•  1499
    A Model-Invariant Theory of Causation
    Philosophical Review 130 (1): 45-96. 2021.
    I provide a theory of causation within the causal modeling framework. In contrast to most of its predecessors, this theory is model-invariant in the following sense: if the theory says that C caused (didn't cause) E in a causal model, M, then it will continue to say that C caused (didn't cause) E once we've removed an inessential variable from M. I suggest that, if this theory is true, then we should understand a cause as something which transmits deviant or non-inertial behavior to its effect.
  •  1292
    Local and global deference
    Philosophical Studies 180 (9): 2753-2770. 2023.
    A norm of local expert deference says that your credence in an arbitrary proposition A, given that the expert's probability for A is n, should be n. A norm of global expert deference says that your credence in A, given that the expert's entire probability function is E, should be E(A). Gaifman (1988) taught us that these two norms are not equivalent. Stalnaker (2019) conjectures that Gaifman's example is "a loophole". Here, I substantiate Stalnaker's suspicions by providing characterisation t…Read more
  •  1148
    A subjectivist’s guide to deterministic chance
    Synthese 198 (5): 4339-4372. 2021.
    I present an account of deterministic chance which builds upon the physico-mathematical approach to theorizing about deterministic chance known as 'the method of arbitrary functions'. This approach promisingly yields deterministic probabilities which align with what we take the chances to be---it tells us that there is approximately a 1/2 probability of a spun roulette wheel stopping on black, and approximately a 1/2 probability of a flipped coin landing heads up---but it requires some probabili…Read more
  •  1139
    Causal counterfactuals without miracles or backtracking
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 107 (2): 439-469. 2022.
    If the laws are deterministic, then standard theories of counterfactuals are forced to reject at least one of the following conditionals: 1) had you chosen differently, there would not have been a violation of the laws of nature; and 2) had you chosen differently, the initial conditions of the universe would not have been different. On the relevant readings—where we hold fixed factors causally independent of your choice—both of these conditionals appear true. And rejecting either one leads to tr…Read more
  •  966
    Decision and foreknowledge
    Noûs 58 (1): 77-105. 2024.
    My topic is how to make decisions when you possess foreknowledge of the consequences of your choice. Many have thought that these kinds of decisions pose a distinctive and novel problem for causal decision theory (CDT). My thesis is that foreknowledge poses no new problems for CDT. Some of the purported problems are not problems. Others are problems, but they are not problems for CDT. Rather, they are problems for our theories of subjunctive supposition. Others are problems, but they are n…Read more
  •  934
    The Causal Decision Theorist's Guide to Managing the News
    Journal of Philosophy 117 (3): 117-149. 2020.
    According to orthodox causal decision theory, performing an action can give you information about factors outside of your control, but you should not take this information into account when deciding what to do. Causal decision theorists caution against an irrational policy of 'managing the news'. But, by providing information about factors outside of your control, performing an act can give you two, importantly different, kinds of good news. It can tell you that the world in which you find your…Read more
  •  924
    Updating for Externalists
    Noûs 55 (3): 487-516. 2021.
    The externalist says that your evidence could fail to tell you what evidence you do or not do have. In that case, it could be rational for you to be uncertain about what your evidence is. This is a kind of uncertainty which orthodox Bayesian epistemology has difficulty modeling. For, if externalism is correct, then the orthodox Bayesian learning norms of conditionalization and reflection are inconsistent with each other. I recommend that an externalist Bayesian reject conditionalization. In its …Read more
  •  840
    Diachronic Dutch Books and Evidential Import
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 99 (1): 49-80. 2019.
    A handful of well-known arguments (the 'diachronic Dutch book arguments') rely upon theorems establishing that, in certain circumstances, you are immune from sure monetary loss (you are not 'diachronically Dutch bookable') if and only if you adopt the strategy of conditionalizing (or Jeffrey conditionalizing) on whatever evidence you happen to receive. These theorems require non-trivial assumptions about which evidence you might acquire---in the case of conditionalization, the assumption is that…Read more
  •  776
    How to Learn from Theory-Dependent Evidence; or Commutativity and Holism: A Solution for Conditionalizers
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 65 (3): 493-519. 2014.
    Weisberg ([2009]) provides an argument that neither conditionalization nor Jeffrey conditionalization is capable of accommodating the holist’s claim that beliefs acquired directly from experience can suffer undercutting defeat. I diagnose this failure as stemming from the fact that neither conditionalization nor Jeffrey conditionalization give any advice about how to rationally respond to theory-dependent evidence, and I propose a novel updating procedure that does tell us how to respond to evid…Read more
  •  718
    Escaping the Cycle
    Mind 131 (521): 99-127. 2022.
    I present a decision problem in which causal decision theory appears to violate the independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) and normal-form extensive-form equivalence (NEE). I show that these violations lead to exploitable behavior and long-run poverty. These consequences appear damning, but I urge caution. This decision should lead causalists to a better understanding of what it takes for a decision between some collection of options to count as a subdecision of a decision between a …Read more
  •  683
    Newcomb’s Problem, Arif Ahmed (editor). Cambridge University Press, 2018, 233 pages (review)
    Economics and Philosophy 36 (1): 171-176. 2020.
    Newcomb’s Problem, Arif Ahmed (editor). Cambridge University Press, 2018, 233 pages.
  •  623
    Indifference to Anti-Humean Chances
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 52 (5): 485-501. 2022.
    An indifference principle says that your credences should be distributed uniformly over each of the possibilities you recognise. A chance deference principle says that your credences should be aligned with the chances. My thesis is that, if we are anti-Humeans about chance, then these two principles are incompatible. Anti-Humeans think that it is possible for the actual frequencies to depart from the chances. So long as you recognise possibilities like this, you cannot both spread your credenc…Read more
  •  574
    A theory of structural determination
    Philosophical Studies 173 (1): 159-186. 2016.
    While structural equations modeling is increasingly used in philosophical theorizing about causation, it remains unclear what it takes for a particular structural equations model to be correct. To the extent that this issue has been addressed, the consensus appears to be that it takes a certain family of causal counterfactuals being true. I argue that this account faces difficulties in securing the independent manipulability of the structural determination relations represented in a correct stru…Read more
  •  562
    The Emergence of Causation
    Journal of Philosophy 112 (6): 281-308. 2014.
    Several philosophers have embraced the view that high-level events—events like Zimbabwe's monetary policy and its hyper-inflation—are causally related if their corresponding low-level, fundamental physical events are causally related. I dub the view which denies this without denying that high-level events are ever causally related causal emergentism. Several extant philosophical theories of causality entail causal emergentism, while others are inconsistent with the thesis. I illustrate this with…Read more
  •  550
    Two-Dimensional De Se Chance Deference
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    Principles of chance deference face two kinds of problems. In the first place, they face difficulties with a priori knowable contingencies. In the second place, they face difficulties in cases where you've lost track of the time. I provide a principle of chance deference which handles these problem cases. This principle has a surprising consequence for Adam Elga's Sleeping Beauty Puzzle.
  •  525
    No one can serve two epistemic masters
    Philosophical Studies 175 (10): 2389-2398. 2018.
    Consider two epistemic experts—for concreteness, let them be two weather forecasters. Suppose that you aren’t certain that they will issue identical forecasts, and you would like to proportion your degrees of belief to theirs in the following way: first, conditional on either’s forecast of rain being x, you’d like your own degree of belief in rain to be x. Secondly, conditional on them issuing different forecasts of rain, you’d like your own degree of belief in rain to be some weighted average o…Read more
  •  478
    How to Trace a Causal Process
    Philosophical Perspectives 36 (1): 95-117. 2022.
    According to the theory developed here, we may trace out the processes emanating from a cause in such a way that any consequence lying along one of these processes counts as an effect of the cause. This theory gives intuitive verdicts in a diverse range of problem cases from the literature. Its claims about causation will never be retracted when we include additional variables in our model. And it validates some plausible principles about causation, including Sartorio's ‘Causes as Difference Mak…Read more
  •  428
    The Sure Thing Principle Leads to Instability
    Philosophical Quarterly. forthcoming.
    Orthodox causal decision theory is unstable. Its advice changes as you make up your mind about what you will do. Several have objected to this kind of instability and explored stable alternatives. Here, I'll show that explorers in search of stability must part with a vestige of their homeland. There is no plausible stable decision theory which satisfies Savage's Sure Thing Principle. So those in search of stability must learn to live without it.
  •  406
    Principles of expert deference say that you should align your credences with those of an expert. This expert could be your doctor, the objective chances, or your future self, after you've learnt something new. These kinds of principles face difficulties in cases in which you are uncertain of the truth-conditions of the thoughts in which you invest credence, as well as cases in which the thoughts have different truth-conditions for you and the expert. For instance, you shouldn't defer to your…Read more
  •  389
    Learning and Value Change
    Philosophers' Imprint 19 1--22. 2019.
    Accuracy-first accounts of rational learning attempt to vindicate the intuitive idea that, while rationally-formed belief need not be true, it is nevertheless likely to be true. To this end, they attempt to show that the Bayesian's rational learning norms are a consequence of the rational pursuit of accuracy. Existing accounts fall short of this goal, for they presuppose evidential norms which are not and cannot be vindicated in terms of the single-minded pursuit of accuracy. I propose an alt…Read more
  •  359
    It Can Be Irrational to Knowingly Choose the Best
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    Jack Spencer argues we should reject a decision rule called MaxRat because it's incompatible with this principle: If you know that you will choose an option, x, and you know that x is better than every other option available to you, then it is permissible for you to choose x. I agree with Spencer that defenders of MaxRat should reject this principle. However, I disagree insofar as he suggests that he and orthodox causalists are in a position to accept it. Both orthodox CDT and Spencer's own theo…Read more
  •  352
    Riches and Rationality
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 99 (1): 114-129. 2021.
    A one-boxer, Erica, and a two-boxer, Chloe, engage in a familiar debate. The debate begins with Erica asking Chloe: ‘If you’re so smart, then why ain’cha rich?’. As the debate progresses, Chloe is led to endorse a novel causalist theory of rational choice. This new theory allows Chloe to forge a connection between rational choice and long-run riches. In brief: Chloe concludes that it is not long-run wealth but rather long-run wealth creation which is symptomatic of rationality.
  •  258
    Counterfactual Decision Theory Is Causal Decision Theory
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 105 (1): 115-156. 2024.
    The role of causation and counterfactuals in causal decision theory is vexed and disputed. Recently, Brian Hedden (2023) argues that we should abandon causal decision theory in favour of an alternative: counterfactual decision theory. I argue that, pace Hedden, counterfactual decision theory is not a competitor to, but rather a version of, causal decision theory – the most popular version by far. I provide textual evidence that the founding fathers of causal decision theory (Stalnaker, Gibbard, …Read more
  •  230
    A Variety of Causes (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. 2022.
  •  197
    Instrumental Divergence
    Philosophical Studies. forthcoming.
    The thesis of instrumental convergence holds that a wide range of ends have common means: for instance, self preservation, desire preservation, self improvement, and resource acquisition. Bostrom contends that instrumental convergence gives us reason to think that "the default outcome of the creation of machine superintelligence is existential catastrophe". I use the tools of decision theory to investigate whether this thesis is true. I find that, even if intrinsic desires are randomly select…Read more
  •  103
    The Metaphysics of Causation
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2022.
    Consider the following claims: 1. The drought caused the famine. 2. Drowsy driving causes crashes. 3. How much I water my plant influences how tall it grows. 4. How much novocaine a patient receives affects how much pain they will feel during dental surgery. The metaphysics of causation asks questions about what it takes for claims like these to be true—what kind of relation the claims are about, and in virtue of what these relations obtain.
  •  81
    I argue for a connection between two debates in the philosophy of probability. On the one hand, there is disagreement about conditional probability. Is it to be defined in terms of unconditional probability, or should we instead take conditional probability as the primitive notion? On the other hand, there is disagreement about how additive probability is. Is it merely finitely additive, or is it additionally countably additive? My thesis is that, if conditional probability is primitive, then …Read more