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Full Idea
If laws of causation are probabilistic then the law does not entail any restrictions upon the proportion of events that follow a cause: ...it can have absolutely any value from zero to one.
Gist of Idea
Probabilist laws are compatible with effects always or never happening
Source
Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 4.1.3)
Book Ref
'The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics', ed/tr. Loux,M /Zimmerman,D [OUP 2005], p.396
A Reaction
This objection applies to an account of laws of nature, and also to definitions of causes as events which increase probabilities. One needn't be fully committed to natural necessity, but it must form some part of the account.
| 8409 | Probabilistic causal concepts are widely used in everyday life and in science [Salmon] |
| 8408 | Probabilistic causation says C is a cause of E if it increases the chances of E occurring [Mellor, by Tooley] |
| 8567 | Singular causation requires causes to raise the physical probability of their effects [Mellor] |
| 16175 | A cause won't increase the effect frequency if other causes keep interfering [Cartwright,N] |
| 8392 | Probabilist laws are compatible with effects always or never happening [Tooley] |
| 8399 | The actual cause may not be the most efficacious one [Tooley] |
| 8418 | Quantum physics suggests that the basic laws of nature are probabilistic [Tooley] |
| 18527 | Probabilistic causation is not a weak type of cause; it is just a probability of there being a cause [Heil] |
| 10376 | The actual cause may make an event less likely than a possible more effective cause [Schaffer,J] |
| 10381 | All four probability versions of causation may need causation to be primitive [Schaffer,J] |