Search

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.

Summary

The chapter deals with the exclusion problem. How can mental events have physical effects if these effects already have physical causes? Even if this is possible in principle, would this not yield a situation like in a firing squad, where the victim’s death is overdetermined by the firings of the squad members? And would it not be implausible that the situation is like this whenever there is mental causation? If a difference-making approach to causation is adopted, these questions can be answered in a satisfactory way. Although mental and physical causes might nominally overdetermine their physical effects, cases of mental causation are sufficiently dissimilar to typical cases of overdetermination not to be problematic. Unlike in cases of mental causation (on the account offered here), in typical cases of overdetermination, the individual causes do not make a difference to the effect. The exclusion problem is harder to solve if it is formulated in terms of sufficient causes, but no commitment to sufficient causation follows from the account of mental causation in terms of difference-making.

Search Results

Refine search

Refine search

Actions for selected content:

2 results

Mental causation, compatibilism and counterfactuals

Chapter 4 - The Exclusion Problem

Summary

Search Results

Refine search

Refine search

Actions for selected content:

Save Search

2 results

Mental causation, compatibilism and counterfactuals

Chapter 4 - The Exclusion Problem

Summary