Bennett Jonathan - Event Causation

7/21/2019 Bennett Jonathan - Event Causation

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Event Causation: The Counterfactual Analysis

Jonathan Bennett

Philosophical Perspectives, Vol. 1, Metaphysics. (1987), pp. 367-386.

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Philosophical Perspectives,

1,

Metaphysics,

1987

EVENT CAUSATION:

THE COUNTERFACTUAL ANALYSIS

Jonathan Bennett

Syracuse University

wo distinctions

Philosophical theo ries of causation c an be split two w ays, into four

groups.

First, the re is the split betw een

event

and

f ct

or

st te of ff irs

theories. Eve nt theories give pride of place to causal statem ents such

a s

The explosion caused the fire

and

His sudden collapse wa s caused by t he beating th ey gave him.

Fact theories give primacy rather to statements like

The forest burned because an incendiary bomb was dropped

into it

and

They beat him and that led to his suddenly collapsing. '

The tw o ar e separated by the difference between perfect nominals

such as "explosion", "fight", "divorce", "quarrel", "fire", "collapse",

etc. on the one hand, an d ful ly sentential clauses such a s "They beat

him" and imperfect nominals like "his suddenly collapsing" on the

other.2


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368 Jonathan Bennett

Tha t split has to do with one's selection of ana lysand um . The

second split con cern s choice of analysan s: it is the split betw een sub

sumption and counterfactualanalys es of causal sta tem ent s. Accord-

ing to the subsumption an alyses, x caused y m eans roughly that

x a nd y have properties th at enable them to

be

subsumed under som e

causally true conditional-x under the antec eden t, y under the con-

sequ ent. Counterfactual analyses, on the other ha nd, say that x

cause d y m ean s som ething to the effect that if th er e hadn't be en

x

there wouldn't have been y.

This paper will present a difficulty for the counterfactual theory

of

event

causation.

f

the difficulty is fatal, we hav e th re e options.

1 W e can focus on e vent causation statem ents, analysing these not

as counterfactuals but ra ther a s saying that orde red pairs of even ts

fall under causal laws.

(2)

We can stay w ith counterfactuals but use

the m only to rela te w hole sta tes of affairs, keepin g t he co ncep t of

a n individual eve nt out of it.

3)

W e ca n re treat sti ll further, drop-

ping both eve nts and counterfactuals, an d analysing causal state ments

as say ing someth ing ab ou t ho w pairs of facts, or pairs of st at es of

affairs, can be subsumed under causal laws.

he counterfactual analysis

The counterfactual analysis of event causation is one of the two

offered by Hume. In its roughest, strongest form it says that

c caused e,

w her e c and e ar e individual events, means that e dep ended counter-

factually on c, that is, that

f c had not occurred, e would not have occurred.

This obviously has to b e refined if it is to sq ua re with cert ain things

w e firmly believe ab out w hat causes what. T he most obvious refine-

me nt is to equa te c caused e with the statem ent not that e depended

counterfactually on c but rathe r t hat th er e is a series of eve nts from

c to e eac h mem ber of which d epend ed counterfactually on its im-

me diate predecessor. (You may think that this is no refinem ent a t

all: if eac h mem ber dep en ds coun terfactually on its imm ediate

predec essor, doesn't it follow that t he last dep ends counterfactually

on the first? The answer is No. The relation expressed by counter-


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The Counterfactual Analysis 69

factual conditionals is well known not to be transitive.) Other

refinements are also needed. For example, i t can happen that c

caused e but if c had not oc cur red som e oth er eve nt would h ave

caused e; an d th e analysis must be modified so a s to allow for tha t.

Those ma tters ar e skilfully handled by the principal recen t ad vo cate

of th e counterfac tual analysis, David Lew is, in his pap ers Causation

an d Events , and need not spend t ime on them.3

T he re is anothe r difficulty, how ever, which see ms not to have be en

noticed before and which can not be dea lt with by mino r repairs. It

implies th at no version of t he counter factua l analysis of e vent causa-

tion c an b e squ ared w ith our o rdina ry way s of thinking: a defensible

analysis along these lines would have to be radically revisionary-

addressed not to the conceptual scheme we have, but to one that

w e could have-which is not what Hum e an d Lewis intended .

ssences

of

events

As Lewis's wo rk brings out ve ry clearly, an y counterfactual abo ut

a particular event implies or presupposes som ething abou t the even t's

essence. f we a re to counterfactualize ab ou t particulars we must be

able to distinguish worlds a t which a given eve nt doe s not occur a t

all from ones a t which it occu rs but is som ew ha t unlike th e w ay it

actually was. Suppose that at noon precisely w ave my right hand ,

and someo ne makes the s tatement S:

f that hand-wave had not occurred, the auctioneer wouldn't hav e

thought you were bidding.

Now, if had w av ed m y right han d a fraction faster tha n actually

did, or raised it an inch higher, the auctioneer would still ha ve thought

wa s bidding; so if S is to co m e ou t tru e, thos e possible w ave s mu st

coun t as the w av e actually did. Tha t implies that my actual w ave

could ha ve been a bit faster of higher tha n it was, which m ean s that

its actual speed a nd trajectory a re not of its essence .

But suppo se that at eac h of the ne are st worlds w he re don't wav e

my right hand at all at that mom ent wave m y left hand, and the

auctioneer thinks

m

bidding . Is S tru e in this case? You migh t thin k

it isn't , becau se a t those worlds my actua l han d-w ave doesn't occur

an d yet the auction eer still thinks a m bidding. But doesn t my hand-

wave occur at the left-wave worlds also? What is wrong with the


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Jonathan Bennett

idea that a single eve nt which was in fact a right-handed w ave could

have been a left-handed one, so that the person who says If that

hand-wave had not occurred

...

is not pointing to worlds where at

tha t mom ent I wave with my left rather than with my right hand?

This raises the question of w hether m y right-handed w ave w as

essen-

tially

right-handed.

I

don't wa nt to answ er it-just to illustrate its

crucial relevance to counterfactuals about events.

Th ere is not m uch literature on this. It com es under four headings.

1)

So me of it, including all that Davidson ha s said on th e topic,

is based directly o n the fact that things like this are so me time s said:

Every Wednesday m orning, the m em bers of th e squad vote on

what practical joke to play on the corporal that day. Last

W edne sday's joke wa s a hotfoot, but if pfc Jon es had v ote d the

other way it would have been a fake air-raid alarm.4

If

we take that a s a datu m , without processing or digesting it in a ny

wa y, we shall conclude that a ce rtain eve nt which was a hotfoot could

instead have been a fake air-raid alarm. This, in my opinion, amou nts

to refusing to tak e th e notion of eve nt-essen ce seriously; and

I

think

tha t is how Davidson intende d it -he wa s showing his con tem pt for

counterfactuals abou t even ts, having been urged by C hisholrn to say

something about them.

It is pretty c lear, any wa y, that those stan dards assign wron g truth-

values to man y counterfactuals abou t events. In som e circumstances

we would want the counterfactual

If no m em ber of the squad had had an y matches, that hotfoot

would not have occurred

to co m e out true. But it won't do so if the hotfoot could ha ve b een

a fake air-raid alarm.

And there is an easy way of avoiding that unwanted result. We

need only suppose that when the speaker says

...it

would have been

a fake air-raid alarm he is using it a s a pronoun of lazines s, to

sav e himself from uttering last We dnesday's joke aga in, an d doe s

not m ean to refer to the sam e item as was first referred to by tha t

phrase. Analogously, some say that in

John takes his family to a good restaurant eve ry C hristmas, and

Henry does it every Thanksgiving,

th e it is clea rly a pronou n of laziness.

I shall say no m ore ab out


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The Counterfactual nalysis

371

this m atter. It see m s clear tha t if w e a re to get a useful view a bout

th e essences of even ts, it must h ave its roots in theo ry, and c an no t

be casua lly skimm ed off t he su rface of our talk.

(2)

Pete r van Inwagen h as likened the essences of eve nts to the

essences of substance^.^ We ar e inclined these day s to believe that

a substa nce's origin is essential to it: could ha ve beco me a farm er,

but could not have had parents othe r than my actual ones.

Analogously, van Inwagen suggests, perh aps it is impossible tha t a n

ev en t should have had a causal history different from the o ne tha t

it actually had.

Van Inwagen's thesis clear ly enta ils th at if c caused e then if c had

not occurred e would not have occurred; and this is also entailed

by t he sim plest, boldest form of the cou nterfac tual analysis of ev en t

causa tion, though not by the analysis in its final, cautious ve rsion.

Apa rt from that partial overlap, hav e not sorted out the relations

betwe en the two. Anyway,

I

can't see how to put va n Inwagen's idea

to work in evaluating the counterfac tual analysis, so now se t it aside

without further discussion.

3) Law rence Lombard has argue d that an event's time of oc cur-

renc e is esential to it .6 Given that wa ved my right hand at noon

precisely, could hav e kept my hand in my pocket at that time and

wa ved my right h and five seco nds later, but that w ould necessarily

hav e bee n a different wave. Lombard's o n e argum ent for this is un-

sound,

believe, but in any case we shall soon see that this view

abo ut the essences of eve nts cannot be combined w ith the c oun ter

factual analysis of ev en t causation .

(4) David Lewis, in his paper Events , says a lot abou t the essences

of even ts. But rath er than offering an independent the ory abou t even t

essences, and then checking it against the counterfactual analysis

of ev en t causation, he works in th e opposite direction. He starts with

our o rdinary careful beliefs abou t what c ause s what, interp rets them

in acco rdance with th e counterfactual analysis, and draw s conclu-

sions abo ut what the essences of eve nts must e like if w e a re not

to be convicted of too much err or in our views abou t what ca uses

what. In the absence of an y secu re independen t grounds for

judgements ab ou t the essen ces of e ven ts, this mo dest pro ce du re is

acceptable, and may indeed be the best that can be managed.


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Jonathan Bennett

n example and a

result

H ere is an ex am ple ; it is mine, b ut it illustrates Lewis's proc edu re:

fall onto a lamp a t midnight, knocking it to the floor so that it breaks.

stipulate th at this happens in such a w ay as to m ak e the statem ent

(i) My fall caused th e lamp 's destruc tion

clearly true. am not merely saying that my fall ing caused the lam p

to be destroyed, or that the lamp was destroye d because fell; those

ar e fact-causation stateme nts, an d a re quite irrelevant to my pre sent

topic. a m asserting that a certain particular fall caused a certain

particular destruction, which is an event causation statement. Ac-

cor ding to the co unterfactual analysis, (i) is equivalent (nea r enoug h)

to

(i) f my fall hadn't oc curred, the lam p's destruction wouldn't have

occurred either.

Now, suppo se as is quite possible th at (i) is true bu t th at n o co ndu ct

of mine could possibly have prev ented the lam p from being destroy ed

within the next y ear : at all the physically possible worlds which a re

like ou rs up to just before m idnight the lamp is destroyed within a

year of that time. In that case, this counterfactual:

(ii) f my fall hadn't occurre d the lamp would n ever have bee n

destroyed

is clear ly false. Now, if (i) is true w hile (ii) is false, it follows tha t t he

lamp's actu al destruction-a particular ev en t tha t shall call D-has

a richer esse nce than m erely being a destruction of that lamp, or

m erely occurring wh en a nd w here th at lam p is destroyed. For if t ha t

w ere D's whole essence then D would exist at ev ery world wh ere

the lamp is ever de stroyed, including o nes w here

don 't fall a t mid-

night and the lamp is destroyed five years later.

f

so m e of tho se

wo rlds a re close to the actu al wo rld, the state m en t tha t if my fall

hadn't occurred D wouldn't h ave o ccurred com es out false, becau se

a t so m e of thos e close worlds m y fall doesn't o ccur b ut D do es occur

five ye ar s late r. And if that conditiona l is false, then-according to

th e coun terfac tual analysis-it is false after all tha t my fall cau sed

the de structio n of th e lamp .

Th at gives us a negative result ab ou t the essences of eve nts. T he re

is m or e to the essenc e of a n y lamp's destruction than m erely its oc-


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curring when and where that lamp is destroyed; there is more to

the e ssence of an y particular de ath tha n just its occurring w hen an d

where that person dies; and so on.

he asymmetry fact

Now, Lombard s theory ab ou t eve nt essenc es has just this conse-

quen ce: ther e is mo re to the essen ce of th e destruction of a lamp

than its being the d estruction of that lamp . It says that eve ry ev en t

essentially occ urs w hen it actually o ccu rs, so tha t if D occurred at

midnight any possible destruction of the lamp at an y othe r time w ould

have been a different ev en t. So far, so good; but th e theo ry has oth er

consequences which can not be safely combined with the counter-

factual analysis of ev ent causation. Ta ke a cas e w he re this is true:

There was heavy rain in April and electrical storms in the

following tw o m onths; an d in June th e lightning took hold a nd

sta rte d a forest fire. f

it hadn t been for the heavy rain in April,

the forest would have caught fire in May.

Add Lom bard s thesis to th at, an d you get

f the April rain h adn t occurre d th e forest fire wouldn t have

occurred.

Interpret th at in terms of th e counterfactual analysis an d you get

The April rains caused the forest fire.

That is unac ceptable.

A good en oug h theo ry of e ve nts an d of causa -

tion might give us reason to a cce pt som e things that see m intuitively

to be false, but no th eor y should persuad e us that d elaying a forest s

bur ning for a m on th (or inde ed for a m inute ) is causing a forest fire.

But although you canno t cau se a fire by delaying something s b urn-

ing, you can cause a fire by hastening something s burning. Whe n

we judge that lightning caused this fire, we don t ask whether the

forest would in an y case have bu rned at som e future time; and so

the w ay is op en for m any eve nts that w e take to be causes of fires

to be m erely causes of something s bu rning earlier rather th an later.

Similarly, ma ny cau ses of falls mere ly cau se th e thing to fall earlier

than it otherwise would have, a nd so on th rou gh causes of quarrels,

reconciliations, thefts, slumps, recoveries, outbursts, landslides, floods,


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Jonathan Bennett

traffic jams, adjournments, and so on.7

So perhaps we can com bine the counterfactual analysis with half

of Lom bard s thesis, the half say ing that if an ev ent actually occurs

at T then it essentially occurs no later tha n T. For then w e can say,

with respect to a hillside that slid at T an d of which it is true tha t

f c had not occurred it would have slid later than T,

that

f c had not occurred the (actual) landslide would not ha ve

occurred

which lets us infer that

c caused the landslide.

Th at looks abou t right: we treat as causes of landslides those ev en ts

tha t sp eed up t he land s sliding, but not those that delay it.

Actually, it is not quite as simple as that, because in special cir-

cumstances an event that stopped the forest from burning in May

could also cause it to burn in June, and that event would be both

a de laye r of burning an d a cause of the fire; similarly with the land-

slide. Here is another example: My disturbance in the church p reven ts

Joh n an d Jane from marrying today; but it also affects on e of the

witnesses in a manner that leads him, months later, to bring John

and Jane together again. In this case, my disturbance delays their

marrying at T and is a cause of their subsequent m arriage. A final

exam ple: A massage dislodges a blood clot tha t would have killed

the patient within ten m inutes, but also starts ano ther chain of events

that kills him two hours later.

Such complications ar e unimportant, h owever, an d d o not detrac t

from my central thesis, which is that there is a strong asymmetry

in this part of o ur conceptual s chem e. Here is it in a nutshell:

You ar e informed that a mo vem ent of m ine affected wh n a cer-

tain ston e fell from the top of wall; but for my mov em ent, the ston e

would have fallen earlier than it actually did, or would have fallen

later than it actually did; I m not telling you which. do tell you th at

fully informed obse rvers of the scene agre e about whether my move-

me nt caused the stone s fall, and invite you to guess what their opin-

ion is, i.e. to guess wh ether the m ove me nt

did

cause the fall. You

have no basis for g u e ~ s in g .~ow consider: would it help you if told

you that but for my movement the stone would have fallen earlier


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The Counterfactual Analysis

75

than it actually did, or told you th at but for m y m ovem ent th e ston e

would h ave fallen later than it actually did? Clearly that w ould help

you. That reflects wha t

I

call

the asymmetry fact

ab ou t this par t of

our conceptual scheme.

Is

t

a conceptual fact

think that this is a conceptual fact. contend th at w hat we me an

by ...is a cau se of e o r ...causes e is so m eth ing of th e form

...causes it to be th e case th at P, at a certain t ime rather than later

or never , where P, is a temporally unsaturated proposition that is

appropriately related to the ev ent e . Thus, for example, to cause a

fire is to cause it to be the c ase that t he thing burn s at a certain time

rathe r th an later o r never, to cause a riot is to cause it to be the cau se

that so m e people behave riotously a t a certain time ra ther than later

or never , and so on.

f that is not right, then what is?

(1)

Th e linguistic da ta might be exp lained in term s of pra gm atics

rat he r th an s em antic s. T ha t is, it might b e said that if a m isunder-

standing between two people delays their getting reconciled, the

sta tement

The misunderstanding caused their reconciliation

is, strictly speaking, true, but people ar e unco mfortable abo ut assent-

ing to it bec ause it

suggests

som ething false, and this leads them to

talk as though they could see it to be false.

It can happen that a state m ent is true in wh at it says and false in

what it implies or suggests, and this can lead people to treat i t as

thou gh it wer e false. And inde ed this possibility can legitim ately be

used to defend a sem antic thesis against appare nt counterexa mp les.

But we should never accept it in a particular case without asking

how, why, th e t rue s tatem ent com es to m ake t he false suggestion;

and in the present case there seems to be no decent answer.

Here is on e try. Take a case w her e the cause delays the obtain-

ing of a bad sta te of affairs: becau se of th e nurse's t he ra py t he pa-

tient did not have a stroke that morning though he did have one

a m onth later. It is literally tru e that her the rapy caused th e patient's

stroke, but w e don't l ike saying this because it suggests some thing

false, namely that the nurse did something bad. But why should


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Jonathan Bennett

the s tate m en t suggest this if not b ecau se that is w ha t it means ? f

the senten ce The nurse's therap y caused the patient's stroke means

only that the th erapy made a difference to when the patient suffered

a stroke, why should that carry any suggestion at all that she did

som ething bad, that is, that sh e hastened his having a stroke rathe r

than delaying it? Possible answ er: Because hastene rs ar e much m ore

commo n than d elayers. Given that the thera py mad e som e difference

to th e tim e, it is statistically m or e likely to h av e broug ht it forw ard

than to have pushed it back. That would be a n excellent answ er

if it w er e true. But it is blatantly false.

(2) Dropping the pragm atic app roach , and conceding that the truth-

va lue of c cau sed e is pr ett y tightly tied to th at of c cau sed it to

b e th e case that P, at a certain time rather than later or never ,

som eon e might suggest that w hat l inks them is not a n immediate

semantic connection but rather a fact about how the actual world

is cau sally s t r u ~ t u r e d . ~he suggestion is that there is a relation R

such that:

(1)

it is a conce ptu al tru th th at c causes e only if R(c,e),

an d (2) it is a contingen t truth that R(c,e) is seldom o r nev er tru e

w he n c delays th e ob taining of

P,

and usually or always true wh en

it hastens it.

One could hardly accept this without being given some account

of w ha t R is, an d hav e no suggestions ab ou t tha t. Nor do ne ed

to pursue the m atter further. It is imp ortant for anyo ne wanting com-

prehensively to u nderstand our concept of ev en t causation, but for

my pu rposes here it ma kes no difference whethe r the asym me try

fact is purely con ceptu al or w he the r it is contin gen t. Either w ay , it

will cause just as much trouble for the counterfactual analysis of ev en t

causation, as shall sho w in due course.

rouble from the asymmetry fact

shall pretend tha t the asym metry fact is the fact tha t ll hasteners

and

o

delayers a re causes. Th at is stronger than the tru th, of course,

but it will help to k ee p the d iscussion simp le, an d nothing in my argu -

ment will depend on that extra strength.

Let m e be a little more exa ct abou t that. shall first give my basic

argu m ent for the view th at as long as our concep t of event causa-

tion is sensitive in ny degree to the difference between hasteners

an d dela yers, the counte rfactual analysis of e ve n t causation is


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fatally flawed. Th en shall ex po un d a possible way of e scaping from

its conclusion : it relies upon th e notion of a counterpa rt , wh ich

will lead man y to reject it ou t of hand; but have no qua rrel with

counterparts, and will give two other reasons for disliking the sug-

gested escap e rou te. Th e mo re im porta nt of thos e reasons wo uld fail

if th e asym m etry to w hich

have called attention were extrem ely

weak-that is, if the re w ere only a mild tend enc y for haste ners to

be cau ses of for dela yers not to be. But, altho ugh th e truth of the

m atter is not as strong as shall (for expo sitory purposes) pre tend ,

it is no w he re nea r w eak en oug h to unde rcut that final arg um en t of

mine. Here now is my basic argument against the counterfactual

analysis.

T he m isunderstand ing dela yed their ge tting reconciled, so it did

not cause their reconciliation. So by the counterfactual analysis, it

is not the case that

f

the misunderstanding had not occurred, the reconciliation

would not have occurred.

Tha t m eans that the very sam e reconciliat ion occ urred at som e of

the w orlds where the misunderstanding did not occur. Th e only way

of m akin g sense of this is to suppo se tha t a t those w orlds the re con -

ciliation occurred earlier than it did at the actual world. In general,

necessarily any event could have occurred earlier than it did occur.

The intervention by the marriage counsellor hastened their get-

ting reco nciled, so it caused their reconciliation. So, by the cou nter -

factual analysis,

f the intervention had not occurred, the reconciliation would

not have occurred.

But th er e are plenty of nearby worlds w he re the intervention didn't

occur an d yet they did get reconciled weeks or mo nths later; so w e

mu st say that their a ctual reconciliation is not to be identified with

a n y of those later recon ciliations. In gene ral,

necessarily no event

could have occurred later than it

i

occur.

Putting thes e tw o results together, w e g et an incohe rent position.

Start with a n e ve nt e* a t a world W *, and ask which events at othe r

wo rlds can be identified w ith it. By th e form er of ou r results, e * can

be identified with m any ev ents that occur earlier at other worlds-

for examp le e a t W. But no w let us ask which e ve nts at worlds oth er

than W w e can identify e with. By the latte r of ou r results, e cann ot


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378

Jonathan Bennett

be identified with a ny eve nts occurring later than it occu rs at W-

for exam ple eve nt e * at W*. And so, putting the two together: e*

is e, bu t e is not e* .

To reinforce this, shall wo rk it out in term s of a n exam ple.

concrete ex mple

Consider two worlds, at each of which you and ar e standing on

to p of a wa ll wh ich is being dem olished by a w rec ker s ball; just in

front of m e the re is a pebble, w hich

try to kick off th e wall before

the wreck er s ball gets to it.

t

world

W do kick the stone, with

the result tha t it falls at T rath er than a few secon ds later; call that

fall of t he sto ne e .

A t

world

W*

you push me so that my kick goes

aw ry and the sto ne is undisturbed until the w recker s ball knocks

it off th e wa ll a little afte r

T;

call tha t fall of th e ston e e * . add the

further stipulation S, that the closest no-kick world to W is W* an d

the closest no-push w orld to W * is W. S doesn t follow from t he rest

of the descr iption, but it is a consisten t addition w ith it, and th at is

all we need.

Now, informed an d com pete nt spea kers of English will ag re e tha t

at W my kick cau ses e; by the counterfactual analysis tha t entails

tha t if th e kick had not ocu rred e w ould not ha ve oc curr ed; but by

S the closest no-kick world is W* wh ere e * occurs; so e is not e* .

But com petent spe akers will also agree that a t W* your push does

not cau se e *; by the counterfactual analysis it follows tha t it is false

that if yo ur push had not occurred e * would not ha ve oc urre d; by

S

it follows tha t if you r push had not o ccu rred e * would still hav e

occ urre d; the only possible c and idate for the role of e * a t W is e;

so e is e. Thus we have a flat-out contradiction.

couple of discl imers

haven t reac hed this result throug h illegitimately streamlining and

strengthening the asymmetry fact. f there is any temporal asym-

m etry in this part of ou r causal thinking, the re is troub le for the

counterfactual analysis of ev en t causation. W e ar e looking at a pair

of worlds, W w here e occurs at t ime t , and W * where e* occurs at

time t*. And w e ar e being forced-by the cou nterfactual analysis of

ev ent causation, combined with the temporal asym me try in this part


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79

of ou r conce ptual scheme-to say that whether e is e * de pen ds in

part on wh ether the pair {t,t *) exemplifies the later-than relation

or rather the earlier-than relation. But this is absurd, because any

pair tha t exemplifies one also exemplifies the oth er. And, as

said,

the absurdity remains so long as the re is any asym metry, ho wever

hed ged in by conditions, in this pa rt of our conceptu al schem e.

Furthermore, the trouble is just as bad

if

the asymmetry is not

purely conceptual but reflects the fact that at the actual world

hasteners tend to be causes while delayers tend not to be. Anyone

wh o thinks there is such a contingent fact presumably takes it to be

a dee p, broad one-more like th e fact that the re is no action at a

temporal distance than like the fact that went swimming this

morning-and so it will obtain not only a t ou r world but also at worlds

tha t a re close to ours, for exam ple, world s differing from ou rs only

by a single kick or push and the fall of a pebble. Tha t is all nee d.

In my kick-push example, for instance, the contradiction is reached

just so long as the asymm etry fact obtains both at W and at W*; it

doesn't have to obtain at all worlds.

rivilege for the actual world

Pe rha ps there is a way o ut, how ever. Faced with a pair of eve nt

descriptions pertaining to two different worlds, we have been asking

What is the temporal relation between the events-at-worlds

referred to by these descriptions? Is it earlie r-than or later-than?

And tha t is an idiot question because if either an sw er is right then

bo th are . But we m ight do better if the re w ere so me special feature

that was always possessed b y one but not the oth er me mber of o ur

pair of eve nt descriptions. Then w e could replace t he idiot question

by something of the form

W hat tempo ral relation do es the privileged one of these hav e

to the other? Earlier-than or later-than?

and that might have either answer but cannot have both.

W hat could we mean he re by privileged ? W hat is the special

featu re tha t is always possessed by just o ne mem ber of the pair? The

only rem otely plausible ans we r is tha t the description involving t he

actual world is privileged. On that basis, then, the crucial question


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Jonathan Bennett

is something like this:

How does the event at the actual world relate to the event a t

the non-actual world? Is it earlier or later than it?

f w e ord er our pairs in that way, by attending to which of them per-

tains to the actual world, w e m ay seem to be on our way to the in-

tuitively right answers. A nd this is just wh at the asym m etry fact im-

plies if it is ta ke n to be th e fact th at

No event could have occurred later than it ctu lly did. Any eve nt

could have occurred earlier than it ctu lly did.

But that is not the right way to express the asym metry fact, and this

prop osed rescu e of the coun terfactu al analysis is not ac cepta ble.

Here is why. f we are to use the concept of event causation at

all, we should be able to use it not only (i) in describing what ac-

tually ha ppen s but also (ii) in practical delibe ration, where w e do n't

ye t kn ow wh ich of th e w orlds is actu al, and (iii) in counterfactu als

ab ou t what would have cau sed w ha t if things had g on e differently

in som e respect. But neith er the second nor third of these would go

right if we acc ept ed the proposed r esc ue of th e cou nte rfac tua l

analysis, according to which w e can't sa y wh ether c causes e at w orld

W without knowing whether W is the actual world.

Th at this is true ab ou t (ii) practical delibera tion is per ha ps to o ob-

vious t o need to b e spelled o ut in de tail. As for (iii) coun terfactuals

abo ut eve nt causation: let us return to my kick-push exam ple, and

suppose that t he actual world is

W* at which you push m e and m y

kick misses the stone. Intuitively it seem s reaso nable to suppo se that

at that world we could truly say that

f

your push hadn't occurred, my kick would have caused a fall

of the stone;

but by the counterfactual analysis, together with my stipulation

S,

that implies that

At world W it is the case tha t: if m y kick hadn't o ccu rred e

wouldn't have occurred.

But the propose d res cue won't let us say this. It requires tha t no ne

of the later falls a t nearb y w orlds be identified with e , but now w e

ar e not assured of that becau se e does not occur at the actual world

an d the it couldn't hav e occu rred later principle is now being ap-

plied only to actual events.


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38

Counterpart theory to the rescue

So far have assumed that we are dealing with the

identity

rela-

tion be twe en ev en ts a t different worlds, but if instead we em ploy

a counterpart relation we m ay after all be ab le to reconcile the asym-

me try fact with the counterfactual analysis of e ve nt causation. shall

explain this by first sketching Lewis s (and Leibniz s) cou nterp art

theory for substances 1

For simplicity s sake , let s na rrow it down to people The very same

person cannot occur at more than one world, according to Lewis

and Leibniz, but we can still divide counterfactuals about named

people into true and false. Someone meditating on Nelson

Rockefeller s handling of th e Attica p rison inciden t m ight say :

f Mario Cuomo had been in cha rge, there w ould have been no

deaths or injuries;

an d this has a c han ce of be ing non-vacuously true beca use it mea ns

som ething abo ut possible m en w ho qualify as counterparts of Mario

Cuomo: they are sufficiently like him (in the right ways) for us to

talk about how they a re in the language of how he might have bee n.

So the Cuom o counterfactual is true if, and only if, the re a re no deaths

or injuries in the Attica prison incident at the closest world where

a counte rpa rt of M ario Cuom o is in charg e.

For presen t purposes, the most important point to grasp is that iden-

tity is symmetrical whereas the counterpart relation need not be.

In gen eral, we e xp ec t th e latter to go both ways: if possible person

x is a co un ter pa rt of the actua l Mario Cuomo, then Cuomo is prob-

ably a cou nterpart of, so that so m e counterfactuals abo ut x will get

their truth-values from facts ab ou t Cuomo. But there is no necessity

abo ut this. Individual x at world W, has as a co unte rpa rt y at world

W, if a nd only if t he tw o ar e alike in wa ys tha t have a ce rtain kind

of significance from the stan dpoin t of W,; and y has x as a coun ter-

pa rt if a nd on ly if t he tw o ar e alike in way s that have a certa in kind

of significance from th e standpo int of W,. The similarities ar e th e

same, wha teve r world you look at them from, but their kind or deg ree

of significance may differ; an d so the c oun terpa rt relation is not

symmetrical.

This seems to o pen u p a g littering way of esca pe from th e diffi-

culty which is my topic in this paper. For now we can say than at

the w orld W where m y kick causes the fall e of the s tone, it is true that

f

my kick had not occurred e would not have occurred,


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38

Jonathan Bennet t

because no even t a t the nearest no-kick world W * is a cou nterpa rt

of e , an d in particula r

e

is

not a counterpart

o

e .

But at W * w he re

your push spoils my kick, w e a re still free to say that your push d oe s

not cau se e* , implying that at the nearest no-push world som e

cou nterp art of e * doe s occ ur, to wit, e

is

a counterpart o f e . There

is no contrad iction in this, because being-a-counterpart-of is no t a

symmetrical relation.

n aside on modal continuants

David Lewis does not han dle cou nterfactuals abou t even ts in th e

langua ge of counterparts . Rather than saying that the eve nt w e

call the de ath of Socrates occurs only a t the actua l world though it

has counterpa rts at oth er w orlds, he treats th e de ath of Soc rates as

w hat he has elsew here called a modal continuantw-a class wh ose

m em be rs belong to different worlds. An e ven t, according to Lewis,

is a class of spatiotemporal z one s, no two existing a t the sa m e world.

Th e class we designate by the phrase the de ath of Socrates has

on e m ember at the actual world, namely th e place-t ime at which

Socrates died.

Suppose that the informal English sen tenc e Socrates' de ath could

hav e bee n less painful tha n it actually was is tru e. Acc ording to

cou nterpa rt theory i t is true because

Some co un terp art of Socrates' de ath is less painful than the d ea th

itself was;

according to modal continuant theory, i t is true beca use

Som e mem ber of Socrates' de ath is less painful tha t its actu al

world member was.

As that exam ple suggests, the re is a simple route from c oun terpart

theo ry to the othe r: if you ha ve bee n confining x to on e world a nd

handling coun terfactuals a bo ut it in ter m s of its counte rpar ts, you

can ch ange gear and instead identify x w ith the class whose me mb ers

are it and all its erstwhile counterparts.

need not draw a map of

the rou te for the journey the othe r wa y. It is clear enou gh th at Lewis

is right in say ing tha t th e the or y of mod al con tinua nts is a n

equivalent reformulation of counterpart theory .ll

Although th e two do th e sam e wo rk, they d o it differently. Apply-


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8

ing counterpart theo ry to substanc es, the refe rent of th e na m e

Thom as Hobbes is perfectly determ inate , but there is so me indeter-

minacy abo ut which possible things a r e cou nterp arts of it, an d this

ma kes counterfactuals containing the nam e Thomas Hobbes

som ew hat indeterminate. Applying mo dal continuant theory, there

is inde term inacy abou t which item (which class of things) is picked

out by Thomas Hobbes , but once the referent is fixed it is also de ter -

min ate which w orlds it exists a t, an d so counterfactuals in which the

na m e occurs suffer from no indeterm inacy from tha t source. Lewis

is on record as objecting to such promiscuous indeterminacy of

re fe ren ce in th e n am es of substances,12 but it could

e

an advan-

tage wh ere e ven ts are co ncerne d, for it plausible to suppose phrase s

like Thom as Hobbes's birth and Thom as Hobbes's reconciliation

with Cromwell have referential slack that is not shar ed by the na m e

Thomas Hobbes . Perhaps tha t is why Lewis chose to handle ev ents

in term s of modal co ntinu ants and su bstances in term s of

counterparts.

Because the two theories ar e equivalent in pow er, the non-

symm etry escap e route that would be open ed up by counterpart

the ory is also availab le to Lewis in th e co nte xt of his tre atm en t of

eve nts as modal continuan ts. But it seem s mo re complicated there ,

and hard er to grasp intuitively,13which is why hav e chosen to pre-

sent it in term s of coun terpa rt the ory .

valuating the proposed rescue

Someone w ho holds that coun terpart theory is wrong, across the

board , should think that have already completed an ade quate case

against the counterfactual analysis of ev en t causation. S omeone who

rejects counterpa rt theory for substances, might nevertheless find

it tolerable for events; but cann ot discuss that position, becau se

ca n think of n o plausible reason s for it. W hat remains is th e position

of the person who is sym pathetic to coun terpart theory for particulars

of ev ery kind, including substanc es and ev ents. Since tha t is my o wn

position, have a special reason for wan ting to evaluate the proposed

rescue of the counte rfac tual analysis from tha t stand poin t.

O ne of Lew is's reasons for cou nterp art theory is his extre me

realism abo ut worlds: given his view of wh at sort of item a world

is, it's hard to se e how a single substance could exist at m or e tha n


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84 Jonathan Bennett

on e world. But even for those of us who do not confidently ag ree

with him abou t that, ther e are pulls towards coun terpart theory as

applied to substances. For m e th e strongest pull comes from t he fact

that an swe rs to questions about th e essences of substances seem not

to fall sharp ly into the objectively true and objectively false, but rath er

to lie on a smo oth scale from undeniab le to intolerable, w ith much

of th e middle ground being sensitive to needs, interests, and con -

texts. f counterpart theory is true, that is just what one would ex-

pect; but if it is false-that is, if questions of the form Could x, which

is not actually F, have been F? have objectively right answers-it

is puzzling that we should be so lost and adrift in our attempts to

find out what the answers are.14

This reason for favoring counterparts (i) rests on a g eneral view

about what is going on when in ordinary thought and talk we counter-

factualize about particular substan ces, and (ii) ow es no thing to th e

special needs of any philosophical theory in which counterfactuals

are used or mentioned.

In sharp double contrast with that, the proposed invocation of

counterparts in connection with events (i) cannot be motivated by

reflection on ou r untutored untheo retical talk abo ut how particular

events might have een different, because we don't engage in any

suc h talk (or, if w e do, we have n o pretheore tic w ay of telling whe n

we ar e talking in tha t way; consider th e practical joke exa m ple

which adapte d from Davidson); and (ii) it owes everything to th e

fact that w ithout it th e coun terfactual analysis of eve nt causation

comes to grief. The difference between the two situations should,

subm it, m ake us suspicious of th e proposed tre atm en t of even ts,

inclining us to think it an

d hoc

rescue of a theory which should

be allowed to fall.

still weightier consideration is the following. f event e occurs

at world

W

at a certain t ime, and e * occurs at W * at the same time,

it may well be that ea ch has th e other a s a counterpart. But for each

such contem porane ous coun terpart th at e has, it has astronomically

m any earlier cou nterp art s of most of which it is no t a cou nterp art.

Thus, if the counterfactual analysis of even t causation is to be squared

with the asymmetry fact, we need a counterpart relation that is

dr stic lly

non-symmetrical-a relation R such that on the informa-

tion tha t R(x,y) th e proposition that R(y,x) is highly improbab le.

submit that this deg ree of non-symmetry m akes the proposed

rescue implausible. Our counterpart relation has to be induced


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385

throug h theory from the data concerning which counterfactuals w e

accept an d w hich w e reject, and that leaves room for the possibility

that it is a non-svmmetrical relation. But let us bear in mind what

th e ro le of this relation is supposed to be: it is a relation R such th at

if R(x,y) then th e proposition th at

Fx

can properly be expressed

by saying that it could be the case that Fy

It is not credible that a relation's holding between x and y could have

tha t effect-making us willing to say things about x in sentences that

don't n am e x -unless the relation approx imated to identity, so to

speak. So although strict s ym m etry should no t be insisted upo n, it

is hard to believe that any counterpart relation should be as ex-

travagantly non-symmetrical as the on e we have been looking at.

So the counterpart relation cannot come to the rescue after all.

Th e counterfactual theo ry of event identity can not b e squared with

the asymmetry fact.15

otes

1.

Or "...caused him t o collapse suddenly". It would take too long to ex -

plain here why the noun-infinite form belongs with fact causation rather

than event causation; but it does.

2. For mo re on this, see Zeno Vendler, "Fac ts and Events", in his

Linguistics

in Philosophy (Cornell University Press: Ithaca, N.Y., 1967),and my forth-

coming book on the metaphysics of events.

3. David K. Lewis, "Causation",

Journal of Philosophy

70 (1973), pp.

556-567, reprinted in his Philosophical Papers vol. 2 (Oxford Univer-

sity Press: New York, 1986), n which "Events" makes its first appearance .

4. See Donald Davidson, "Eternal vs. Ephem eral Events", in his

Essays on

Actions and Events

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), at pp. 197f.

5.

Pete r van Inw agen, "Ability and Responsibility",

Philosophical Review

87 (1978), pp. 201-224, at pp. 208f.

6. Lawrence Lom bard,

Events

(Routledge and Kegan Paul: London, 1986),

pp. 206-216.

7. The point is especially clear in connect ion with causes of d eaths. No

event ever brings it about that someone dies whereas otherwise she

wouldn't have died at all.But keep deaths out of m y illustrations because

find that lethal exam ples make philosophers suspect that am trading

unfairly on the special fact about deaths, namely that each of us

und ergoes exac tly one of them .

8.

f

you think you have, that is because you ar e nourishing your imagina-

tion on a one-sided diet of exam ples, arbitrarily picturing me as pushing

the sto ne off the wall, rather than protecting it from being pushed off.

9. ow e this suggestion to Kit Fine, who has greatly helped me to clarify

and focus my thinking in this paper.


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386 Jonathan ennett

10. See David Lewis, "Counterpart Theory and Quantified Modal Logic",

originally published in 1968 and reprinted

in

his

Philosophical Papers

vol. 1 (Oxford University Press New York, 1983),pp. 26-39, with a 1983

Postcript, pp. 3946.

11. Ibid., p. 41.

12. Ibid.

13. am indebted to Kit Fine for a tutorial on how to do it.

14. For some related remarks, see David Lewis's

Counterfactuals

(Harvard

University Press: Cambridge, Mass., 1973), pp. 38-43. Thomas McKay's

remarkable "Against the Constitutional Sufficiency Principle", forth-

coming in

Midwest Studies in Philosophy

11 (1986) can be, though it

is not by its author, used as a basis for a different though equally powerful

case for counterpart theory.

15. have profited from discussing the ideas in this paper with audiences

at the Universities of Michigan, Virginia and Colorado, and at Texas Tech

University. Especially useful help was given by Stephen Leeds and Peter

van Inwagen.

Bennett Jonathan - Event Causation

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