”More of a Cause’: Recent Work on Degrees of Causation and Responsibility

Philosophy Compass 13 (7):e12498 (2018)
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Abstract

It is often natural to compare two events by describing one as ‘more of a cause’ of some effect than the other. But what do such comparisons amount to, exactly? This paper aims to provide a guided tour of the recent literature on ‘degrees of causation’. Section 2 looks at what I call ‘dependence measures’, which arise from thinking of causes as difference‐makers. Section 3 looks at what I call ‘production measures’, which arise from thinking of causes as jointly sufficient for their effects. Finally, section 4 examines the important question of whether there is any sense in which an agent is more responsible for an outcome in virtue of her action being more of a cause of it. I describe a puzzle that emerges from this question, and explore various strategies for resolving it.

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Alex Kaiserman
University of Oxford

Citations of this work

Moral Luck.Dana K. Nelkin - forthcoming - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Metaphysics.Peter Van Inwagen, Meghan Sullivan & Sara Bernstein - 2023 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Causation comes in degrees.Huzeyfe Demirtas - 2022 - Synthese 200 (1):1-17.
Moral Responsibility is Not Proportionate to Causal Responsibility.Huzeyfe Demirtas - 2022 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 60 (4):570-591.

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References found in this work

Causation.David Lewis - 1973 - Journal of Philosophy 70 (17):556-567.
Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Foundations of Language 13 (1):145-151.
Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Philosophy of Science 42 (3):341-344.
Two concepts of causation.Ned Hall - 2004 - In John Collins, Ned Hall & Laurie Paul (eds.), Causation and Counterfactuals. MIT Press. pp. 225-276.

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