(2023)Cite this article. (The case of Def 8 is entirely analogous.) Proponents of retributive justice hold (1) that those who commit a wrongful act morally deserve to be punished proportionately, (2) that it is intrinsically morally good if wrongdoers receive the punishment they deserve, and (3) that it is not permissible intentionally to punish the innocent (Walen, 2021). BJPS Review of Books. This immediately suggests that we should have intervened on Suzy in order to save the bottle. ), Conceptual ethics and conceptual engineering (pp. Cause without default. In particular, this holds if we choose \(X=x^{\prime }\). Alright but in all seriousness everyone Ive talked to has said to take it easy before law school because of how much of a challenge it is so dont push too hard! The test asks, "but for the existence of X, would Y have occurred?" In tort law, but-for causation is a prerequisite to liability in combination with proximate cause. Journal of A.I. Structural equations and causation. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. If we intervene on Suzy, the bottle will still be destroyed by Billy. But the challenge of purpose indicates that functional approaches are unlikely to provide a one-size-fits-all concept of actual causation. But whether they provide a sufficient basis for a reductive account of responsibility is questionable. Fruitfulness, in turn, depends on the particular context and goal of application. In this normalized scenario the short circuit is a difference-maker while the oxygen isnt. This discussion will suggest a potential revision of the concept. . Since we have (M,u)[X 1,A 0,Z2 0]Y =0, AC2(b) is not satisfied. Ergo, 4(1), 127. Then the result follows immediately from the observation that X = x is directly sufficient for N = n and either N = n is directly sufficient for Y = y or N = Y and n = y. Seemingly the central interests that justify having an entry on causation in the law in a philosophy encyclopedia are: to understand just what is the law's concept of causation, if it has one; to see how that concept compares to the concept of causation is use in science and in everyday life; and to examine what reason (s) there are justifying o. volume50,pages 13411374 (2021)Cite this article, A Correction to this article was published on 28 August 2021. Making things happen: a theory of causal explanation. Part I: Causes. (2005). This gives rise to what I call the challenge of purpose. Why think that claims of actual causation are at all relevant from the interventionist perspective? You may experience distress at the thought of getting rid of the items. If one aims to prevent the bottles shattering, Suzy is not a better target of intervention than Billy. I will thus connect the functional project to a recent revival of interest in Carnapian explication and discussions of conceptual engineering. . In order to have a counterfactual dependence of BS on BT, we need to set \(\vec {w}'\) such that \(ST=0\), \(SH=0\). Since X =1 is not weakly sufficient for Y =1, we need to include A =1 in the witness. But consider our example of late preemption. If N is not an ancestor of Y, it can be removed from N without consequence. American Philosophical Quarterly, 2(4), 261264. This means that (X = x,W = w) is directly sufficient for Y = y, and (W = w) is not directly sufficient for Y = y. (2016). In particular, we have that for all a (A) and all \(\mathbf {u} \in \mathcal{R} (\mathcal {U})\), (M,u)[X x,A a]N1 = n1. In my discussion I have focused on a scenario involving late preemption. Equations: Y = (X D) A, D = A. Vanderbilt Law Review, 54(3), 151. 4 I will discuss how the results of my approach affect definitions of actual causation that do not involve condition AC2(b). Our definition of actual causation reproduces this verdict only because \(A=0\) does not fulfil condition AC2(b). Middle English, borrowed from Anglo-French, borrowed from Latin causa "judicial proceedings, interests of one side in a judicial case, plea, pretext, ground of action, motive, reason," of uncertain origin, Middle English causen, borrowed from Anglo-French & Medieval Latin; Anglo-French causer, borrowed from Medieval Latin causre, causr "to plead, accuse, blame, serve as the cause of, occasion," going back to Latin causr "to plead an action in law, plead as an excuse," derivative of causa "judicial proceedings, plea, cause entry 1", 13th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a, 14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1. The actual cause of the accident The proximate cause of the accident In some situations, this is very straightforward because the same action is both the proximate and actual cause. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. Pearl, J. How to use factual in a sentence. In this scenario, Corleone's order is an actual cause of McCluskey's death; Barzini's order is not an actual cause, but merely a preempted backup. That is, in this regard knowledge of who, between Billy and Suzy, is the actual cause does not matter from the viewpoint of intervention and a concept that prioritizes Suzy seems to be questionable. That X is always a singleton is a direct consequence of the combination of Proposition 10 and Theorem 3. Assuming that the concept of actual causation has an important role to play in our practices of ascribing responsibility, what features should that concept of actual causation have in order to suit that purpose? In the normalized version of this scenario the bottle, supposedly, remains intact because neither Suzy nor Billy throw their stones. "but for" test 2. substantial factor test: Term. Say \(\mathbf {u}^{\prime }\) is a context such that \((M,\mathbf {u}^{\prime }) \models [\mathbf {W} \gets \mathbf {w}^{*}] Y \neq y\), and say \(x^{\prime }\) is the unique value such that \((M,\mathbf {u}^{\prime }) \models [\mathbf {W} \gets \mathbf {w}^{*}] X = x^{\prime }\). In legal contexts questions of causation are often addressed with the but-for test, which requires straightforward counterfactual dependence of the outcome on the actual cause. PubMedGoogle Scholar. It is clear that if we intervene on all of the root variables, they take over the role of the exogenous variables. Then it is easy to see that X =1 causes Y =1 according to all definitions here considered, except for Def 3. The actual cause is the shove. In his pioneering treatment of actual causation in the framework of causal models Pearl identifies actual causation as the "ultimate criterion [\(\dots\)] for determining legal responsibility" (2000, 309). For example, we can imagine a situation in which Billy does not hit the bottle, independently of Suzys actions (that is, we can choose \(\vec {W}=\vec {w'}\) such that \(BH=0\) is held fixed). The independent moral significance of wrongdoing. Oxford University Press. As with the third implication, assume that (X = x,W = w) is directly sufficient for Y = y, and there exists some \(x^{\prime }\) such that \((X=x^{\prime },\mathbf {W}=\mathbf {w}^{*})\) is not directly sufficient for Y = y. From this perspective the distinction between preempted and preempting factors is important, at least on a retributivist understanding of responsibility. These terms are often used interchangeably, and the distinctions between them are sometimes unclear. If either \((\mathbf {X_{2}}=\mathbf {x_{2}},\mathbf {W}=\mathbf {w}^{*})\) or \((\mathbf {X_{1}}=\mathbf {x_{1}},\mathbf {W}=\mathbf {w}^{*})\) is also sufficient for Y = y along N, then (X1 = x1,X2 = x2) is not minimal. Rose, D., & Danks, D. (2012). (Obviously the same reasoning applies to X2.) Actual Causation and the Challenge of Purpose Enno Fischer Erkenntnis ( 2023) Cite this article 1797 Accesses 12 Altmetric Metrics Abstract This paper explores the prospects of employing a functional approach in order to improve our concept of actual causation. If a party's right was technically violated but they suffered no harm or losses, a court may instead grant nominal damages. From this the result follows. So in order to evaluate whether a suggested revision of the concept of actual causation is successful, we have to refer to a particular goal in a particular context. We will see that each condition may under certain circumstances be motivated from this viewpoint except for condition AC2(b) (or other conditions that have been employed to delineate preempting and preempted factors in instances of late preemption). I take it to be an open question whether such a reductive account is feasible. In the normalized version of the situation there, supposedly, is oxygen but no short circuit and, hence, no fire. Retributivists often rely on direct intuitive support when they justify punishment. Then also \((M,\mathbf {u}^{\prime }) \models [X \gets x^{\prime },\mathbf {W} \gets \mathbf {w}^{*}] Y \neq y\), which is what remained to be shown. Causation and responsibility: An essay in law, morals, and metaphysics. According to Woodward, causal thinking can be understood as a "tool" or "technology" (2021, 30), and (like other tools and technologies) we can assess whether and to what degree it serves its purposes. Rosenberg, I., & Glymour, C. (2018). However, so is A =1, and therefore X =1 does not cause Y =1 according to Def 10. In that case, AC2(b) can never be satisfied unless A = . The Journal of Philosophy, 108(12), 670696. Folk intuitions of actual causation: A two-pronged debunking explanation. What is the cause in Causal Decision Theory. One such subset is the one containing just Y = y. Causality: models, reasoning, and inference, 2nd edn. Combining both claims, we can rewrite Modified HP as follows, which gives the desired result: There is a set \(\mathbf {W} \subseteq (\mathcal{V} - (\mathbf {X} \cup \{Y\}))\) and a setting \(\mathbf {x}^{\prime }\) of the variables in X such that \((\mathbf {X}=\mathbf {x}^{\prime }, \mathbf {W}=\mathbf {w}^{*})\) is not actually weakly sufficient for Y = y in (M,u). The transitivity and asymmetry of actual causation. Causal Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster Recent empirical work on the relationship between causal judgements and norms. actual cause | Wex | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute (2014). The rationale is that the causal process initiated by the actual cause should be sufficient to sustain the effect even if we apply the variation of \(\vec {W}\) (and any possible subset of it) that is required to unmask the counterfactual dependence.Footnote 6.