•  310
    In an illuminating article, Claus Beisbart argues that the recently-popular thesis that the probabilities of statistical mechanics (SM) are Best System chances runs into a serious obstacle: there is no one axiomatization of SM that is robustly best, as judged by the theoretical virtues of simplicity, strength, and fit. Beisbart takes this 'no clear winner' result to imply that the probabilities yielded by the competing axiomatizations simply fail to count as Best System chances. In this reply, w…Read more
  •  34
    Causation
    Cambridge University Press. 2021.
    This Element provides an accessible introduction to the contemporary philosophy of causation. It introduces the reader to central concepts and distinctions and to key tools drawn upon in the contemporary debate. The aim is to fuel the reader's interest in causation, and to equip them with the resources to contribute to the debate themselves. The discussion is historically informed and outward-looking. 'Historically informed' in that concise accounts of key historical contributions to the underst…Read more
  •  32
    Imprecise Chance and the Best System Analysis
    Philosophers' Imprint 19. 2019.
    Much recent philosophical attention has been devoted to the prospects of the Best System Analysis of chance for yielding high-level chances, including statistical mechanical and special science chances. But a foundational worry about the BSA lurks: there don’t appear to be uniquely correct measures of the degree to which a system exhibits theoretical virtues, such as simplicity, strength, and fit. Nor does there appear to be a uniquely correct exchange rate at which the theoretical virtues trade…Read more
  •  33
    Is There High-Level Causation?
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 4. 2017.
  •  43
    Is There High-Level Causation?
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 4. 2017.
  •  54
    A Proposed Probabilistic Extension of the Halpern and Pearl Definition of ‘Actual Cause’
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (4): 1061-1124. 2017.
    ABSTRACT Joseph Halpern and Judea Pearl draw upon structural equation models to develop an attractive analysis of ‘actual cause’. Their analysis is designed for the case of deterministic causation. I show that their account can be naturally extended to provide an elegant treatment of probabilistic causation. 1Introduction 2Preemption 3Structural Equation Models 4The Halpern and Pearl Definition of ‘Actual Cause’ 5Preemption Again 6The Probabilistic Case 7Probabilistic Causal Models 8A Proposed P…Read more
  •  27
    The claim for patient choice and equity
    with D. A. Barr and D. Blane
    Journal of Medical Ethics 34 (4): 271-274. 2008.
    Recently, commentators close to and within the UK government have claimed that patient choice can increase equity in the context of the National Health Service. This article critically examines the basis for this claim through analysis of recent speeches and publications authored by secretaries of state for health and their policy advisers. It is concluded that this claim has not developed prospectively from an analysis of the causes of healthcare inequity, or even with a consistent normative de…Read more
  •  35
    Much recent philosophical attention has been devoted to variants on the Best System Analysis of laws and chance. In particular, philosophers have been interested in the prospects of such Best System Analyses for yielding *high-level* laws and chances. Nevertheless, a foundational worry about BSAs lurks: there do not appear to be uniquely appropriate measures of the degree to which a system exhibits theoretical virtues, such as simplicity and strength. Nor does there appear to be a uniquely corre…Read more
  •  745
    An influential tradition in the philosophy of causation has it that all token causal facts are, or are reducible to, facts about difference-making. Challenges to this tradition have typically focused on pre-emption cases, in which a cause apparently fails to make a difference to its effect. However, a novel challenge to the difference-making approach has recently been issued by Alyssa Ney. Ney defends causal foundationalism, which she characterizes as the thesis that facts about difference-makin…Read more
  •  34
    The discovery of high-level causal relations seems a central activity of the special sciences. Those same sciences are less successful in formulating strict laws. If causation must be underwritten by strict laws, we are faced with a puzzle, which might be dubbed the 'no strict laws' problem for high-level causation. Attempts have been made to dissolve this problem by showing that leading theories of causation do not in fact require that causation be underwritten by strict laws. But this conclusi…Read more
  •  1005
    Relativity, Quantum Entanglement, Counterfactuals, and Causation
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66 (1): 45-67. 2015.
    We investigate whether standard counterfactual analyses of causation imply that the outcomes of space-like separated measurements on entangled particles are causally related. Although it has sometimes been claimed that standard CACs imply such a causal relation, we argue that a careful examination of David Lewis’s influential counterfactual semantics casts doubt on this. We discuss ways in which Lewis’s semantics and standard CACs might be extended to the case of space-like correlations
  •  1241
    Deterministic chance
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61 (1). 2010.
    I argue that there are non-trivial objective chances (that is, objective chances other than 0 and 1) even in deterministic worlds. The argument is straightforward. I observe that there are probabilistic special scientific laws even in deterministic worlds. These laws project non-trivial probabilities for the events that they concern. And these probabilities play the chance role and so should be regarded as chances as opposed, for example, to epistemic probabilities or credences. The supposition …Read more
  •  483
    A Proposed Probabilistic Extension of the Halpern and Pearl Definition of ‘Actual Cause’
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 68 (4): 1061-1124. 2017.
    In their article 'Causes and Explanations: A Structural-Model Approach. Part I: Causes', Joseph Halpern and Judea Pearl draw upon structural equation models to develop an attractive analysis of 'actual cause'. Their analysis is designed for the case of deterministic causation. I show that their account can be naturally extended to provide an elegant treatment of probabilistic causation.
  •  601
    Of Miracles and Interventions
    Erkenntnis 78 (1): 43-64. 2013.
    In Making Things Happen, James Woodward influentially combines a causal modeling analysis of actual causation with an interventionist semantics for the counterfactuals encoded in causal models. This leads to circularities, since interventions are defined in terms of both actual causation and interventionist counterfactuals. Circularity can be avoided by instead combining a causal modeling analysis with a semantics along the lines of that given by David Lewis, on which counterfactuals are to be e…Read more
  •  676
    An actual cause of some token effect is itself a token event that helped to bring about that effect. The notion of an actual cause is different from that of a potential cause – for example a pre-empted backup – which had the capacity to bring about the effect, but which wasn't in fact operative on the occasion in question. Sometimes actual causes are also distinguished from mere background conditions: as when we judge that the struck match was a cause of the fire, while the presence of oxygen wa…Read more
  •  336
    D. H. MELLOR The Matter of Chance
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62 (4): 899-906. 2011.
    Though almost forty years have elapsed since its first publication, it is a testament to the philosophical acumen of its author that 'The Matter of Chance' contains much that is of continued interest to the philosopher of science. Mellor advances a sophisticated propensity theory of chance, arguing that this theory makes better sense than its rivals (in particular subjectivist, frequentist, logical and classical theories) of ‘what professional usage shows to be thought true of chance’ (p. xi) – …Read more
  •  290
    Ceteris Paribus Laws and Minutis Rectis Laws
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 93 (2): 274-305. 2016.
    Special science generalizations admit of exceptions. Among the class of non-exceptionless special science generalizations, I distinguish minutis rectis generalizations from the more familiar category of ceteris paribus generalizations. I argue that the challenges involved in showing that mr generalizations can play the law role are underappreciated, and quite different from those involved in showing that cp generalizations can do so. I outline a strategy for meeting the challenges posed by mr ge…Read more
  •  627
    A Probabilistic Analysis of Causation
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62 (2): 343-392. 2011.
    The starting point in the development of probabilistic analyses of token causation has usually been the naïve intuition that, in some relevant sense, a cause raises the probability of its effect. But there are well-known examples both of non-probability-raising causation and of probability-raising non-causation. Sophisticated extant probabilistic analyses treat many such cases correctly, but only at the cost of excluding the possibilities of direct non-probability-raising causation, failures of …Read more
  •  540
    Getting Causes from Powers, by Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum (review)
    Mind 121 (484): 1099-1106. 2012.
    In this book, Mumford and Anjum advance a theory of causation based on a metaphysics of powers. The book is for the most part lucidly written, and contains some interesting contributions: in particular on the necessary connection between cause and effect and on the perceivability of the causal relation. I do, however, have reservations about some of the book’s central theses: in particular, that cause and effect are simultaneous, and that causes can fruitfully be represented as vectors
  •  205
    Actual causes - e.g. Suzy's being exposed to asbestos - often bring about their effects - e.g. Suzy's suffering mesothelioma - probabilistically. I use probabilistic causal models to tackle one of the thornier difficulties for traditional accounts of probabilistic actual causation: namely probabilistic preemption.