Causation: A Very Short Introduction by Stephen Mumford

Author:Stephen Mumford [Mumford, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Overdetermination

But is it even a symptom? Some critics have pointed out that there could be cases of causation without counterfactual dependence and also counterfactual dependence without causation.

What if, as well as there being an elk on the track, it is standing next to a faulty signal, stuck on red? In such a case, the train would be delayed even if there was no elk on the line. If the elk did not stop the train, something else would have. Here it seems as if the elk does cause the delay, but the train would still have been delayed even without the elk. The elk is a cause but not, it seems, a difference maker.

The reason this happens is that we have an overdetermination of the effect. Both the elk and the stuck signal are able to delay the train. But where we have overdetermination, there is no counterfactual dependence. If the elk had not been there, the train would still have been late because of the stuck signal. And if the signal had not been stuck, the train would still have been late because of the elk. So neither comes out as a cause of the delay if causation consists in counterfactual dependence.

Counterfactual dependence theorists have tried hard to show that overdetermination of effects cannot really happen. Perhaps one cause always comes before and pre-empts the other, such that one does all the causing while the other does none. But why is simultaneous overdetermination a possibility that we should rule out? Having two causes of an effect operating at the same time, each individually enough, seems a perfectly possible scenario. If the only motivation for ruling it out is that it saves the counterfactual dependence theory of causation, then it looks like an ad hoc move.

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