Mental causation, compatibilism and counterfactuals

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dwayne Moore
Keyword(s):  
Mental Causation ◽  
Causal Exclusion ◽  
Behavioural Effect ◽  
Exclusion Problem

AbstractAccording to proponents of the causal exclusion problem, there cannot be a sufficient physical cause and a distinct mental cause of the same piece of behaviour. Increasingly, the causal exclusion problem is circumvented via this compatibilist reasoning: a sufficient physical cause of the behavioural effect necessitates the mental cause of the behavioural effect, so the effect has a sufficient physical cause and a mental cause as well. In this paper, I argue that this compatibilist reply fails to resolve the causal exclusion problem.

scholarly journals Double Prevention and Mental Causation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sean Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Causation ◽  
Causal Exclusion ◽  
Exclusion Problem ◽  
Mental Events

<p>Double prevention is often mentioned in the causation literature but is not often discussed in depth. In this thesis my primary goal is to take a deep look at double prevention and evaluate one place it has been put to work. Briefly, a case of double prevention is a case where one event prevents another from preventing a third. While we have strong intuitions that such cases should be causally relevant at least, there is debate over whether they should be counted as fully causal. Sophie Gibb (2013) puts this concept to work by arguing that mental events act as double preventers to physical events. She frames this as an argument against the causal exclusion problem. I propose my own adaption of Gibb’s proposal which does not rest on the controversial premises the original does and as such has a wider appeal.</p>

scholarly journals The Causal Efficacy of Consciousness

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (8) ◽  
pp. 823
Author(s):  
Matthew Owen
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Mental Causation ◽  
Causal Efficacy ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Causal Exclusion ◽  
Closure Principle ◽  
Exclusion Problem ◽  
Pairing Problem ◽  
Causation Analysis ◽  
Integrated Information Theory

Mental causation is vitally important to the integrated information theory (IIT), which says consciousness exists since it is causally efficacious. While it might not be directly apparent, metaphysical commitments have consequential entailments concerning the causal efficacy of consciousness. Commitments regarding the ontology of consciousness and the nature of causation determine which problem(s) a view of consciousness faces with respect to mental causation. Analysis of mental causation in contemporary philosophy of mind has brought several problems to the fore: the alleged lack of psychophysical laws, the causal exclusion problem, and the causal pairing problem. This article surveys the threat each problem poses to IIT based on the different metaphysical commitments IIT theorists might make. Distinctions are made between what I call reductive IIT, non-reductive IIT, and non-physicalist IIT, each of which make differing metaphysical commitments regarding the ontology of consciousness and nature of causation. Subsequently, each problem pertaining to mental causation is presented and its threat, or lack thereof, to each version of IIT is considered. While the lack of psychophysical laws appears unthreatening for all versions, reductive IIT and non-reductive IIT are seriously threatened by the exclusion problem, and it is difficult to see how they could overcome it while maintaining a commitment to the causal closure principle. Yet, non-physicalist IIT denies the principle but is therefore threatened by the pairing problem, to which I have elsewhere provided a response that is briefly outlined here. This problem also threatens non-reductive IIT, but unlike non-physicalist IIT it lacks an evident response. The ultimate aim of this survey is to provide a roadmap for IIT theorists through the maze of mental causation, by clarifying which commitments lead to which problems, and how they might or might not be overcome. Such a survey can aid IIT theorists as they further develop and hone the metaphysical commitments of IIT.

scholarly journals Double Prevention and Mental Causation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Sean Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Mental Causation ◽  
Causal Exclusion ◽  
Exclusion Problem ◽  
Mental Events

<p>Double prevention is often mentioned in the causation literature but is not often discussed in depth. In this thesis my primary goal is to take a deep look at double prevention and evaluate one place it has been put to work. Briefly, a case of double prevention is a case where one event prevents another from preventing a third. While we have strong intuitions that such cases should be causally relevant at least, there is debate over whether they should be counted as fully causal. Sophie Gibb (2013) puts this concept to work by arguing that mental events act as double preventers to physical events. She frames this as an argument against the causal exclusion problem. I propose my own adaption of Gibb’s proposal which does not rest on the controversial premises the original does and as such has a wider appeal.</p>

Restoring Mind-Brain Supervenience: A Proposal

1998 ◽  
pp. 136-142
Author(s):  
Robert G. Lantin
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Mental Causation ◽  
Brain State ◽  
Exclusion Problem ◽  
Purposive Behavior

In this paper I examine the claim that mental causation — at least for cases involving the production of purposive behavior — is possible only if ‘mind/brain supervenience’ obtains, and suggest that in spite of all the bad press it has received in recent years, mind/brain supervenience is still the best way for a physicalist to solve the ‘exclusion problem’ that plagues many accounts of mental causation. In section 3, I introduce a form of mind/brain supervenience that depends crucially on the idea that some brain state-types---namely, those involved in the production of purposive behavior---are nonlocally sensitive, where by ‘nonlocal sensitivity’ I mean cases where relevant causal histories and environmental circumstances effect a difference in some of an organism’s brain state-types intrinsic, causal properties. I will argue that such a mode of sensitivity of brain state-types offers the best way out of the exclusion problem for anyone convinced that mental state-types should be relationally individuated.

Determinables, Determinates, and Causal Relevance

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sven Walter
Keyword(s):  
Physical Properties ◽  
Mental Causation ◽  
Causal Exclusion ◽  
Causal Relevance ◽  
Exclusion Argument ◽  
The World ◽  
Mental Properties ◽  
Mental Events ◽  
Manifest Image

Mental causation, our mind's ability to causally affect the course of the world, is part and parcel of our ‘manifest image’ of the world. That there is mental causation is denied by virtually no one. How there can be such a thing as mental causation, however, is far from obvious. In recent years, discussions about the problem of mental causation have focused on Jaegwon Kim's so-called Causal Exclusion Argument, according to which mental events are ‘screened off’ or ‘preempted’ by physical events unless mental causation is a genuine case of overdetermination or mental properties are straightforwardly reducible to physical properties.

Mental Causation and the Agent-Exclusion Problem

Erkenntnis ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry Horgan
Keyword(s):  
Mental Causation ◽  
Exclusion Problem

scholarly journals Epiphenomenalism for Functionalists

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Beebee
Keyword(s):  
Functional Properties ◽  
Mental Causation ◽  
Natural Consequence ◽  
Causal Relevance ◽  
Exclusion Problem ◽  
Mental Properties

This chapter focuses on an assumption implicitly made by most recent attempts to solve the exclusion problem for mental causation, that mental (and so multiply realized) properties are ‘distinct existences’ from their alleged effects. Without that assumption, no such solution can work, since we have excellent grounds for thinking that there is no causation between entities that are not distinct from one another. But, assuming functionalism—which, after all, constitutes the grounds for thinking that mental properties are multiply realized in the first place—mental properties are not distinct from the effects to which they are alleged to bear causal relevance, since functional properties are defined in terms of the causal roles of their realizers. The chapter argues, however, that the natural consequence—epiphenomenalism with respect to mental properties—is not as problematic as many philosophers tend to assume.

scholarly journals Intervening in the Exclusion Argument

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Woodward
Keyword(s):  
Mental Causation ◽  
Causal Exclusion ◽  
Exclusion Argument

This chapter discusses Peter Menzies’ work on mental causation and the causal exclusion argument. It endorses Menzies’ claim that an interventionist account of causation can cast new light on this complex of issues, but diverges from Menzies’ position at several points, in particular in connection with the role of proportionality considerations in the characterization of causation. This chapter attempts to clarify Woodward’s views about mental causation and the exclusion argument, to respond to some recent criticisms of those views, and to contrast Woodward’s views with the somewhat different approach favored by Menzies. The differences between Woodward’s and Menzies’ views are traced in part to different assumptions about the semantics of counterfactuals.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document