Answers at Gunpoint: On Livengood and Sytsma’s Revolver Case

Alexander Max Bauer,Jan Romann

doi:10.1017/psa.2021.21

Alexander Max Bauer, Jan Romann

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2021.21

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Abstract

AbstractJonathan Livengood and Justin Sytsma have published a series of studies on “Actual Causation and Compositionality,” in which they investigate causal attributions of laypeople. We use one of their vignettes to follow up on their research. Our findings cast doubt on their conclusion that ordinary causal attributions tend to violate the compositionality constraint if one looks at cases in which someone is responsible for an effect by way of an intermediary that does not share in the responsibility.

Highlights

Jonathan Livengood and Justin Sytsma have published a series of studies in “Actual Causation and Compositionality.” Theories of actual causation, they argue, often at least implicitly endorse a so-called compositionality constraint: Imagine that someone, let’s name him Alrik, set up a row of domino tiles
The same holds true for the statements “Igniting the gun powder caused the death of Brad” (D/H: V 756; p 0:01; Δ 0:2890:032; 0:509), “The explosion of the gun powder caused the death of Brad” (E/H: V 780; p 0:02; Δ 0:3270:065; 0:547), “The bullet being driven from the gun caused the death of Brad” (F/H: V 772; p < 0:001, Δ 0:2880:032; 0:509), and “The bullet hitting Brad in the head caused the death of Brad” (G/H: V 1053; p < 0:001; Δ 0:7120:495; 0:845)
Our findings allow for the conjecture that it might be a confusion of actual causation and responsibility that lies behind the surprising findings of Livengood and Sytsma

Summary

Introduction

Jonathan Livengood and Justin Sytsma have published a series of studies in “Actual Causation and Compositionality.” Theories of actual causation, they argue, often at least implicitly endorse a so-called compositionality constraint: Imagine that someone, let’s name him Alrik, set up a row of domino tiles. Every intermediary d is itself an effect of c and a cause of e (Livengood and Sytsma 2020, 44) This compositionality constraint intuitively seems to be a reasonable desideratum for any adequate theory of actual causation. [O]rdinary causal attributions will tend to violate the compositionality constraint for cases in which someone or something is responsible for an effect by way of an intermediary that does not share in the responsibility To test this hypothesis, they set up a number of vignette studies, each introducing a short story that contains information on certain agents and their intentions, as well as a causal sequence of events, containing some intermediaries. Similar results were obtained in the other studies Livengood and Sytsma report on They found that most causal attributions by laypeople seem to violate the compositionality constraint across the vignettes they tested.

Livengood and Sytsma’s Revolver Case

The Revolver Case reconsidered

Conclusion

This could also be understood loosely as a framing effect