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    Causes should not be understood as sufficient conditions ... — Carmelics
    Home/Causation
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Causes should not be understood as sufficient conditions for their effects.

    Causation
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.In the Geiger counter bomb case, the radioactive decay was not sufficient for the bomb exploding.
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    • 2.Yet the radioactive decay is the cause of the bomb exploding.
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    • 3.If causes were sufficient conditions, something insufficient for an effect could not be its cause.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Mackie's INUS condition analysis shows causes are insufficient but necessary parts of unnecessary but sufficient conditions.
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    • 2.The Geiger counter case is fully accommodated by INUS: decay is an insufficient part of a sufficient complex that includes the wiring and bomb mechanism.
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    • 3.Therefore, the sufficiency relation is preserved at the level of the complete causal complex, not defeated by the example.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Lewis's counterfactual analysis treats causation as chains of counterfactual dependence, not bare sufficiency, yet still yields deterministic causal structure.
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    • 2.In the Geiger counter case, the bomb would not have exploded without the decay, satisfying counterfactual dependence even absent strict sufficiency.
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    • 3.Rejecting sufficiency as the criterion of causation does not establish Anscombe's conclusion, since structured counterfactual dependence preserves robust causal necessity without relying on probabilistic looseness.
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    Topics

    Causation

    Connections

    1 topic

    Modality & Possibility2 linked

    Related

    If causes were sufficient conditions, something insufficient for an effect could...In the Geiger counter bomb case, the radioactive decay was not sufficient for th...In the Geiger counter case, the bomb would not have exploded without the decay, ...Lewis's counterfactual analysis treats causation as chains of counterfactual dep...
    +5 moreShow less
    Mackie's INUS condition analysis shows causes are insufficient but necessary par...Rejecting sufficiency as the criterion of causation does not establish Anscombe'...The Geiger counter case is fully accommodated by INUS: decay is an insufficient ...Therefore, the sufficiency relation is preserved at the level of the complete ca...Yet the radioactive decay is the cause of the bomb exploding.

    Similar

    If causes were sufficient conditions, something insufficient for an ef...86%Chancy causation does not require the cause to be sufficient for the e...80%If 'causally sufficient condition' is taken in the strong sense, a cau...80%Second causes do not necessitate their effects.79%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: anscombe
    View source passageHide passage
    And yet, if the bomb explodes it was caused by the Geiger counter arrangement. Causation thus does not involve determination or necessity. Since the radioactive decay was not sufficient for this effect, the case tells against viewing causes as sufficient conditions. There need be no general connection between cause and effect. This challenge to the Humean account would turn out to be very influential – it helped push philosophers towards the development of probabilistic accounts of causation to
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit