Skip to content
Carmelics
Topics
Thinkers
Changes
Contributors
Loading account…
Home
/
Original
/
inverse
See Original
Inverse View
It is not the case that Non-distinct sustaining causes, by definition, lack the contrastive specificity needed to explain why one individual develops disease while another does not.
?
Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.
Reasons For
1 perspective
Reason for
?
1.
Non-distinct sustaining causes can still explain disease via probabilistic mechanisms: shared causes with differing threshold sensitivities explain outcome variation.
?
How convincing is this?
Think about whether this reason is strong or weak
2.
Individual-level explanation and population-level causal identification serve different purposes; non-distinct causes succeed at the latter even if limited for former.
?
How convincing is this?
Think about whether this reason is strong or weak
3.
The claim conflates explanatory completeness with explanatory relevance: non-distinct causes explain disease occurrence even if they don't explain case-specific differences.
?
How convincing is this?
Think about whether this reason is strong or weak
Reasons Against
1 perspective
Reason against
?
1.
Explanation requires differential causation: stating what causes disease generally cannot distinguish why person A got sick but person B did not.
?
How convincing is this?
Think about whether this reason is strong or weak
2.
Non-distinct causes (e.g., 'exposure to pathogen') apply equally to both diseased and non-diseased individuals, making them explanatorily incomplete.
?
How convincing is this?
Think about whether this reason is strong or weak
3.
Contrastive specificity—identifying differentiating factors—is logically necessary to answer 'why this case, not that one?' type questions.
?
How convincing is this?
Think about whether this reason is strong or weak
Next step
Based on where you are in your exploration
Strongest counterpoint
Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.
Statements
321,452
Perspectives
108,905
Topics
42