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    If normative status were constitutive of causation rather... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→The distinction between causes and background conditions tracks the distinction between abnormal and normal conditions, not merely counterfactual dependence.

    If normative status were constitutive of causation rather than explanatory salience, causal facts would vary across legal jurisdictions—a result that reductionist metaphysicians like Menzies and Price reject.

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    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.Causal facts should be metaphysically objective and invariant across conceptual schemes, including legal frameworks.
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    • 2.If normative status constituted causation, identical physical events would have different causal powers in different jurisdictions.
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    • 3.Reductionist metaphysics requires causal facts to supervene on fundamental physical facts, not institutional conventions.
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    Reasons Against

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    • 1.Causation may already be framework-dependent in ways we accept: quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, and psychology use different causal vocabularies.
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    • 2.Normative status could affect which causal descriptions are *true* or *salient* without constituting causation itself—avoiding the jurisdiction problem.
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    • 3.Legal facts are social constructions that can track objective causal patterns without making causation itself socially constructed.
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    Key Terms

    Causal facts
    True statements about what causes what—facts about which events or things make other things happen.
    Menzies and Price(as cited philosophers)
    Two contemporary philosophers (Peter Menzies and Huw Price) who work on theories of causation and argue that causal facts don't depend on legal categories.
    Normative status(in metaphysics and ethics)
    Whether something is about rules, standards, or how things *should* be (as opposed to just describing how things *are*).
    Reductionist metaphysicians(in metaphysics)
    Philosophers who believe that complex things can be broken down into or explained by simpler, more basic things.
    causation(Lewis's counterfactual theory of causation)
    Event C causes event E if and only if there exists a chain C, D1, …, Dn, E such that each member (except C) is counterfactually dependent on the preceding event; causation is the ancestral of counterfactual dependence
    constitutive(an alternative type of relationship the grounding relation might be)
    Describes how something is made up of or formed from basic components that define its essential nature.
    explanatory salience(Context-sensitivity of causal explanation)
    The degree to which a feature is picked out as a cause or explanation, which is heightened by abnormality and by the interests and purposes of the inquirer

    Connections

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    Causation1 linked

    Related

    Causal facts should be metaphysically objective and invariant across conceptual ...Causation may already be framework-dependent in ways we accept: quantum mechanic...If normative status constituted causation, identical physical events would have ...Legal facts are social constructions that can track objective causal patterns wi...

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    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
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    Normative status could affect which causal descriptions are *true* or *salient* ...Reductionist metaphysics requires causal facts to supervene on fundamental physi...The distinction between causes and background conditions tracks the distinction ...