Probabilistic Causation

Abstract

This chapter will explore a variety of projects that aim to characterize causal concepts using probability. These are, somewhat arbitrarily, divided into four categories. First, a tradition within philosophy that has aimed to define, or at least constrain, causation in terms of conditional probability is discussed. Secondly, the use of causal Bayes nets to represent causal relations, to facilitate inferences from probabilities to causal relations, and to ‘identify’ causal quantities in probabilistic terms is discussed. Thirdly, efforts to measure causal strength in probabilistic terms are reviewed, with particular attention to the significance of these measures in the context of epidemiology. Finally, attempts are discussed to analyze the relation of ‘actual causation’ (sometimes called ‘singular causation’) using probability.