Can the meaning of ‘C caused E’ be accounted for in terms of the idea that if C

hadn’t happened, E wouldn’t have happened?

Pros:

• The cause makes a difference as to whether the effect happens, or not.

• It’s an intuitive characteristic of causal relationships. We regularly think of this
being the case.
• Can account for causation by omission by picking the closest possible world.

Additions

• Y could have happened without X due to another cause but we add ‘in the
circumstances’ (Mackie) or in a world similar to this (Stalnaker, Lewis)
• Ned Hall – Two Concepts of Causation

Issues:

• Non-local – focuses on what happens outside of the interaction. (As opposed to

causal process accounts.)
• Cases of over-determination – man goes into the desert (Mackie Cement pg 44
adapted from McLaughlin 1925 “Proximate Cause”). But – is this a problem? To
what extent does this offer an example of causation? BUT Firing Squad – two
bullets into the heart. To what extent was the one shooter the cause of the
death? We would not say that the one shooter was a cause of the death.
• Transitivity – Lewis causal chain
• It cannot be used alone – if we have a causal theory and that just means if C
didn’t happen, E wouldn’t have then it is difficult to see how we can tell. Practical
methods (reducing to regularity thesis). Lewis’ possible worlds (hard to see how
we can know).
• Conditionals – e.g. oxygen in the air. Two ways of being context sensitive
(occurrence and enquiry – Hart and Honore). Mackie – Bundles of causes (and
inus -an insufficient but nonredundant part of an unnecessary but sufficient
condition for E)
• Preemption – Late preemption – Suzy and Billy throwing rocks (Hall 2004).
Response – events at different times so different events. Problem – Lewis’ poison
on a full stomach. Eating dinner is a cause of death. New Lewis – altering one
event makes more of a difference to the effect than altering the other. (answers
to trumping)
• There are examples of counterfactual dependence which aren’t examples of
causal dependence

Non-local – Immediately alarm bells

There’s a reason why we see some counterfactuals as causal and others not.
No more than a useful way of looking at things

It cannot be used alone – if we have a causal theory and that just means if C didn’t
happen, E wouldn’t have then it is difficult to see how we can tell. Practical methods
(reducing to regularity thesis). Lewis’ possible worlds (hard to see how we can
know).