Abstract Objects in the Causal Order

<p>Abstract entities have long been viewed as entities that lack causal powers; that is, they cannot be constitutive of causes or effects. This thesis aims to reject this claim and argue that abstract objects are indeed part of the causal order. I will call this thesis ‘AOCO’ for short. In the first chapter I argue that other philosophers have committed themselves to the claim that some abstract objects have been caused to come into existence. In the second chapter, I argue that the best solution to Benacerraf’s problem is to concede that abstract objects have a causal influence on what we believe. In the third chapter I examine and evaluate objections to AOCO.</p>

Abstract Objects in the Causal Order

<p>Abstract entities have long been viewed as entities that lack causal powers; that is, they cannot be constitutive of causes or effects. This thesis aims to reject this claim and argue that abstract objects are indeed part of the causal order. I will call this thesis ‘AOCO’ for short. In the first chapter I argue that other philosophers have committed themselves to the claim that some abstract objects have been caused to come into existence. In the second chapter, I argue that the best solution to Benacerraf’s problem is to concede that abstract objects have a causal influence on what we believe. In the third chapter I examine and evaluate objections to AOCO.</p>

The Roots of Occasionalism? Causation, Metaphysical Dependence, and Soul-Body Relations in Augustine

It has long been thought that Augustine holds that corporeal objects cannot act upon incorporeal souls. However, precisely how and why Augustine imposes limitations upon the causal powers of corporeal objects remains obscure. In this paper, the author clarifies Augustine’s views about the causal and dependence relations between body and soul. He argues that, contrary to what is often thought, Augustine allows that corporeal objects do act upon souls and merely rules out that corporeal objects exercise a particular kind of causal power (that of efficient or sustaining causes). He clarifies how Augustine conceives of the kind of causal influence exercised by souls and bodies.

THE CORPORATE GROUP: SYSTEM, DESIGN AND RESPONSIBILITY

Lungowe v Vedanta Resources plc presages more liberal criteria for determining when a parent company owes a duty of care to third parties injured by subsidiary activities. It invokes systems language and points to potential parent company liability for omissions in managing the group. This article develops these ideas. It portrays the corporate group in systems-managerial terms. The parent creates group-wide structures and deploys management strategies and integrating mechanisms that facilitate achievement of its purposes. It has a substantial causal influence upon subsidiary acts and omissions. Prima facie the parent cannot avoid extended liability claims by hiding behind the “pure omissions” rule.

Reconsidering the Link Between Self-Reported Personality Traits and Political Preferences

Research on personality and political preferences generally assumes unidirectional causal influence of the former on the latter. However, there are reasons to believe that citizens might adopt what they perceive as politically congruent psychological attributes, or at least be motivated to view themselves as having these attributes. We test this hypothesis in a series of studies. Results of preregistered panel analyses in three countries suggest reciprocal causal influences between self-reported personality traits and political preferences. In two two-wave survey experiments, a subtle political prime at the beginning of a survey resulted in self-reported personality traits that were more aligned with political preferences gauged in a previous assessment. We discuss how concurrent assessment within the context of a political survey might overestimate the causal influence of personality traits on political preferences and how political polarization might be exacerbated by political opponents adopting different personality characteristics or self-perceptions thereof.

Part VIII Compliance, Implementation, and Effectiveness, Ch.51 Compliance Theory

This chapter describes the conceptual and theoretical challenges raised by efforts to understand international environmental agreement (IEA) compliance and effectiveness. Both compliance and non-compliance can arise for reasons unrelated to an IEA's causal influence. Equating IEA compliance (comparing state behaviours to legal standards) with IEA influence can overstate the latter by conflating IEA-induced compliance and ‘coincidental’ compliance, in which state behaviours meet IEA standards for reasons unrelated to the IEA. States may negotiate IEA obligations that require no change in their behaviours, may comply because doing so is cheaper than violation, or may lack the capacity to violate IEA rules. Equating non-compliance with a lack of IEA influence also misleads because it ignores the fact that IEAs can lead states to take well-intended actions that fall short of legal standards, as when IEAs set ambitious obligations or exogenous changes put compliance out of reach. Indeed, IEAs with aggressive obligations may be highly effective despite having high non-compliance rates. Thus, the chapter argues that investigations of compliance improve to the extent that scholars use them to identify the causal influence of IEAs rather than a causal assessment of rule-following.

Causal influence in operational probabilistic theories

We study the relation of causal influence between input systems of a reversible evolution and its output systems, in the context of operational probabilistic theories. We analyse two different definitions that are borrowed from the literature on quantum theory—where they are equivalent. One is the notion based on signalling, and the other one is the notion used to define the neighbourhood of a cell in a quantum cellular automaton. The latter definition, that we adopt in the general scenario, turns out to be strictly weaker than the former: it is possible for a system to have causal influence on another one without signalling to it. Remarkably, the counterexample comes from classical theory, where the proposed notion of causal influence determines a redefinition of the neighbourhood of a cell in cellular automata. We stress that, according to our definition, it is impossible anyway to have causal influence in the absence of an interaction, e.g. in a Bell-like scenario. We study various conditions for causal influence, and introduce the feature that we call no interaction without disturbance, under which we prove that signalling and causal influence coincide. The proposed definition has interesting consequences on the analysis of causal networks, and leads to a revision of the notion of neighbourhood for classical cellular automata, clarifying a puzzle regarding their quantisation that apparently makes the neighbourhood larger than the original one.

The Homocysteine and Metabolic Syndrome: A Mendelian Randomization Study

Homocysteine (Hcy) is well known to be increased in the metabolic syndrome (MetS) incidence. However, it remains unclear whether the relationship is causal or not. Recently, Mendelian Randomization (MR) has been popularly used to assess the causal influence. In this study, we adopted MR to investigate the causal influence of Hcy on MetS in adults using three independent cohorts. We considered one-sample MR and two-sample MR. We analyzed one-sample MR in 5902 individuals (2090 MetS cases and 3812 controls) from the KARE and two-sample MR from the HEXA (676 cases and 3017 controls) and CAVAS (1052 cases and 764 controls) datasets to evaluate whether genetically increased Hcy level influences the risk of MetS. In observation studies, the odds of MetS increased with higher Hcy concentrations (odds ratio (OR) 1.17, 95%CI 1.12–1.22, p < 0.01). One-sample MR was performed using two-stage least-squares regression, with an MTHFR C677T and weighted Hcy generic risk score as an instrument. Two-sample MR was performed with five genetic variants (rs12567136, rs1801133, rs2336377, rs1624230, and rs1836883) by GWAS data as the instrumental variables. For sensitivity analysis, weighted median and MR–Egger regression were used. Using one-sample MR, we found an increased risk of MetS (OR 2.07 per 1-SD Hcy increase). Two-sample MR supported that increased Hcy was significantly associated with increased MetS risk by using the inverse variance weighted (IVW) method (beta 0.723, SE 0.119, and p < 0.001), the weighted median regression method (beta 0.734, SE 0.097, and p < 0.001), and the MR–Egger method (beta 2.073, SE 0.843, and p = 0.014) in meta-analysis. The MR–Egger slope showed no evidence of pleiotropic effects (intercept −0.097, p = 0.107). In conclusion, this study represented the MR approach and elucidates the significant relationship between Hcy and the risk of MetS in the Korean population.