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Regularity Accounts of Causation and the Problem of Pre-emption: Dark Prospects Indeed

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Abstract

In this paper I examine a recent argument that regularity approaches to causation can easily solve the problem of pre-emption. If this argument were successful it would neatly solve the problem of pre-emption—a problem that many still consider to be a central unsolved problem for accounts of causation. The argument is surprising in that the conclusion goes against the common consensus that regularity accounts of causation cannot solve the problem of pre-emption, at least without major amendments. This consensus was one of the reasons for the decline in popularity of the regularity approach and the rise in popularity (for a few decades at least) of the counterfactual approach. In its fullest form the recent argument is due to Strevens (Causation and explanation, topics in contemporary philosophy. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2007). He claims, “Mackie’s account supplies, without any of the complex amendments now standard in counterfactual theories, a completely satisfactory treatment of the standard cases of pre-emption”. This paper examines this argument and refutes it. I argue that Mackie’s account really does fail to solve the problem of pre-emption; it fails to account for even the standard cases of pre-emption in the literature.

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Notes

  1. (Strevens 2007: 94). Baumgartner (2008) and Grasshoff and May (2001) also argue similarly that one can easily identify pre-empted alternatives on the grounds that they do not involve a sufficient condition that is actualized in full. [See Baumgartner (2008, p. 348): “According to (SC), an event is only identified to cause an event b if a occurs along with all other events instantiating a minimally sufficient condition AX of B. As a direct consequence of this constraint, pre-empted potential causes of b are not identified as genuine causes of b by (SC).” Grasshoff and May consider the matter more briefly (see 2001, pp. 104–105).] Although Strevens, Baumgartner and Grasshof and May ultimately defend different sophisticated regularity accounts of causation, they all approach pre-emption in the same simple way. The additional sophistications in their different regularity accounts are motivated by the need to solve other problems, and are not utilized in their discussions of the problem of pre-emption. I follow Strevens in using Mackie’s basic regularity account of causation in terms of INUS conditions (Mackie 1965) while discussing the problem of pre-emption, as I think that focusing in detail on each of the sophisticated accounts in turn might take us too far from the question at hand.

  2. Lewis (1973, p. 557).

  3. Schaffer (2000, p. 181).

  4. See for example, footnote 22, p. 181: “One solution to trumping is to analyze causation via nomic subsumption rather than counterfactual dependence… But this is a whole other story”.

  5. Elsewhere I have defended a contextualist (/interventionist) approach to the problem of pre-emption. (See Maslen 2000). In my view, this is the most promising available approach to the problem of pre-emption, although I admit that such an approach is counterintuitive in that it attributes some hard and fast intutions about cases of pre-emption to subjective contextual factors. For other contextualist/interventionist approaches to pre-emption see for example, Woodward (2003), and Hitchcock (1995).

  6. Psillos agrees. “Mackie’s view is still considered the best example of a sophisticated regularity view” (2010, p. 150).

  7. Mackie (1962: 34).

  8. Let’s pretend for the sake of argument that this is a sufficient condition, although in reality we would need extra conditions such as the absence of sprinkler systems and other interference with the causal chain. Also note that Mackie was criticized early on for failing to make it clear whether his INUS conditions were events, facts or propositions (see Kim 1971). I have tried to avoid this issue, and sometimes stated conditions as facts or propositions and sometimes as events.

  9. See (Mackie 1962).

  10. (Strevens 2007, p. 103) He continues “There is no set of veridical conditions [that is, set of conditions that is present in full], then, that entails that [B’s] ball strikes the jar. [B’s] ball is not a cause.” (Strevens 2007: 104). He is right that there is no fully actualized set of conditions that entails that B’s ball strikes the jar. B’s ball never does strike the jar, so there cannot be a fully actualized set of conditions that entails it. But as I argue in the next section, there is a fully actualized set of conditions that entails that the jar breaks.

  11. At least, it would be no good as a reductive analysis of causation, and, in particular, it would not help us to solve the problem of pre-emption.

  12. I have been interpreting the phrase “sufficient for Elvis’s death” as “sufficient for Elvis to be dead”, but it could also be interpreted as “sufficient for Elvis to become dead”. Becoming dead is different from being dead, because a logical precondition for becoming dead at time t is that you are not dead in some period prior to time t. Does this new interpretation help Strevens? No. Given that Elvis starts out alive, if drinking the poison is sufficient for Elvis to be dead, then it is also sufficient for him to become dead, because obviously if he starts out alive, and ends up dead he must have become dead sometime in the meantime. Also, it could possibly be argued that it is natural to individuate the events of “becoming dead” and “being dead” differently; we may count a slightly later “becoming dead” as a different event, while a slightly later “being dead” as the same event. A similar point can be made if the causal relata on Mackie’s account are taken to be propositions; it may be natural to understand “Elvis’s becoming dead” when uttered at time t as “Elvis’s becoming dead at exactly time t” but understand “Elvis’s being dead” when uttered at time t as “Elvis’s being dead at around time t”. I won’t pursue this line of thinking here, as it is not discussed by Mackie or Strevens.

  13. Thanks to Seahwa Kim for the suggestion of simply adding the counterfactual itself to the sufficient condition. Strevens seems to allow this as he does include a counterfactual condition in an INUS condition at one point (2007, p. 105). I show below how to do without conditional propositions in INUS conditions, as allowing them leads to other standard problems with Mackie’s account (which I think Strevens plans to avoid in his own account by making other adjustments).

  14. He says, “All underlying processes are, by working assumption, deterministic” (2007: 104).

  15. Later, for simplicity, we will adopt Stalnaker’s possible worlds semantics counterfactuals. On this approach, the truth of a counterfactual depends on which is the closest possible world which in turn depends on some of the actual laws and particular facts. The truth of a counterfactual also depends on some of the actual laws and particular facts according to other approaches to counterfactuals (for example, Lewis’s possible worlds approach and the metalinguistic approach).

  16. Mackie and Strevens both suggest that whenever the pre-empted causal chain fails to run to completion then no sufficient condition involving the pre-empted alternative will be present in full. Schaffer (2000) argues that there are also cases of pre-emption where both the pre-empting and pre-empted processes run to completion. He calls these cases of trumping pre-emption. However, in order to strengthen my opponents’ case, I will assume with Mackie and Strevens that pre-empted processes never run to completion and limit myself to showing that Mackie’s account fails with these more commonplace examples.

  17. In Strevens’ words, “The imperial prince heaves a cannonball at the backup Circassian’s favourite Iznik jar, breaking it. The sultan’s mother was standing by in case the prince fumbled his throw; had the prince failed to break the jar, the sultan’s mother would have thrown her cannonball and smashed it for sure.” (2007: 99). Note that although this is one of the two main examples that Strevens uses to show how Mackie’s account succeeds with pre-emption, he presents what looks like the very same example in the last section of his paper (2007: 115) admitting that Mackie’s account fails to analyze it. In my view, there are no structural differences between the two examples; he has just supplied further details, and Mackie’s account fails no matter how he spells them out.

  18. Why is D’s intention a non-redundant part of W 3? We can test this directly. (It may also be clear why D’s intention is a non-redundant part of W 3 from the way it was constructed. For a general explanation of this see Sect. 7 below.) Recall that for Mackie, C is a necessary part of a sufficient condition iff it is a non-redundant premise in the valid argument C, S 1, S 2,…, laws of nature therefore E. In this case it is clear that D’s intention is a non-redundant part of W 3, because without D’s intention we no longer have a valid argument from W 3 to the jar’s breaking. That is, the following argument is invalid:

    1. (1)

      The jar was at position x at time (t + 1)

    2. (2)

      D was able to see accurately whether or not C’s ball hit the jar,

    3. (3)

      D was able to throw accurately towards position x at time (t + 1)

    4. (4)

      Facts that make it true that if C had not thrown a ball at the jar then the jar would still have been at position x at time (t + 2)

    5. (5)

      Facts about the structure of the jar

    6. (6)

      The absence of other interference with the jar or the balls

    7. (7)

      The laws of nature

    Therefore (8) The jar breaks.

  19. This objection was suggested to me by Dan Ernst and Bosuk Yoon.

  20. (Frankfurt 1969).

  21. (Frankfurt 1969: 837).

  22. Another example of this sort was presented by Locke, long before Frankfurt (1689: Bk 2 Ch 21, section 10). Imagine that you are carried while sleeping into a room where there is someone you have been longing to see and talk to. Before you wake up the room is locked. You have no alternative but to stay in the room, but you do not notice this, but stay willingly. The locking of the room was sufficient for you to remain in the room—it removed all of your alternative possibilities. However, you stay in the room for your own reasons. The locking of the room is a pre-empted alternative for your staying in the room. This is another case of a condition that is sufficient for an effect without causing it.

  23. The significance of Frankfurt style cases has recently been disputed by (Widerker 1995) and others. In particular, two new defences of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities from Frankfurt-style case have emerged—the Flicker Defence and the Dilemma Defence. I do not think that either of these defences succeeds, but in any case, our use of these examples here is not open to either of these objections, as we are only concerned with causation and pre-emption, and not with moral responsibility.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank those who attended my mini-class on causation at Ewha Womans University, July 2008, and especially to Seahwa Kim. I would also like to thank Michael Strevens and two anonymous referees for this journal for their helpful comments and suggestions.

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    Cei Maslen

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Maslen, C. Regularity Accounts of Causation and the Problem of Pre-emption: Dark Prospects Indeed. Erkenn 77, 419–434 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-012-9399-y

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