Pragmatic Explanations of the Proportionality Constraint on Causation
This chapter examines the case for a proportionality constraint on causation. A range of examples seem to show that we prefer causes to be proportional to their effects. To use Yablo and Williamson’s example, when investigating causes of an injury we tend to judge ‘being hit by a red bus’ to be too specific, ‘being hit’ to be too general, and ‘being hit by a bus’ to be about right. In this chapter, some pragmatic explanations of this preference are presented and compared to each other. It is then argued that a version of a contrastivist approach to causation gives the best explanation. Some consequences for mental causation and causal claims at different levels are also discussed.
1973 ◽
Vol 31
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pp. 150-151
1978 ◽
Vol 36
(2)
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pp. 88-89
2016 ◽
Vol 43
(Spring)
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pp. 1-10
Keyword(s):
2012 ◽
Vol 11
(1)
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pp. 7-19
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Keyword(s):