Abstract
Recent literature on causation invokes a distinction between deviant and default behavior to account for token causation. Critical examination of two prominent attempts to employ a distinction between deviants and defaults reveals that the distinction is far from clear. I clarify and develop the distinction by appeal to the notion of a modally robust process, and show how the distinction can be employed by causal process theorists to respond to cases of causation by omission. This shows that the default/deviant distinction is not so much a tool for counterfactual accounts of causation, but rather for causal process theory.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 5-26 |
Journal | Journal of Philosophy |
Volume | 113 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 31 Jan 2016 |
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Jo Wolff
- School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences - Senior Lecturer in Metaphysics and Philosophy of Sci
Person: Academic: Research Active