The interventionist account of causation and the basing relation

McCain, Kevin

doi:10.1007/s11098-011-9712-7

Cited by 37 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…As long as evidence causes belief in the right way—for example, in a way that avoids deviant causal chains—then, according to these accounts, the belief is based on the evidence. (See, for example, Moser (, 157) and McCain ().) Inspired by these accounts of the basing relation, an objector may propose that R is a motivating reason for one's φ‐ing just in case R causes one's φ‐ing in this “right way.” They may then claim that the kind of causation involved in the belief cases I present is “right,” and conclude that, in these cases, the evidence is a motivating reason, not a mere cause.…”

Section: Evidence As a Means By Which Rather Than A Reason For Whichmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As long as evidence causes belief in the right way-for example, in a way that avoids deviant causal chains-then, according to these accounts, the belief is based on the evidence. (See, for example, Moser (1989, 157) and McCain (2012).) Inspired by these accounts of the basing relation, an objector may propose that R is a motivating reason for one's ϕ-ing just in case R causes one's ϕ-ing in this "right way."…”

Section: Evidence As a Means By Which Rather Than A Reason For Whichmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Believing for Practical Reasons

Rinard

2018

Nous

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Some prominent evidentialists argue that practical considerations cannot be normative reasons for belief because they can't be motivating reasons for belief. Existing pragmatist responses turn out to depend on the assumption that it's possible to believe in the absence of evidence. The evidentialist may deny this, at which point the debate ends in an impasse. I propose a new strategy for the pragmatist. This involves conceding that belief in the absence of evidence is impossible. We then argue that evidence can play a role in bringing about belief without being a motivating reason for belief, thereby leaving room for practical considerations to serve as motivating reasons. I present two ways in which this can happen. First, agents can use evidence as a mere means by which to believe, with practical considerations serving as motivating reasons for belief, just as we use tools (e.g. a brake pedal) as mere means by which to do something (e.g. slow down) which we are motivated to do for practical reasons. Second, evidence can make it possible for one to choose whether or not to believe – a choice one can then make for practical reasons. These arguments push the debate between the evidentialist and the pragmatist into new territory. It is no longer enough for an evidentialist to insist that belief is impossible without evidence. Even if this is right, the outcome of the debate remains unsettled. It will hang on the ability of the evidentialist to respond to the new pragmatist strategy presented here.

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Section: Evidence As a Means By Which Rather Than A Reason For Whichmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Evidence As a Means By Which Rather Than A Reason For Whichmentioning

confidence: 99%

Believing for Practical Reasons

Rinard

2018

Nous

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“…In McCain, , Kevin McCain adopts James Woodward's () interventionist account of causation, in order to give a causal account of the basing relation which avoids problems posed by causal deviance and overdetermination.…”

Section: The Importance Of Counterfactualsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Actual causes are defined in terms of directed causal paths and a redundancy range. There is a directed causal path from variable X to Y in a system ‘if and only if each variable starting with X and ending with Y is a direct cause of the variable that immediately succeeds it’ (McCain, , p. 361). The idea of a redundancy range is as follows: in a system V , where there is at least one direct causal path from X to Y, and V i is a variable which does not lie on a path from X to Y, values v 1 …v n are on the redundancy range for V i with respect to the path from X to Y just in case interventions on the values v 1 …v n , while holding the actual value of X fixed, would not result in any changes in the actual value of Y (ibid., p. 361).…”

Section: The Importance Of Counterfactualsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Counterfactuals and Epistemic Basing Relations

Bondy

2015

Pacific Philosophical Qtr

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This article is about the epistemic basing relation, which is the relation that obtains between beliefs and the reasons for which they are held. We need an adequate account of the basing relation if we want to have a satisfactory account of doxastic justification, which we should want to have. To that end, this article aims to achieve two goals. The first is to show that a plausible account of the basing relation must invoke counterfactual concepts. The second is to set out two related analyses of the basing relation, each of which seems quite plausible.This article is about the epistemic basing relation, which is the relation that obtains between a belief and the reasons for which it is held. It is sometimes said that the basing relation is the relation that obtains between a (doxastically) justified belief and the reasons which justify it. This second claim, which relates justification to the basing relation, may be correct, but it is not definitional, as the first claim is. It is not obviously inconsistent to think that there can be doxastic justification even in the absence of a basing relation, but it is obviously inconsistent to think that there can be a relation of believing for a reason even in the absence of a basing relation. 1 In thinking about how to analyze the basing relation, we must be careful to keep questions of basing and justification distinct. Still, even granting that justification might not always require proper basing, it is clear that beliefs are very often justified by virtue of being based upon good reasons, so without an account of the basing relation, we cannot have a complete account of justification.I have two main goals in this article. The first is to argue that counterfactuals have a central role to play in the basing relation; to that end, in Section 1, I go through some recent accounts of the basing relation, pointing out the importance of counterfactuals along the way.

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“…8 SeeSwain's (1981) complicated causal plus pseudo-overdetermination account; the causal-doxastic theory inKorcz (2000) is similarly complicated; and more recently Bondy (2015) has suggested an even more complicated variation on the pseudo-overdetermination account. 9 SeeWedgwood (2006),Turri (2011), McCain (2012, andEvans (2013).…”

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confidence: 99%

The peculiar case of Lehrer’s lawyer

Wallbridge

2016

Synthese

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The peculiar case of Lehrer's lawyer purports to describe a scenario in which a subject has a justified belief, indeed knowledge, despite the fact that their belief is not causally or counterfactually sustained by any good reasons for it. The case has proven controversial. While some agree with Lehrer's assessment of the case, others disagree, leading to a schism among accounts of the basing relation. In this paper I aim to reconcile these camps and put simple causal and counterfactual accounts of the basing relation back on the table, by arguing that Lehrer's case is probably metaphysically impossible, but even if it isn't, it is ambiguous between a psychologically implausible and a psychologically plausible reading, and this can account for the diverging intuitions that it generates.

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The interventionist account of causation and the basing relation

Cited by 37 publications

References 12 publications

Believing for Practical Reasons

Believing for Practical Reasons

Counterfactuals and Epistemic Basing Relations

The peculiar case of Lehrer’s lawyer

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