Experimental Metaphysics: Causation

Henne, Paul

doi:10.31219/osf.io/w4g3y

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 81 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Ross and Woodward (2022) offered a compelling hypothesis that the reversibility of outcomes in causal scenarios affects the causal structure of the scenarios themselves. If correct, this hypothesis has wide-ranging implications for experimental philosophers and cognitive scientists working on many issues in causation (Henne, 2022;Henne et al, 2019;Henne, O'Neill, et al, 2021;Kirfel & Lagnado, 2021;Niemi & Henne, 2022;O'Neill et al, 2022;Vasilyeva et al, 2018) and for those researchers who are trying to model these phenomena (Gerstenberg et al, 2021;Halpern & Hitchcock, 2015;Icard et al, 2017;Quillien, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

No Evidence that Reversibility Affects Causal judgments in Late-preemption Cases

Henne,

Perez,

McCracken

2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recently, Ross and Woodward (2022) argued that the reversibility of an outcome—that is, whether the outcome can be undone—affects causal judgments. One prediction of their account is that reversibility affects causal judgments in late-preemption scenarios, where people typically judge that events that produce the outcome earlier are more causal than preempted alternative events that would have otherwise produced the outcome. Ross and Woodward’s account predicts that when the outcome is reversible, people would judge these events similarly—as in standard overdetermination cases. In three experiments, we found no evidence that reversibility affects causal judgments in late-preemption cases. We discuss how these results affect the experimental philosophy and cognitive science of causation, causal modeling, and experimental jurisprudence.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

No Evidence that Reversibility Affects Causal judgments in Late-preemption Cases

Henne,

Perez,

McCracken

2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This is an example of the Norm Effect, and several accounts compete to explain the underlying causal mechanisms (e.g. Gerstenberg & Icard, 2020;; for a review, see Willemsen & Kirfel, 2019; more generally, see Rose & Danks, 2012;Livengood & Rose, 2016;Henne, 2023;Bebb & Beebee, 2024). In the following, we will focus on but two such explanations: The Responsibility View and the Bias View.…”

Section: The Impact Of Norms On Perceived Causationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Causation, Norms, and Cognitive Bias

Güver,

Kneer

2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Extant research has shown that ordinary causal judgments are sensitive to normative factors. For instance, agents who violate a norm are standardly deemed more causal than norm-conforming agents in identical situations. In this paper, we explore two competing explanations for the Norm Effect: the Responsibility View and the Bias View. According to the former, the Norm Effect arises because ordinary causal judgment is intimately intertwined with moral responsibility. According to the alternative view, the Norm Effect is the result of a blame-driven bias. In a series of five preregistered experiments (N = 2688), we present evidence that predominantly favours the Bias View. In particular, and against predictions made by the Responsibility View, we show that participants deem agents who violate nonpertinent or silly norms – norms that do not relate to the outcome at hand – as more causal, and that this effect cannot be explained in terms of plausible mediators such as the agent’s foreknowledge and desire, or the foreseeability of harm. We close with a discussion regarding the implications of these findings, in as regards the just assessment of proximate cause in the law.

show abstract

“…This process of generating and averaging counterfactuals provides a Monte Carlo estimate of the subjective probability that the candidate cause made a difference to the effect (Icard, 2016). Counterfactual sampling models thus have the desirable property that, given an appropriate way of quantifying difference making, the very same mechanism can be used to predict a wide variety of patterns in causal judgments (Henne, 2023).…”

Section: Counterfactuals and Causal Judgmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…So, overall, the Necessity-Sufficiency model says that Joe drawing a green ball makes a difference to him winning a dollar when he draws both a green and a blue ball or when he does not draw a green ball: In other words, it makes a difference except in the case where he draws a green ball, but not a blue ball. Though it was developed specifically to account for normality effects on causal judgment (e.g., Henne, 2023;Kominsky & Phillips, 2020), the Necessity-Sufficiency model has also been shown to account for interactions of normality effects (Gill et al, 2022), temporal recency effects (Henne, Kulesza, et al, 2021), action-omission effects (Henne et al, 2019), as well as judgments in more complex causal structures including double prevention .…”

Section: Measures Of Difference Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling confidence in causal judgments.

O'Neill,

Henne,

Pearson

et al. 2024

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Experimental Metaphysics: Causation

Cited by 3 publications

References 81 publications

No Evidence that Reversibility Affects Causal judgments in Late-preemption Cases

No Evidence that Reversibility Affects Causal judgments in Late-preemption Cases

Causation, Norms, and Cognitive Bias

Modeling confidence in causal judgments.

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About