Abstract
Many philosophers and scientists now view the discovery of causal mechanisms as central to research and explanation. In this paper, we consider the relevance of this mechanistic approach to human ecology. The consensus is that mechanisms are relatively stable and recurring causal structures underlying the phenomena we are trying to understand or explain. A causal sequence with a particular end point can be understood as constituting a causal history explanation, but claims for it also constituting a mechanism require additional evidence concerning its stability and regularity. Organizing research around the search for mechanisms often makes sense in fields like biology, sociology, and political science where stable causal structures are commonplace. But it makes less sense for human ecology because interactions between people and the environment are often characterized by unstable and contingent causal dynamics. The more serviceable concept of cause, not causal mechanism, should thus be maintained at the core of explanation, and research in human ecology should prioritize the search for causal histories, with causal mechanisms serving a potentially supporting role. These arguments are illustrated with a case study of land use change and reforestation in the Caribbean.
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Notes
Nicholson (2012) argues that given how biological scientists in practice typically apply mechanistic concepts, it is more accurate to describe them as epistemic models rather than actual ontic entities (i.e., real things in nature). But even if one grants this, it is apparent that biological mechanisms as these are typically conceptualized more closely mirror concrete biophysical entities and so are less theoretically abstract than social mechanisms (cf. Joffe 2013).
There are strong currents of methodological individualism flowing through much of the social science literature on mechanisms (e.g., Elster 2007; Elster and Landermore 2018; Little 1991, 2015; Demeulenaere 2011; Bengtsson and Hertting 2014), but some writers suggest higher-level mechanisms also exist and are explanatorily significant (e.g., Steinmetz 1998; Bunge 2004; Mayntz 2004; Falleti and Lynch 2009; Gross 2009; cf. the critical discussion in Theurer 2018).
Classic reductionism is associated with the DN (covering law) model of explanation and is based on theoretical consilience whereby laws/theories about larger-level phenomena (e.g., the motions of the planets) are ultimately grounded in or commensurate with laws/theories about lower-level phenomena (e.g., the motion of atoms). Mechanists would not make such a claim. Instead, they speak of causal mechanisms operating and interacting at different ‘levels’ (e.g., the act of walking reflects the movement of leg muscles and is explained by the actions of neurons triggering muscle fiber contractions, etc.).
Some mechanists (e.g., Andersen 2012) admit that there are non-mechanistic causes and causal chains that occur only once, but these are simply not regarded as being of any real scientific interest.
The mechanistic model of explanation has achieved considerable success in fields like biology and medicine, but we do not want to overstate this success, as there remains considerable debate about the value and applicability of mechanistic vs. other explanatory models in these fields as well (Nicholson 2012; Darden 2013; Joffe 2013; Braillaird and Malaterre 2015; Schulz 2015; Matthews 2016; Halina 2017; Ross 2018).
Strictly-speaking, there were a series of WTO petitions and decisions made, but these were part of one overall dispute that was viewed by petitioning countries as unsatisfactorily resolved during the first and then second round of negotiations that ensued (Walters 2019).
For example, in response to concerns about the fate of the banana sector, the Government of Saint Lucia moved aggressively on the policy front to embrace the Fair Trade agenda as a way to protect its struggling banana sector, and at the same time adopted policies to attract foreign investment in the tourism sector (Walters 2016b, 2019).
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Research described here was supported by grants to Brad Walters from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Marjorie Young Bell Faculty Fund, Mount Allison University.
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Walters, B.B., Vayda, A.P. Mechanisms and Causal Histories: Explanation-Oriented Research in Human Ecology. Hum Ecol 48, 641–650 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-020-00202-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-020-00202-z