Manipulability Theories of Causation

I provide an overview and critical discussion of Causation with a Human Face, by James Woodward.

Does smoke cause fire or does fire cause smoke? James Woodward’s “Flagpoles anyone? Causal and explanatory asymmetries” argues that various statistical independence relations not only help us to uncover the directions of causal and explanatory relations in our world, but also are the worldly basis of causal and explanatory directions. We raise questions about Woodward’s envisioned epistemology, but our primary focus is on his metaphysics. We argue that any alleged connection between statistical (in)dependence and causal/explanatory direction is contingent, at best. (...) The directions of causal/explanatory relations in our world seem not to depend on the statistical (in)dependence relations in our world (conceived of either as frequency patterns or as relations among chances). Thus, we doubt that statistical (in)dependence relations are the worldly basis of causal and explanatory directions. (shrink)

Recent years have seen increasing interest in interventionist analyses of metaphysical explanation. One area where interventionism traditionally shines, is in providing an account of explanatory depth; the sense in which explanation comes in degrees. However, the literature on metaphysical explanation has left the notion of depth almost entirely unexplored. In this paper I shall attempt to rectify this oversight by motivating an interventionist analysis of metaphysical explanatory depth (MED), in terms of the range of interventions under which a metaphysically explanatory (...) generalization remains invariant. After elucidating the notion through a toy-example, I demonstrate the important work which MED can perform in characterizing debate within contemporary metaphysics. Focusing upon rival approaches to explaining the identity and distinctness of concrete objects, I argue that the progress achieved in this debate can be characterized in terms of increasing explanatory depth. Having made an initial case for the utility of MED, I then turn this analysis to the metaphysics of explanation itself. By adopting an interventionist framework with respect to MED, I will show that we can assess the depth of competing theories of explanation. This application has two interesting results: first, it suggests that an interventionist analysis of explanation provides deeper explanations of the connection between explanans and explanandum than rival accounts; and second, it suggests that explanations provided by interventionism become deeper still, if one accepts that this methodology ranges over metaphysical, as well as causal, instances. (shrink)

I argue that we need to distinguish between three concepts of actual causation: total, path-changing, and contributing actual causation. I provide two lines of argument in support of this account. First, I address three thought experiments that have been troublesome for unified accounts of actual causation, and I show that my account provides a better explanation of corresponding causal intuitions. Second, I provide a functional argument: if we assume that a key purpose of causal concepts is to guide agency, we (...) are better off making a distinction between three concepts of actual causation. (shrink)

This paper explores the prospects of employing a functional approach in order to improve our concept of actual causation. Claims of actual causation play an important role for a variety of purposes. In particular, they are relevant for identifying suitable targets for intervention, and they are relevant for our practices of ascribing responsibility. I argue that this gives rise to the challenge of purpose. The challenge of purpose arises when different goals demand adjustments of the concept that pull in opposing (...) directions. More specifically, I argue that a common distinction between certain kinds of preempted and preempting factors is difficult to motivate from an interventionist viewpoint. This indicates that an appropriately revised concept of actual causation would not distinguish between these two kinds of factors. From the viewpoint of retributivist responsibility, however, the distinction between preempted and preempting factors sometimes is important, which indicates that the distinction should be retained. (shrink)

Mental causation is notoriously threatened by the causal exclusion argument. A prominent strategy to save mental causation from causal exclusion consists in subscribing to an interventionist account of causation. This move has, however, recently been challenged by several authors. In this paper, we do two things: We (i) develop what we consider to be the strongest version of the interventionist causal exclusion argument currently on the market and (ii) propose a new way how it can in principle be overcome. In (...) particular, we propose to replace strict supervenience in the assumption that the mental supervenes on the physical by probabilistic supervenience and show how this move has the potential to license the inference to mental causation. Finally, we argue that probabilistic supervenience captures some of the most important intuitions that strict supervenience captures and discuss possible objections to weakening strict supervenience in the way we suggest. (shrink)

This paper introduces and defends a new principle for when a structural equation model is apt for analyzing actual causation. Any such analysis in terms of these models has two components: a recipe for reading claims of actual causation off an apt model, and an articulation of what makes a model apt. The primary focus in the literature has been on the first component. But the problem of structural isomorphs has made the second especially pressing (Hall 2007; Hitchcock 2007a). Those (...) with realist sympathies have reason to resist the standard response to this problem, which introduces a normative parameter into the metaphysics (Hall 2007; Halpern and Hitchcock 2010, 2015; Halpern 2016a; Menzies 2017; Gallow 2021). However, the only alternative solution in the literature leaves central questions unanswered (Blanchard and Schaffer 2017). I propose an independently motivated aptness requirement, Evident Mediation, that provides the missing details and resolves the structural isomorph problem without need for a normative parameter. (shrink)

Debates on dualism continue to plague psychiatry. I suggest that these debates are based on false dichotomies. According to metaphysical physicalism, reality is ultimately physical. Although this view excludes the idea of entities distinct from physical reality, it does not compel us to favour neural over psychological interventions. According to methodological dualism, both physical and mental interventions on the world can be deemed effective, and both perspectives can therefore be thought to be equally ‘real’.

We develop a new version of the causal theory of spacetime. Whereas traditional versions of the theory seek to identify spatiotemporal relations with causal relations, the version we develop takes causal relations to be the grounds for spatiotemporal relations. Causation is thus distinct from, and more basic than, spacetime. We argue that this non-identity theory, suitably developed, avoids the challenges facing the traditional identity theory.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a serious condition with a large disease burden. It is often claimed that MDD is a “brain disease.” What would it mean for MDD to be a brain disease? I argue that the best interpretation of this claim is as offering a substantive empirical hypothesis about the causes of the syndrome of depression. This syndrome-causal conception of disease, combined with the idea that MDD is a disease of the brain, commits the brain disease conception of (...) MDD to the claim that brain dysfunction causes the symptoms of MDD. I argue that this consequence of the brain disease conception of MDD is false. It incorrectly rules out genuine instances of content-sensitive causation between adverse conditions in the world and the characteristic symptoms of MDD. Empirical evidence shows that the major causes of depression are genuinely psychological causes of the symptoms of MDD. This rules out, in many cases, the “brute” causation required by the brain disease conception. The existence of cases of MDD with non-brute causes supports the reinstatement of the old nosological distinction between endogenous and exogenous depression. (shrink)

The standard objection to dualist theories of mind is that they seemingly cannot account for the obvious fact that mental phenomena cause our behaviour. On the plausible assumption that all our behaviour is physically necessitated by entirely physical phenomena, there appears to be no room for dualist mental causation. Some argue that dualists can address this problem by making minimal adjustments in their ontology. I argue that no such adjustments are required. Given recent developments in philosophy of causation, it is (...) plausible that mental phenomena cause behaviour in standard dualist ontologies. (shrink)

I highlight a metaphysical concern that stands in the way of more widespread adoption of causal modeling techniques such as causal Bayes nets. Researchers in some fields may resist adoption due to concerns that they don't 'really' understand what they are saying about a system when they apply such techniques. Students in these fields are repeated exhorted to be cautious about application of statistical techniques to their data without a clear understanding of the conditions required for those techniques to yield (...) genuine insight into the data. They are acutely aware that anyone can chuck some data into a software package and get what looks like an answer, even though these tests may not be well-defined for the data on which they can apparently be run. This is thus a healthy skepticism for uptake of causal modeling methods, which points directly to the need for a metaphysical understanding of causation in order to successfully use the modeling methods. Without a clear understanding of what the methods are committing to, including what it means to say that there exists a causal relationship, researchers have limited ability to identify potentially bad output, or to independently verify results. (shrink)

The counterfactual approach to explainable AI (XAI) seeks to provide understanding of AI systems through the provision of counterfactual explanations. In a recent systematic review, Chou et al. (Inform Fus 81:59–83, 2022) argue that the counterfactual approach does not clearly provide causal understanding. They diagnose the problem in terms of the underlying framework within which the counterfactual approach has been developed. To date, the counterfactual approach has not been developed in concert with the approach for specifying causes developed by Pearl (...) (Causality: Models, reasoning, and inference. Cambridge University Press, 2000) and Woodward (Making things happen: A theory of causal explanation. Oxford University Press, 2003). In this paper, I build on Chou et al.’s work by applying the Pearl-Woodward approach. I argue that the standard counterfactual approach to XAI is capable of delivering causal understanding, but that there are limitations on its capacity to do so. I suggest a way to overcome these limitations. (shrink)

There has been much debate among scientists and philosophers about what it means for interventions invoked in causal inference to be “well-defined” and how considerations of this sort should constrain the choice of causal variables. In this paper, I propose that an intervention is well-defined just in case the effect of interest is well-defined, and that the intervention can serve as a suitable means to identify that effect. Based on this proposal, I identify several types of ambiguous intervention. Implications for (...) variable choice are discussed using case studies drawn from the sciences. (shrink)

Recent years have seen growing interest in modifying interventionist accounts of causal explanation in order to characterise noncausal explanation. However, one surprising element of such accounts is that they have typically jettisoned the core feature of interventionism: interventions. Indeed, the prevailing opinion within the philosophy of science literature suggests that interventions exclusively demarcate causal relationships. This position is so prevalent that, until now, no one has even thought to name it. We call it “intervention puritanism” (I-puritanism, for short). In this (...) paper, we mount the first sustained defence of the idea that there are distinctively noncausal explanations which can be characterized in terms of possible interventions; a position we call “intervention liberalism” (I-liberalism, for short). While many have followed James Woodward (2003) in committing to I-puritanism, we trace support for I-liberalism back to the work of Jaegwon Kim (1974). Furthermore, we analyse two recent sources of scepticism regarding I-liberalism: debate surrounding mechanistic constitution; and attempts to provide a monistic account of explanation. We show that neither literature provides compelling reasons for adopting I-puritanism. Finally, we present a novel taxonomy of available positions upon the role of possible interventions in explanation: weak causal imperialism; strong causal imperialism; monist intervention puritanism; pluralist intervention puritanism; monist intervention liberalism; and finally, the specific position defended in this paper, pluralist intervention liberalism. (shrink)

Causes always seem to come prior to their effects. What might explain this asymmetry? Causation's temporal asymmetry isn't straightforwardly due to a temporal asymmetry in the laws of nature—the laws are, by and large, temporally symmetric. Nor does the asymmetry appear due to an asymmetry in time itself. This Element examines recent empirical attempts to explain the temporal asymmetry of causation: statistical mechanical accounts, agency accounts and fork asymmetry accounts. None of these accounts are complete yet and a full explanation (...) of the temporal asymmetry of causation will likely require contributions from all three programs. (shrink)

Analyzing causation in terms of Woodward's interventionist theory and describing the structure of the world in terms of causal powers are usually regarded as quite different projects in contemporary philosophy. Interventionists aim to give an account of how causal relations can be empirically discovered and described, without committing themselves to views about what causation really is. Causal powers theorists engage in precisely the latter project, aiming to describe the metaphysical structure of the world. In this paper, I argue that interventionism (...) can benefit from incorporating considerations about causal powers. I describe a previously undiscussed problem for Woodward's definition of an intervention variable that arises when interventionist causal models include disjunctive variables. This problem is solved not by excluding disjunctive (or logically compound) variables per se, but by excluding variables whose values represent disjunctions of too different causal powers. This suggests that interventionism and causal powers theories may be less distant from each other than is often assumed. (shrink)

Kim’s causal exclusion argument purports to demonstrate that the non-reductive physicalist must treat mental properties (and macro-level properties in general) as causally inert. A number of authors have attempted to resist Kim’s conclusion by utilizing the conceptual resources of Woodward’s interventionist conception of causation. The viability of these responses has been challenged by Gebharter, who argues that the causal exclusion argument is vindicated by the theory of causal Bayesian networks (CBNs). Since the interventionist conception of causation relies crucially on CBNs (...) for its foundations, Gebharter’s argument appears to cast significant doubt on interventionism’s anti-reductionist credentials. In the present article, we both (1) demonstrate that Gebharter’s CBN-theoretic formulation of the exclusion argument relies on some unmotivated and philosophically significant assumptions (especially regarding the relationship between CBNs and the metaphysics of causal relevance), and (2) use Bayesian networks to develop a general theory of causal inference for multi-level systems that can serve as the foundation for an anti-reductionist interventionist account of causation.1. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently highlighted substantial affinities between causation and grounding, which has inclined some to import the conceptual and formal resources of causal interventionism into the metaphysics of grounding. The prospect of grounding interventionism raises two important questions: exactly what are grounding interventions, and why should we think they enable knowledge of grounding? This paper will approach these questions by examining how causal interventionists have addressed (or might address) analogous questions and then comparing the available options for grounding interventionism. I (...) argue that grounding interventions must be understood in worldly terms, as adding something to or deleting something from the roster of entities, or making some fact obtain or fail to obtain. I consider three bases for counterfactual assessment: imagination, structural equation models, and background theory. I conclude that grounding interventionism requires firmer epistemological foundations, without which the interventionist's epistemology of grounding is incomplete and ineffectually rationalist. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The exclusion problem is meant to show that non-reductive physicalism leads to epiphenomenalism: if mental properties are not identical with physical properties, then they are not causally efficacious. Defenders of a difference-making account of causation suggest that the exclusion problem can be solved because mental properties can be difference-making causes of physical effects. Here, we focus on what we dub an incompatibilist implementation of this general strategy and argue against it from a non-reductive physicalist perspective. Specifically, we argue that (...) incompatibilism undermines either the non-reductionist or the physicalist aspirations of non-reductive physicalism. (shrink)

This dissertation begins by addressing the question of when a causal model is apt for deciding questions of actual causation with respect to some target situation. I first provide relevant background about causal models, explain what makes them promising as a tool for analyzing actual causation, and motivate the need for a theory of aptness as part of such an analysis (Chapter 1). I then define what it is for a model on a given interpretation to be accurate of, that (...) is, say only true things about, some target situation. This involves a systematization of various representational principles mentioned and/or discussed throughout the literature into a method of interpretation, which I propose be taken as standard (Chapter 2). Next, I explain and address two reasons for which accuracy as I’ve defined it is insufficient for aptness. The first reason – already discussed in the literature – is the problem of structural isomorphs. In response, I propose the aptness condition of Explicit Partial Mediation (Chapter 3). The second reason – which has yet to be noticed – is the problem of the indeterminacy of accuracy. As I demonstrate, a model is accurate of a target situation only relative to a set of background possibilities – what I call a modal profile. It follows that a model represents a situation only relative to some modal profile or other. I go on to discuss the ramifications of this observation for a theory of actual causation in terms of models. I argue that the relativity be taken at face value and built into our metaphysical account of causation, resulting in a view that I call causal relativism (Chapter 4). I explore one advantage of this view in detail: that the resulting account can defend the principle of strong proportionality against several objections (Chapter 5). Finally, I apply the earlier discussion of aptness to attempts to provide a semantics of counterfactuals in terms of causal models – an interventionist semantics. I show how just as a similarity semantics relies on an opaque notion of similarity, an interventionist semantics relies on an analogous notion of aptness. The challenge of articulating aptness thus undermines the claim that an interventionist semantics avoids representational problems inherent in a similarity semantics (Chapter 6). I close with a recap and suggestions for future research (Chapter 7). -/- . (shrink)

According to the so-called 'proportionality principle', causes should be proportional to their effects: they should be both enough and not too much for the occurrence of their effects. This principle is the subject of an ongoing debate. On the one hand, many maintain that it is required to address the problem of causal exclusion and take it to capture a crucial aspect of causation. On the other hand, many object that it renders accounts of causation implausibly restrictive and often reject (...) the principle wholesale. I argue that there is exaggeration on both sides. While one half of the principle is overly demanding, the other half is unobjectionable. And while the unobjectionable half does not block exclusion arguments on its own, it provides a nuanced picture of higher-level causation, fits with recent developments in philosophy of causation, and motivates adjustments to standard difference-making accounts of causation. I conclude that at least half of the proportionality principle is worth taking seriously. (shrink)

It has been argued that supervenience generates unavoidable confounding problems for interventionist accounts of causation, to the point that we must choose between interventionism and supervenience. According to one solution, the dilemma can be defused by excluding non-causal determinants of an outcome as potential confounders. I argue that this solution undermines the methodological validity of causal tests. Moreover, we don’t have to choose between interventionism and supervenience in the first place. Some confounding problems are effectively circumvented by experimental designs routinely (...) employed in science. The remaining confounding issues concern the physical interpretation of variables and cannot be solved by choosing between interventionism and supervenience. (shrink)

Despite attempts to apply causal modeling techniques to quantum systems, Wood and Spekkens argue that any causal model purporting to explain quantum correlations must be fine tuned; it must violate the assumption of faithfulness. This paper is an attempt to undermine the reasonableness of the assumption of faithfulness in the quantum context. Employing a symmetry relation between an entangled quantum system and a “sideways” quantum system consisting of a single photon passing sequentially through two polarizers, I argue that Wood and (...) Spekkens’s analysis applies equally to this sideways system also. As a result, we must either reject a causal explanation in this single photon system, or the sideways system must be fine tuned. If the latter, a violation of faithfulness in the ordinary entangled system may be more tolerable than first thought. Thus, extending the classical “no fine-tuning” principle of parsimony to the quantum realm may be too hasty. (shrink)

In this dissertation I develop a pluralist theory of actual causation. I argue that we need to distinguish between total, path-changing, and contributing actual causation. The pluralist theory accounts for a set of example cases that have raised problems for extant unified theories and it is supported by considerations about the various functions of causal concepts. The dissertation also analyses the context-sensitivity of actual causation. I show that principled accounts of causal reasoning in legal inquiry face limitations and I argue (...) that the context-sensitivity of actual causation is best represented by a distinction between default and deviant states in causal models. (shrink)

This article presents a new argument for incorporating a distinction between default and deviant values into the formalism of causal models. The argument is based on considerations about how causal reasoners should represent disagreement over causes, and it is defended against an objection that has been raised against earlier arguments for defaults.

Counterfactual analysis is an interesting feature of thought experiments, because it requires the imagination of alternative states of the world (see also publications by Fearon, Lebow and Stein, Reiss, and Tetlock and Belkin, who suggest the same). In historical analysis, the use of imagination is often the focus of criticisms of such counterfactual analysis. In this article, I consider three strategies for constraining imagination: making limited counterfactual changes, limiting counterfactual changes to the decisions of important figures, and using evidence to (...) restrict the scope for imagination. Given the focus of this special issue, I will relate this discussion to Lewis’s and Woodward’s analyses of counterfactuals in the philosophy of science. I show that counterfactual analysis in historical cases has some resemblance to Lewis’s and Woodward’s analyses, but that what Lewis calls “transition periods” cannot be left entirely vague, as Lewis suggests, nor can counterfactual changes be seen simply as interventions, as Woodward suggests. I propose that efforts to limit imagination in historical counterfactuals are ultimately problematic, but that imagination can nevertheless play a useful role in counterfactual analysis. (shrink)

Goldman (1967) proposed that a subject s knows p if and only if p is appropriately causally connected to s’s believing p. He later on abandoned this theory (Goldman, 1976). The main objection to the theory is that the causal connection required by Goldman is compatible with certain problematic forms of luck. In this paper we argue that Goldman’s causal theory of knowledge can overcome the luck problem if causation is understood along interventionist lines. We also show that the modified (...) theory leads to the correct results in contexts involving other prominent forms of epistemic luck and compare it with other accounts on the market. (shrink)

In cases in which many causes together bring about an effect, it is common to select some as particularly important. Philosophers since Mill have been pessimistic about analyzing this reasoning because of its variability and the multifarious causal and pragmatic details of how it works. I argue Mill was right to think these details matter but wrong that they preclude philosophical analysis of causal selection. I show that analyzing the pragmatic details of scientific debates about the important causes of the (...) Bhopal Gas Tragedy can illuminate causal reasoning about disasters and shed new light on causality and causal selection. (shrink)

Recent epistemology of modality has seen a growing trend towards metaphysics-first approaches. Contrastingly, this paper offers a more philosophically modest account of justifying modal claims, focusing on the practices of scientific modal inferences. Two ways of making such inferences are identified and analyzed: actualist-manipulationist modality and relative modality. In AM, what is observed to be or not to be the case in actuality or under manipulations, allows us to make modal inferences. AM-based inferences are fallible, but the same holds for (...) practically all empirical inquiry. In RM, modal inferences are evaluated relative to what is kept fixed in a system, like a theory or a model. RM-based inferences are more certain but framework-dependent. While elements from both AM and RM can be found in some existing accounts of modality, it is worth highlighting them in their own right and isolating their features for closer scrutiny. This helps to establish their relevant epistemologies that are free from some strong philosophical assumptions often attached to them in the literature. We close by showing how combining these two routes amounts to a view that accounts for a rich variety of modal inferences in science. (shrink)

In The Biopsychosocial Model of Health and Disease, Derek Bolton and Grant Gillett argue that a defensible updated version of the biopsychosocial model requires a metaphysically adequate account of disease causation that can accommodate biological, psychological, and social factors. This present paper offers a philosophical critique of their account of biopsychosocial causation. I argue that their account relies on claims about the normativity and the semantic content of biological information that are metaphysically contentious. Moreover, I suggest that these claims are (...) unnecessary for a defence of biopsychosocial causation, as the roles of multiple and diverse factors in disease causation can be readily accommodated by a more widely accepted and less metaphysically contentious account of causation. I then raise the more general concern that they are misdiagnosing the problem with the traditional version of the biopsychosocial model. The challenge when developing an explanatorily valuable version of the biopsychosocial model, I argue, is not so much providing an adequate account of biopsychosocial causation, but providing an adequate account of causal selection. Finally, I consider how this problem may be solved to arrive at a more explanatorily valuable and clinically useful version of the biopsychosocial model. (shrink)

Recent philosophical work on causation has focused on distinctions across types of causal relationships. This paper argues for another distinction that has yet to receive attention in this work. This distinction has to do with whether causal relationships have “material continuity,” which refers to the reliable movement of material from cause to effect. This paper provides an analysis of material continuity and argues that causal relationships with this feature are associated with a unique explanatory perspective, are studied with distinct causal (...) investigative methods, and provide different types of causal control over their effects. (shrink)

Many explanations rely on identity facts. In this paper, I propose an account of how identity facts explain: roughly, the fact that A is identical to B explains another fact whenever that other fact depends, counterfactually, on A being identical to B. As I show, this account has many virtues. It avoids several problems facing accounts of explanatory identities, and when precisified using structural equations, it can be used to defend interventionist accounts of causation against an objection.

While ideal interventions are acknowledged by many as valuable tools for the analysis of causation, recent discussions have shown that, since there are no ideal interventions on upper-level phenomena that non-reductively supervene on their underlying mechanisms, interventions cannot—contrary to a popular opinion—ground an informative analysis of constitution. This has led some to abandon the project of analyzing constitution in interventionist terms. By contrast, this paper defines the notion of a horizontally surgical intervention, and argues that, when combined with some innocuous (...) metaphysical principles about the relation between upper and lower levels of mechanisms, that notion delivers a sufficient condition for constitution. This, in turn, strengthens the case for an interventionist analysis of constitution. (shrink)

Theories of explanation need to account for a puzzling feature of our explanatory practices: the fact that we prefer explanations that are relatively abstract but only moderately so. Contra Franklin-Hall ([2016]), I argue that the interventionist account of explanation provides a natural and elegant explanation of this fact. By striking the right balance between specificity and generality, moderately abstract explanations optimally subserve what interventionists regard as the goal of explanation, namely identifying possible interventions that would have changed the explanandum.

In ‘Reichenbach's cubical universe and the problem of the external world’, Elliott Sober attempts a refutation of solipsism à la Reichenbach. I here contrast Sober's line of argument with observati...

"A blab droid is a robot with a body shaped like a pizza box, a pair of treads, and a smiley face. Guided by an onboard video camera, it roams hotel lobbies and conference centers, asking questions in the voice of a seven-year-old. "Can you help me?" "What is the worst thing you've ever done?" "Who in the world do you love most?" People pour their hearts out in response. This droid prompts the question of what we can hope from (...) social robots. Might they provide humanlike friendship? Philosopher John Campbell doesn't think so. He argues that, while a social robot can remember the details of a person's history better than some spouses can, it cannot empathize with the human mind, because it lacks the faculty for thinking in terms of singular causation. Causation in Psychology makes the case that singular causation is essential and unique to the human species. From the point of view of practical action, knowledge of what generally causes what is often all one needs. But humans are capable of more. We have a capacity to imagine singular causation. Unlike robots and nonhuman animals, we don't have to rely on axioms about pain to know how ongoing suffering is affecting someone's ability to make decisions, for example, and this knowledge is not a derivative of general rules. The capacity to imagine singular causation, Campbell contends, is a core element of human freedom and of the ability to empathize with human thoughts and feelings"--. (shrink)

Finding causes is a central goal in psychological research. In this paper, I argue based on the interventionist approach to causal discovery that the search for psychological causes faces great obstacles. Psychological interventions are likely to be fat-handed: they change several variables simultaneously, and it is not known to what extent such interventions give leverage for causal inference. Moreover, due to problems of measurement, the degree to which an intervention was fat-handed, or more generally, what the intervention in fact did, (...) is difficult to reliably estimate. A further complication is that the causal findings in psychology are typically made at the population level, and such findings do not allow inferences to individual-level causal relationships. I also discuss the implications of these problems for research, as well as various ways of addressing them, such as focusing more on the discovery of robust but non-causal patterns. (shrink)

In 1937, John Dewey delivered a lecture to the College of Physicians in Saint Louis. His clear message was that in the practice of medicine it does not suffice for physicians to treat just the body, or to look to just the body for the mechanism of disease. Emphasizing the relational nature of organism-environment, he argued that the physician must treat the whole patient and must therefore consider the environment of the patient. It makes no sense, he suggested, to provide (...) medicine to address a problem with the patient's lungs and then to send him back into the coal mine. As he put it: "We must observe and understand internal processes and their interactions from the standpoint of their interactions with what is... (shrink)

John Campbell has claimed that the interventionist account of causation must be amended if it is to be applied to causation in psychology. The problem, he argues, is that it follows from the so-called ‘surgical’ constraint that intervening on psychological states requires the suspension of the agent’s rational autonomy. In this paper, I argue that the problem Campbell identifies is in fact an instance of a wider problem for interventionism, extending beyond psychology, which I call the problem of ‘abrupt transitions’. (...) I then defend a solution to the problem, which replaces the surgical constraint with a weaker constraint on interventions that nevertheless does all the work the surgical constraint was designed to do. I conclude by exploring some interesting consequences of this weaker constraint for causation in psychology. (shrink)

Binding specificity is a centrally important concept in molecular biology, yet it has received little philosophical attention. Here I aim to remedy this by analyzing binding specificity as a causal property. I focus on the concept’s role in drug design, where it is highly prized and hence directly studied. From a causal perspective, understanding why binding specificity is a valuable property of drugs contributes to an understanding of causal selection—of how and why scientists distinguish between causes, not just causes from (...) noncauses. In particular, the specificity of drugs is precisely what underwrites their value as experimental interventions on biological processes. (shrink)

Ever since the hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers, 1996, 1995) first entered the scene in the debate over consciousness many have taken it to show the limitations of a scientific or naturalist explanation of consciousness. The hard problem is the problem of explaining why there is any experience associated with certain physical processes, that is, why there is anything it is like associated with such physical processes? The character of one’s experience doesn’t seem to be entailed by physical processes and (...) so an explanation which can overcome such a worry must (1) explain how physical processes give rise to experience (explain the entailment), (2) give an explanation which doesn’t rely on such physical processes, or (3) show why the hard problem is misguided in some sense. Recently, a rather ambitious and novel theory of consciousness has entered the scene – Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of Consciousness (Oizumi et al., 2014; Tononi, 2008; Tononi et al., 2016) – and proposes that consciousness is the result of a specific type of information processing, what those developing the theory call integrated information. The central aim of this dissertation is to philosophically investigate IIT and see whether it has the ability to overcome the hard problem and related worries. I then aim to use this philosophical investigation to answer a set of related questions which guide this dissertation, which are the following: Is it possible to give an information-theoretic explanation of consciousness? What would the nature of such an explanation be and would it result in a novel metaphysics of consciousness? In this dissertation, I begin in chapter one by first setting up the hard problem and related arguments against the backdrop of IIT (Mindt, 2017). I show that given a certain understanding of structural and dynamical properties IIT fails to overcome the hard problem of consciousness. I go on in chapter two to argue that a deflationary account of causation is the best view for IIT to overcome the causal exclusion problem (Baxendale and Mindt, 2018). In chapter three, I explain IIT’s account of how the qualitative character of our experience arises (qualia) and what view of intentionality (the directedness of our mental states) IIT advocates. I then move on in chapter four to show why the hard problem mischaracterizes structural and dynamical properties and misses important nuances that may shed light on giving a naturalized explanation of consciousness. In the last and fifth chapter, I outline a sketch of a novel metaphysics of consciousness that takes the conjunction of Neutral Monism and Information-Theoretic Structural Realism to give what I call Information-Theoretic Neutral-Structuralism. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how different (even conflicting) interventions on nature can be scientifically justified: interventions can be deemed "effective" only in relation to specific target variables - in relation to variables the values of which we seek to control. Choosing the "right" target variables, in turn, depends on our values and pragmatic aims. This essay is based on a presentation given at the symposium "Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the COVID-19 Pandemic", organised at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies on (...) 16 June 2020. (shrink)

In a recent essay, Deery and Nahmias :1255–1276, 2017) utilize interventionism about causation to develop an account of causal sourcehood in order to defend compatibilism about free will and moral responsibility from manipulation arguments. In this paper, we criticize Deery and Nahmias’s analysis of sourcehood by drawing a distinction between two forms of causal invariance that can come into conflict on their account. We conclude that any attempt to resolve this conflict will either result in counterintuitive attributions of moral responsibility (...) or will undermine their response to manipulation arguments. (shrink)

This article defends the notion of downward causation, relating it to a notion of conditional independence.

A growing number of philosophers are bringing interventionism into the field of supervenient causation. Many argue that interventionist supervenient causation is exempted from the fixability condition. However, this approach looks ad hoc, inconsistent with the general interventionist requirement on fixation. Moreover, it leads to false judgments about the causal efficacy of supervenient/subvenient properties. This article aims to develop a novel interventionist account of supervenient causation that respects the fixability requirement. The treatment of intervention and fixation that I propose can accommodate (...) some theoretical constraints on causation and deliver correct causal verdicts in classic examples. It is also worth noting that this interventionist account offers a promising defense of mental causation without postulating mental-physical overdetermination. (shrink)

We propose an analysis of backward causation in terms of interventionism that can avoid several problems typically associated with backward causation. Its main advantage over other accounts is that it allows for reducing the problematic task of supporting backward causal claims to the unproblematic task of finding evidence for several ordinary forward directed causal hypotheses.

Price’s :157–176, 1991; 44:187–203, 1993 ; 2007, 2017) agency theory of causation has takes itself to provide a use-theory of our causal discourse. The theory’s aim is to describe the rules implicit to our linguistic behaviour when we describe things in causal terms. According to this theory, the rules governing our use of the concept of causation are based on our perspective as agents and our associated experiences of manipulating events. I argue that the observed relation between agency and our (...) concept of causation cannot exhaustively describe the conditions under which we enter into causal discourse. In particular, I demonstrate that the agency theory faces familiar problems with accounting for causal ascriptions to token cases. (shrink)