Using defaults to understand token causation

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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 languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5-26
JournalJournal of Philosophy
Volume113
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 31 Jan 2016

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