Abstract
In cases in which many causes together bring about an effect, it is common to select some as particularly important. Philosophers since Mill have been pessimistic about analyzing this reasoning because of its variability and the multifarious causal and pragmatic details of how it works. I argue Mill was right to think these details matter but wrong that they preclude philosophical analysis of causal selection. I show that analyzing the pragmatic details of scientific debates about the important causes of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy can illuminate causal reasoning about disasters and shed new light on causality and causal selection.
Highlights
Why are some causes judged to be more important than others? Do some causes have features that make them more important? Or are these judgments unfounded? In cases where many causes together bring about an effect, it is common to select some as important and background the others
The variability in how causes are selected and the diverse pragmatic details about different rules, reasons, and purposes involved in selecting important causes across different contexts leads many to these dismissive conclusions
I argue that embracing the pragmatics of causal selection, something most philosophers avoid, is key to understanding how this reasoning works
Summary
Why are some causes judged to be more important than others? Do some causes have features that make them more important? Or are these judgments unfounded? In cases where many causes together bring about an effect, it is common to select some as important and background the others. I argue that embracing the pragmatics of causal selection, something most philosophers avoid, is key to understanding how this reasoning works Ignoring these details leaves important cases of causal selection intractable. Philosophers of science typically conceive causal selection in terms of distinctions among many causal factors They analyze how scientists reason about important causes in cases with many causal factors. Philosophers of causation working in an analytic tradition are interested in a different sense of selecting causes They analyze distinctions made between genuine causes and mere background conditions (Schaffer 2005, 2014). This sense of causal selection is set in terms of distinguishing causes from non-causes. His pessimism and dismissive conclusions about it continue to frame the philosophical problem
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