Recent work in psychology and experimental philosophy has shown that judgments of actual causation are often influenced by consideration of defaults, typicality, and normality. A number of philosophers and computer scientists have also suggested that an appeal to such factors can help deal with problems facing existing accounts of actual causation. This paper develops a flexible formal framewor...

My project in this paper is to extend the interventionist analysis of causation to give an account of causation in psychology. Many aspects of empirical investigation into psychological causation fit straightforwardly into the interventionist framework. I address three problems. First, the problem of explaining what it is for a causal relation to be properly psychological rather than merely bio...

We refine the intuitively appealing idea that you are blameworthy for something if it happened because did not care enough. More formally: X (where may be an action, omission, or outcome) just in case there is right causal-explanatory relation between your poor quality of will and X. First, we argue blameworthiness actions, omissions, outcomes concerned with negative differences: fact occurred ...

According to causal idealism, causation is a product of human mental activity in a world lacking a mind-independent causal relation. The view is historically popular. Collingwood (1938) held that causal questions are essentially epistemological rather than ontological. Russell (1913) held that there was no role for causation in fundamental physics. And insofar as Hume famously took causation to...

Medically unexplained physical symptoms (MUPS) are persistent idiopathic symptoms that drive patients to seek medical care. MUPS syndromes include chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia syndrome, and multiple chemical sensitivities. When MUPS occur after an environmental exposure or injury, an adversarial social context that we call "contested causation" may ensue. Contested causation may occur...

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. Less-known forces are involved in the etiology of lung cancer and have relevant implications for providers in ameliorating care. The purpose of this article is to discuss theories of causation of lung cancer using historical analyses of the evolution of the disease and incorporating related explanations integrating the relationships o...