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Mental causation, compatibilism and counterfactuals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Dwayne Moore
Dwayne Moore*
Affiliation:
Philosophy Department, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
*
Email: dwayne.moore@usask.ca
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Abstract

According to proponents of the causal exclusion problem, there cannot be a sufficient physical cause and a distinct mental cause of the same piece of behaviour. Increasingly, the causal exclusion problem is circumvented via this compatibilist reasoning: a sufficient physical cause of the behavioural effect necessitates the mental cause of the behavioural effect, so the effect has a sufficient physical cause and a mental cause as well. In this paper, I argue that this compatibilist reply fails to resolve the causal exclusion problem.

Keywords

Mental causationnonreductive physicalismcompatibilismcausal exclusioncounterfactuals
Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , 2017 , pp. 20 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2016

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