Causation plausibility

A major disadvantage of the case-control study is that it requires a definite hypothesis or suspicion of causality. A cohort study on the other hand does not subjects can be followed to see what happens (event recording). Case-control studies do not prove causation. They reveal associations and it is up to investigators and critical readers to decide what is the most plausible explanation. 

This looks far more plausible the whole enterprise of quantum chemistry, after all, is to use quantum mechanics to recover facts about chemical bonding that are well known to the chemist. If there is meshing between chemistry and quantum mechanics, do the real meshes and interfaces we saw in the last section really support strict physicalism Surely they cannot, if they are consistent with downward causation. In any case, it is not as if, in the explanation of the spectrum of carbon dioxide, there are two independent theoretical accounts that were compared and found to be consistent. Perhaps that would constitute an explanation of the less fundamental models. But neither chemistry nor the quantum mechanics of resultant Hamiltonians have the resources for independent accounts of the spectrum of carbon dioxide. Rather than an explanation of chemical structure by physical theory there was a joint venture the explanation of various facts by the use of quantum mechanics applied to a given molecular structure. There was no mesh or interface between the quantum mechanics and chemistry, at least none that required explanation. What we had was an instance of quantum chemistry, the quantum theory of atoms and molecules.14... 

If these are the only kinds of cases that can be called cases of causal overdetermination, then Kim is right that it is absurd to think that all cases of mental causation are cases of overdetermination. If we use the term overdetermination as Kim seems to here, then we should reject the idea that P is causally overdetermined by M and P. Surely M and P are not completely independent and individually sufficient causes for P. Rather, M and P are related by supervenience (and possibly also by realization and event identity as well). It is not as if M could have caused P even if P had not occurred. If P had not occurred, M would not have occurred either - M depends on P for its existence. Thus, it seems plausible to accept premise (7) in Kim s exclusion argument - i.e. that P is not causally overdetermined by M and P. 

Rejecting the exclusion principle is not a high price to pay, since Kim has offered no independent grounds for us to accept the exclusion principle. The exclusion principle is plausible as a general principle when it is applied to events. But we have seen that this plausible version of the exclusion principle does not rule out causation in virtue of irreducible higher-level properties. It is only when we apply the exclusion principle to properties that causation in virtue of irreducible higher-level properties gets ruled out. 

Once the exclusion principle has been rejected, then we no longer have any reason to reject nonreductive materialism on the grormds of exclusion. Furthermore, the most plausible alternative to nomeductive materialism - Kim s functional reduction - cannot be defended, since there is strong evidence in favor of the context dependence of scientific (and mental) properties. So at this point, nonreductive materialism seems to be the most viable option for a successful theory of mental causation. Let us now turn to some positive reasons for accepting a nomeductivist view of mental causation. 

Since Weslake holds that Woodward s interventionism is an independently plausible theory of causation, he begins by assuming an interventionist theory of causation. He then restates the exclusion principle from within an interventionist theory Exclusion-i If there exists a complete causal model specifying an explanation for an event, there exists no other causal model containing distinct variables specifying an explanation for that event, unless it is a model in which the event is causally overdetermined (2007 4). 

Weslake s position is that once we accept an interventionist theory of causation, we ll never be led to accept the thesis of exclusion. Nothing about the causal principles within an interventionist framework will make the exclusion principle plausible. 

Thus, Weslake seems to have given us a way to reject the exclusion principle based on what seems to be an independently plausible view of causation. 

I have argued that if we take a closer look at causation, we see that there is no plausible reason for accepting the exclusion principle. We can use the ideas of multiple realizability and context dependence to help us isolate which properties are causal properties. When we do this, we can see that there is nothing about causation that ought to lead us to think that sufficiency at one level will rule out causation at other levels. 

It seems to me that one of the most (if not the most) important things we need from a theory of mind is a good account of mental causation. If we think that the science of psychology, whose job it is to predict and explain human behavior, is a legitimate science, then we need it to be the case that mental properties are causal, fri addition, a great part of our survival as social creatures in this world depends on our ordinary assessment of one another s mental states and our assumption that those mental states are causally responsible for behavior. We regularly make predictions about what others are going to do and offer explanations of why others have behaved as they have based on our belief that mental states cause behaviors. If we want to retain the independently plausible idea that predictions and explanations of behavior in terms of mental states work because mental states are causal, then we need to account for how it is that mental states can be causal. 

It seems to me that, other things being equal, whatever theory of mind can offer the best account of mental causation will be the most plausible theory to accept. What I have tried to do is show that nonreductive materialism does the best job of accounting for how it is that mental properties can be causal properties. 

I have tried to defend nonreductive materialism as the most plausible view. It is the view that I think does the best job at offering a good accoimt of mental causation -one which accords well with our ordinary and scientific conceptions of causation. There are, however, limits to what I have tried to do. 

The issues of nature of the event and plausibility need to be considered with some caution - these factors may add to the arguments for causation but a clinical event that is not normally known to be drug-related or the absence of any information supporting plausibility is not strong evidence against it. 

The final four criteria are plausibility, coherence, supportive experimental evidence and analogy - these are related by a theme of whether or not the association fits with existing scientific knowledge and beliefs. If so then causation is more likely but newly identified associations may not fit - so absence of any or all of these criteria does not preclude an association being causal. 

The first two claims characterize a physicalist worldview, or what I call physicalism. Condition (r) expresses the physicalist idea that all God needed to do to make the universe is to distribute the fundamental physical properties in space and time and make the laws of fundamental physics. All facts about macroscopic objects, their colors and behaviors, and facts about people, their thoughts and experiences, and truths about causation and the special sciences, and so on are metaphysically entailed by the fundamental physical facts and laws. Condition (2) says that the physical laws are closed and complete in the sense that, given the complete fundamental physical state at t and the laws, whether or not E occurs at t, or its chance of occurring, is completely determined. 1 assume that whatever causation is, condition (2) implies the casual completeness of physics in that E t ) s physical causes at t are sufficient to determine its occurrence (or the chances of its occurrence). Condition (2) is a consequence of (r), and it is possible to derive (r) from (2) and some other plausible premises, but I separate them since nomological and causal closure will figure importantly in our discussion. ... 

At this point it may be useful to remind ourselves what is at stake in the exclusion argument. Various considerations (functionalism, multiple realization, externalism, explanatory gap) make M P persuasive. Also, there are scientifically compelling reasons to accept physicalism and Closure. Giving up mental causation is a last resort. So, Kim s argument is a paradox. Each o] M P, Closure, Mental Causation, and Exclusion is plausible, but together they are inconsistent. We proponents of NRP accept M P, Closure, and Mental Causation, so we have to reject Exclusion. 

It is plausible that under normal conditions small diflferences in a person s brain corresponding to diflferent mental states (e.g., different intentions) lead by law to correspondingly different bodily movements. That is, that counterfactual dependencies on Lewis s construal of counterfactuals between mental events and bodily events obtains. If so, then mental events cause in the dependence sense bodily events. My proposal is not that Lewis s influence account perfectly captures our intuitive concept of causation. But I do claim that causation as influence is near enough to our folk conception of mental causation to underwrite the role of causation in folk psychology, rational deliberation, action theory, and so on. In the remainder of this chapter, I lay out a case for this claim. 

C is a common cause of A and B when C causes both A and B but there is no causal relation between A and B. For example, a rock thrown into the center of a pool (Q causes a wave to hit at point a and at point b at time t. The worry is that the counterfactual i(A had not occurred, then B would not have occurred may appear to be true. In fact, I think that in ordinary language this counterfactual is plausibly tme in the situation 1 described. But recall that the characterization of causation as dependence involves a very particular way of evaluating counterfactuals. On that way this counterfactual is false since the world in which a small violation of law occurs just before r that leads to A not occurring but leaves all else the same, including B, is a more similar world to the actual world than the world that also leads to the wave not hitting b at t. Again, as in the backtracking case, there may be systems that are set up so that one does obtain counterfactual dependence between events that are effects of a common cause. But this won t occur with respect to mental events and their putative effects. 

In the context of medical causation. Sir Austin Bradford Hill, suggested in 1965 that to imply causation from the observation of association we should consider its (1) strength, (2) consistency, (3) specificity - the restriction to specific conditions, (4) temporality - the order of events, (5) dose-response relationship, (6) theoretical plausibility, and (7) coherence - the consistency with other related phenomena. Although these guidelines were presented in the context of medicine and epidemiology, it would be very usefiil to keep these necessary conditions for causality in mind when evaluating crash causation on the basis of statistical associations. 

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