causation and (2) a class of statistical causal models tied to linear regression. At this time, computer scientists were attacking the problem of equipping robots with models of the external that included probabilistic portrayals of uncertainty. To solve the problem of efficiently storing such knowledge, they introduced Bayes Networks and directed graphs. By attaching a causal interpretation to Bayes Networks, the philosophy of causation changed dramatically. We are now able to be extremely general about how causal structure connects to data, and systematic about when causal structures are empirically indistinguishable. In this essay I try to motivate and describe this synthesis.     

Dynamical Systems Theory as an Approach to Mental Causation

Summary  Dynamical systems theory (DST) is gaining popularity in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. Recently several authors (e.g. J.A.S. Kelso, 1995; A. Juarrero, 1999; F. Varela and E. Thompson, 2001) offered a DST approach to mental causation as an alternative for models of mental causation in the line of Jaegwon Kim (e.g. 1998). They claim that some dynamical systems exhibit a form of global to local determination or downward causation in that the large-scale, global activity of the system governs or constrains local interactions. This form of downward causation is the key to the DST model of mental causation. In this paper I evaluate the DST approach to mental causation. I will argue that the main problem for current DST approaches to mental causation is that they lack a clear metaphysics. I propose one metaphysical framework (Gillett, 2002a/b/c) that might deal with this deficiency.